Outdoor Cookstove Chimney & Secondary Air

Continued from here.

Almost done! For the cookstove chimney, Dan used the old ductwork we saved when our HVAC unit was installed. Why didn’t he use double-wall stovepipe? Primarily, because the stove is in an open outdoor space; the chimney doesn’t pass through walls, ceiling, or roof. In a house, building codes would require it to keep the house from burning down. Outdoors, we just want the smoke vented away from us as we’re cooking. Secondarily, because the design of a masonry stove is such that 90% of the heat is retained in the stove rather than going up and out the chimney. That means that the stovepipe doesn’t reach the high temperatures of a conventional woodburning stove.

Part of what helps the efficiency of our design, is the secondary air intake.

It fits into a channel built into the bottom of firebox (core). Click here for core construction photos here.