Expert: James Ball - 12/25/2010

Question
James,

Merry Christmas !

I'm a fellow expert here in the electrical division.

OK I'm thinking of getting an older used wood stove that has the knobs on the front door to adjust the draft for my 3 car garage.
There is an oil fired furnace in the garage that I'm not using so I'd like to remove the pipe for the furnace and pipe in the wood stove instead. There is masonry flue pipe in the chimney. I'm reading things like I need to watch out for "whuffing" and the flue piping should be matched to the stove because you don't want too much draft or you don't want a flue pipe that is over sized for the stove. What do you say about all this and what do I need to look out for in terms of hooking up the stove safely. For now I'm only using the stove when I'm there but would like to be able to load it and walk away from it feeling relatively safe that nothings going to happen and burn the house down. Any information you can provide would be most appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Bob

Answer
Happy Holidays Bob, first I do not believe they allow a furnace or wood stove in a garage, check with your local building department. Second older wood stoves do not burn a cleanly as newer ones ($1500 tax credit if bought before the end of the year)
Third, you can not down size or (I do not recommend up sizing) of any solid flue either way it slows the draft and will increase built up, lastly I would have a local Certified Chimney Sweep www.csia.org, (there you can look up by zip code to find one near you) take a first hand look at what you have, they should be able to help.
Hope this helps
James