Through the wall and up… avoiding our living roof!

Well, I ended up with another weird wood stove installation in the new straw bale house. Back in 2010, I described how I penetrated the living roof of my cob house to install our new small wood stove at the time. (It was equally weird, and awkward.)We did a somewhat successful job (although every now and then we get water dripping into the mudroom).

This time, I wanted to completely avoid penetrating the EPDM pond liner, so I opted for a through-the-wall stove installation. There were a few tricks along the way.

Here’s how it went.

Wood Stove Installation: Through the Wall

With this stove installation, I had to go through the loft floor, turn south, go up again, go horizontal through the wall, and then up once more past the roof line. It wouldn’t have been that weird if not for the window placement upstairs, and the exact stove placement downstairs. Unfortunately, neither stove nor window could move, so it meant that the pipe needed to jog about two feet to the south in order to get around the window upstairs, and out the wall.

I used smoke pipe (insulated interior pipe) to go through the hole in the floor, with a clearance of about 5″ to the wood floor itself. It’s a little less than the recommended distance, but it works fine. I notice no overheating danger.

The horizontal stretch is a short 12″ length of smoke pipe attached to a tee joint, before it goes vertical once again. 12″ was the perfect length to get just past the window and between the next pair of 2×6 studs. Up another four feet, and the pipe turns to horizontal once again.

I got a Selkirk through-the-wall kit with wall thimble, etc., and used that to penetrate the wall. Actually, the 12″ stainless steel pipe included in the kit was worthless in my case — I used a 4 foot length of SS pipe to get past the roof line outside. A 3 footer would have done fine, too (maybe even better), but I just didn’t have one on hand.

That 4 foot length of stainless steel pipe meets up with a tee joint outside, and another 4′ pipe brings the stack past the roof line. Unfortunately, the metal bracket for supporting the horizontal stretch was once again not useful to me (I probably should have bought the pipe parts separate, instead of the kit), so I found a piece of metal banding, and strapped the horizontal pipe to the rafter. The metal clamp (from the kit) was handy for affixing to the rafter, and holding the vertical section quite steady.

Running Horizontal Stovepipe

The stove draws like a charm. I notice zero issue with the two horizontal stretches. There is about 5-6 feet of horizontal run, and probably 15-16 feet of vertical rise. You do the math.

I was nervous about turning horizontal inside the house, but my doubts are cleared. It works very well. Ultimately, I will replace that block of wood (see picture) with something more appropriate for a pipe support inside the house. The final job will be to somehow hide the sideways stove pipe inside, with a functional bench, perhaps. I will, of course, insulate the pipe before putting wood around and near it. (I bought a bag of that Selkirk insulation stuff.) The smoke pipe is rather well insulated and doesn’t get too hot, so I’m not super concerned about building around it, once it is wrapped in insulation.

The biggest trick, of course, is the cleaning. It will be a little awkward, and may require some dismantling when the time comes, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do, I suppose.

Overall, I’m happy with the installation and setup.