Outside Air Kit - Black duct?

I recently bought a Woodstock Ideal Steel and got the outside air kit with it. My understanding is that usually the outside air kit is connected to 4" aluminum flex duct for a short section (then you can transition to another type of pipe if you want).

My question is, it seems like having the shiny aluminum flex sitting on the bottom of my hearth will look kind of out of place, considering the stove is black and the hearth is dark colors. Does anyone have pictures of how people have done this differently, to make that duct less visible? I'm wondering if it is possible to buy black aluminum flex duct from somewhere, or to paint it somehow? My searches haven't found anything yet. Otherwise I was thinking that I could put the aluminum flex inside a section of 6" single-wall stovepipe -- the stovepipe would be basically just decoration as a cover, kind of hokey I know. Any other ideas? Thanks.

 

The last post.

Your nc30 needs a convection deck | Page 4 | Firewood Hoarders Club

 

Congrats on the new stove and welcome to FHC.

 

No reason why you can't paint it

 

Ya, that is kind of what I'm looking at. Do you know what kind of duct that is? I'm unclear on if you can paint aluminum duct, a lot of metal is hard to paint, especially around high temperatures.

 

DexterDay Should be able to tell you when he comes along.

 

Welcome aboard kalo4.
Why don't you just use use 4" galvanized pipe and paint it black?
You wouldn't have that "hokey" 6" pipe surrounding the aluminum either.

Oh yeah, pics when done??? Please?

 

Thanks! I wasn't sure if spray paint would "stick" to aluminum, but I'll plan on just buying aluminum flex dryer vent and spray painting it. I'll make sure I post a picture when I'm done -- I've actually never had a wood stove before so I'm excited to get it up and running, although it probably won't actually be ready until after this heating season is almost over.

 

You could bury most of it in the hearth like I did. I used galvanized ducting, painted it black with some BBQ paint, but then in the shortest possible way switched to the flex at the end for the connection.

Trouble with painting flex is that it flexes and might flake the paint off which would expose bright and shiny silver. Kind of like painting a yellow car black and then every scratch is super obvious. Also, it will take some skill to paint the flex and all the little grooves without a run. Then when you flex it to install it you are guaranteed to open up a new unpainted section.

 

Thanks!

 

That's for insertion over the interweb to clean those dirty mouths....

 

My OAK has black flexible duct. I did not install it myself, it was done professionally, and I don't know where to buy the black duct.

 

Just saying hello and welcome. I have no data on the OAK issue.

 

Yeah, I was looking at that photo and wondered if the owners ever found themselves in a hurry and got mixed up.... you know, laundry detergent in the furnace, kindling and a match in the dryer, and so forth.....

three times.

Brian

 

Why couldn't one use ABS black pipe for 98% of the OAK run and then the flexible dryer vent to connect that to the stove???