So I want to insulate my liner myself. How do it do it?

Been burning about a month now, off and on and a few solid 24 hours for 2 or 3 days at a time. Put a Lopi Cape Codi insert (tube only - not hybrid) in a masonry fireplace. About 25 feet of outside chimney. Installer put single-wall rigid liner down with a few feet of flex at the bottom to tie into my insert. He had wool with him and we planned on insulating but he said he didn't have enough room. I didn't think much of it thinking I had 25 feet of flue my draft should be fine. I still think my draft is rather good, but you cannot have too much draft right? Have yet to get amazing secondaries and I seem to get low burn times and smoke on reloads. I can see creosote on the top of my vent after only burning a month. Need to get on the roof and check the buildup and also see how much clearance there really is between the masonry and the flue liner.

Do I just unhook the flex liner from my insert and take off the cap and just start pulling it up unscrewing it section by section until it's all out? Then wrap insulation on the rigid single wall and drop her back in section by section? Do I insulate the first 3-4 feet of flex pipe directly above the insert? If I do all this myself I might as well also install a block off plate.

Current performance: extremely dry mix of ash, mulberry and oak. Last night I lit stove at 5:30pm. Reloaded at 6:30. Reloaded at 9:00, reloaded again at 11 to fill her up for the night. Went from 66° in stoveroom at 5:30pm and got her up to 84° with high winds and 25° outside. Woke up at 6am with coals and stoveroom at 72° fan still on. Through on some more logs and let her go. Firebox seems to fill up quicky with ash and coals making it hard to fit more than a couple splits.

Just need to imagine physically doing this upgrade in my head since i just lightly observed the installer installing the flue liner and was not on the roof with him at the time.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Actually you can.

 

Well without having heated with a EPA stove before, it's hard for me to tell on how much I have or dont have.

I dont get smoke pillage and i can feel the air being pulled into the primary control. One time had a reverse draft on a cold stove/pipe and all it took was newspaper stuck in my bypass hole and it made some funny noises while it reversed but only took 10 seconds or so. My lack of awesome secondaries is what makes me think it's not too much.

 

Too much draft results in a runaway fire and overheating of the stove and chimney. It also wastes wood. In a forced draft system such as a pellet stove it results in pellets being ejected from the burn pot. Which can result in loss of fire.

 

many will measure draft... you can look it up... I can't really explain it.. my draft is 60 pascal and had to install a key damper..... if no smoke getting in room on lighting I would leave it until you know!

 

My insert does have a damper bypass so it usually has a straight shot through the stove to the liner for the smoke on startup and reloads. I start every load with a wad of newspaper in the bypass hole and light it and get instant good draft with no smoke. Only time i get smoke is when i rush it and forget to turn off the ceiling fan, turn off the insert fan and open my bypass and even then its very very little.

 

pics of the insert and my chimney. This is before they installed a new cap and vent.

 

Videos:

Should be fully closed to 1/8 open i believe.


fully open until about 20 seconds in on this one then closed all the way.


Should be fully closed to 1/8 open i believe.

 

I do not have an insert.. but that looks like plenty of draft! In your original post you were reloading every 2 hours how many cubic feet is the burn area? meaning you are burning a lot of wood!

 

If you decide you want to insulate your liner, you could use vermiculite.. A block off plate would probably be recommended.. If you get too much draft with the vermiculite, you could just remove it from the bottom lowering the level until you get the desired results..

 

Yes, you could insulate with vermiculite or another pour in insulation.

That's probably the easiest. It's out insulated at the top at all? I used roxul to seal up the damper area, and at the top of the chimney, right under the top plate. There's no insulation in between, just air, and I think my insert burns just fine.

 

It's a smaller 2.2cubic foot firebox that slants in towards the back. Last few burns seem to be hard to keep the secondaries going so I've had the primary air in much more which burns down quicker.

It's not my wood either. 5+ year split and stacked wood.

House is 3,000 sqft with half of that upstairs which we keep the door to the stairs closed so it's mostly the first floor and we supplement the master and master bath with electric

 

Is it possible to cool the top off with the blower on high so much that it cools it so it wont hit secondary combustion temp for the burn tubes?

 

I don't think so. My Quadrafire 4100 has a similar setup. It blows the blower air over the top of the insert. Mine isn't a flush insert though, there's a ledge to put pots, etc on.

Now the temperature at the top is lower than the rest of the stove due to the outlet of the blower, but I don't think that's ash issue. Internally it's certainly hot, no doubt just as hot if not hotter than the rest of the stove.

 

That should be how mine is. They told me thats how it is. Do you have blockoff plate and how long is your liner?

 

I don't recall exactly. Maybe 18'? No steel or metal block off, yet. Just roxul jammed up the "throat" of where the damper was to block air flow. The dead air space is insulation.

I put my stove in last year about this time. I was going to make a tin/ sheet metal block off, but I haven't gotten around to it.

Maybe I will this coming summer?

 

Single wall rigid or non insulated flex liner?

 

All SS liner. With an offset adapter from the stove as it would not line up otherwise.

I was a little worried about having to use the offset adapter, but the chimney cleaning this fall after a season of burning showed me that was no concern or issue.

 

Pertzbro
We poured Thermix down between our single wall stainless pipe and the masonry it runs through. Thermix is made for doing that, I believe.