The long haired admiral requires that her chattels be warmed by the combustion of seasoned timbers. Make it so, quoth she.

I have available to me: modest funds, a big drill and a general disregard for short term personal safety. I would, however, prefer that my children are able to sleep safely.

Our house has no chimney.

Current plan is that we remove a radiator in the living room (fairly central to the body of the house), and install a wood burner in its place. There’s no inset fireplace or chimney, so it’d be a case of fitting twin wall flue vertically to the roof, via notverybigwithchips mkii’s bedroom.

What could possibly go wrong?

No, really: what could go wrong and how might I avoid it? I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll miss all the joists on the way up. The instructions I’ve seen look deceptively simple. What am I missing?

twicewithchips – member

What am I missing?

The joists hopefully……

Can’t you go through the wall and up the outside?

That might upset the neighbours a little…

I did look at an outside wall, but the way it works out is that the stove will be on the wall which has the stairs on the other side of it. Basically in the middle of the house. The other walls in that room are either full of windows, or party wall to next door.

So far as I can see that means straight up. I’m sort of approaching this on the basis of aiming so that I can drill a series of big holes that magically miss all the joists and pop in an appropriate flue.

We did similar with our flu going up through the centre of the house as we had no fireplace or chimney.

Three years later and we’ve not burnt down to the ground. The flu does get warm though so you’d need to box it in if it’s going through a bedroom.

Ta, do you mean like can’t touch it burn fingers warm, or too hot to sleep in the same room warm?

Burn fingers warm if you touch it.

thanks, good to know.

depends if you want to utilise the heat from uit in the bedroom though

Pretty much what we had fitted.

I’m a decent diy-er but got a local firm to do it to get the HETAS certificate etc.

Looked pretty easy so i’ll be doing the next one myself.

Twin wall goes up the corner of our bedroom. Fitters boxed it in. I’m about to un box it to see how warm it keeps the bedroom over the winter. If it’s good I’ll put some fretwork type boxing around it to avoid accidents but allow the heat to circulate.

Fretwork boxing sounds like a plan.

Friends have done something similar, daughters room above can get pretty toasty, so they reluctantly boxed it in, but the additional heating was to excess. They didn’t fancy going through the wall as it is about 4′ thick, was easier to go through floor and roof.

Firstly..read the regs…
Part J IIRC…

The questions you ask suggest you haven’t read it yet. If you pass a flue, twin wall or not, through a habitable room, you must box it off to ensure it can’t be touched or have things leant against it..
Technically this CAN be just firm chicken wire, but do it well please and box it in…
The distance from flue to timbers/plaster will be around 60mm, but again check the flue.

I did similar to you on my blog…
Part one and Part two.

For what you want , you kind of need to create a boxed out wall etc ion to pass the flue throug. It should work easy enough. Pull up some floor boards to check for joists etc..

DrP

It’s not just joists you have to hope you miss: there are central heating pipes, electrical wires, all sorts running around in the floorspace.

I’d be pulling back the carpet upstairs and lifting the floorboards where you’re looking to drill up through from below, just to make sure…

All of the above can be moved.

Drilling through them how ever will cause all sorts of pain. Esp as the wire wraps round your drill at high speed and rips light fittings out your roof in other parts of tbe house or worse. Your left with the end of a wire and no idea where it came from 🙂

So this is what you’ll be doing with your ‘summer off’ eh?
My suggestion: work a few weeks more to fund getting a man in. 🙂

I’d also CO alarm any of the rooms it passes through as a belt and braces approach…

If possible, I would also ensure that you leave more than double the recommended air gap between the flue and any combustible materials (joists etc) as at work I’ve seen a number of fires as a result of the flues causing nearby timbers to ignite.

Thanks folks. Much appreciated.

Sticking point might be proximity to the timbers in the roof – will measure carefully.

DrP – thanks for the links. We don’t have part J here (well we do, but it’s about windows), but seems sensible to follow some sort of established rules.
I’m liking the sound of the fretwork…

Vorlich, you may have a point – I could even go out on my bike while they are sorting it all out.

Have a read of Part J and : http://www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/articles/installing-a-twin-wall-flue-chimney/

You WILL be boxing it in with a minimum airgap to combustibles according to the chimney system instructions.

This is good stuff: http://www.stovesareus.co.uk/chimney-products/twin-wall-chimney-flue-systems.html

Size the flue according to your chosen stove.

The long haired admiral requires that her chattels be warmed by the combustion of seasoned timbers. Make it so, quoth she.

You could just say no and that you would rather not waste the money or add to the smoke pollution. 😉