Confused About Liners

I live in Central CT. In the basement I have a Harman Mark III and a Harman P61 pellet stove, they came with the house. I tried using coal in the past in the MK III and did not have any luck, but I did not know what I was doing. I've used the Pellet stove and it never got hot enough to heat the whole house, but it did take the chill off the floor on the first floor. House is your basic 3br cape, garage attached. I did some reading on coal and decided to give it a go over the holiday break. We bought about 10 bags of coal and decded to light the stove and keep it going for as long as possible.

OMG! I get it! The whole time we ran the stove the furnace did not kick on. We had a fireplace insert that we used last year with bio bricks and it did heat the main part of the house. The insert was rusting badly so I had it ripped out in the spring. Now we are looking at a buying a coal insert, Hitzer 503, to try and heat the house as much as possible with the coal.

Now the confusion. The Hitzer installation guide says to install a ss liner that reaches to the beginning on the flue liner, which is in good shape. Installing a full ss liner that will rot out makes no sense, and with the old wood insert we had a really good draft, so it does not seem to be needed. I'm leaning towards following the Hitzer directions and, if there are draft issues, then going the whole liner route.

What advice can you offer to a coal newbie?

How is the Harman vented?

You are not required to run a SS liner, like you said.

You could put it in w/o a full liner (assuming your chimney is good) and see what happens...worst thing is it does not get a good draft, maybe a small amt of smoke in the house upon discovery of this fact...and then you put in the SS liner afterwards.

I put in a ss liner 6 yrs ago ... its still there ...

Welcome to the board... where you at in CT?

2001Sierra wrote:How is the Harman vented?

Which one, the P61 or the Mark III?

davidmcbeth3 wrote:You are not required to run a SS liner, like you said.

You could put it in w/o a full liner (assuming your chimney is good) and see what happens...worst thing is it does not get a good draft, maybe a small amt of smoke in the house upon discovery of this fact...and then you put in the SS liner afterwards.

I put in a ss liner 6 yrs ago ... its still there ...

Welcome to the board... where you at in CT?

Higganum.

chimney on exterior or interior of house...

2 story cape, chimney on outside with 3 flues, 1 for the furnace, 1 for the fireplace and 1 for the Harman coal stove. The pellet stove is vented out a basement window. I burned up the last of our coal this weekend and fired up the pellet stove. I can get just as much heat out of the P61 as the coal stove, the difference is that the pellet stove is cranking and going through a bag and a half of pellets a day while the coal stove was not working as hard and going through 1bag of coal a day.

I did take a look up the chimney and the amount of surface area will exceed Hitzer's spec's, I will likely have draft issues without a smaller liner.

Jerrybro wrote:Installing a full ss liner that will rot out makes no sense, and with the old wood insert we had a really good draft, so it does not seem to be needed. I'm leaning towards following the Hitzer directions

This.

Just a little something to help reinforce your choice. Saw wood pellets were $209/tn this week. That is about the same as hard coal in our area. Bit coal was about $85 last time I checked (last season).

Jerrybro wrote:

davidmcbeth3 wrote:You are not required to run a SS liner, like you said.

You could put it in w/o a full liner (assuming your chimney is good) and see what happens...worst thing is it does not get a good draft, maybe a small amt of smoke in the house upon discovery of this fact...and then you put in the SS liner afterwards.

I put in a ss liner 6 yrs ago ... its still there ...

Welcome to the board... where you at in CT?

Higganum.

I have a 503 .. about 1/2 (near new london) from you ... want to see the 503 you can look ...

In reading your description of what was stated in the manual, I think they mean from the stove TO the chimney - not an actual chimney liner inside the chimney. I would agree with them there - the connector pipe should be stainless. It will last forever no matter how bad the conditions, as long as you CLEAN it every spring.

If it does mean an actual chimney liner, it's probably due to a perceived liability (no fire danger with NO creosote ... but most juries probably don't know that) .

David, thank you for the offer. We drove to Valley Fireplace in Canton last weekend to look at one and they gave us a good price it we wait and order it in the summer time. This is the way we will go. The price for a liner installed from them is not much more than if I do it myself, if I decide to go that way.

I think lawsuits are what drives a lot of the recommendation in this business. I know if I was selling them the only 2 options would be fully installed or cash and carry. The insurance company would likley insist on it as well.

davidmcbeth3 wrote:I put in a ss liner 6 yrs ago ... its still there ...

I put a ss liner in this past fall. I've heard that as long as you take care of them, they will last a couple years minimum. How do you go about cleaning them? I'm going to order a poly brush to clean it come spring, but is there anything else you can do to prolong the life and keep corrosion at bay?

Burn lots of wood to finish up your heating season,the creosote will cover & protect the SS.

windyhill4.2 wrote:Burn lots of wood to finish up your heating season,the creosote will cover & protect the SS.

I've heard someone else say this too. I take it I need to do this after I brush the liner. Otherwise when I go to brush it all of the creosote will come off. I wasn't sure if there was a way to put down a thin layer of oil or something like WD-40 to prevent corrosion. Then I got to thinking when I go to fire up at the next season that may pose a problem and start a fire in the liner.