Why can't a woodstove share a flue with an oil burner?

[CowboyAndy]

Pretty well covered by all posters.

1. It does not meet code.

2. It will invalidate your insurance if any thing happens. My bet is that the insurance would not even pay off on a chimney fire. In my case, they would cancel the insurance if they even found out about it. The gave my sstove installation a _very_ thorough inspection before continueing coverage.

3. You can't sell the house without fixing it right.

Harry K

One common misconception is that an insurance company wont cover something that is not code/legal/etc. They will infact cover you for something, no matter how stupid. They will most likely drop you and other carriers will charge you an arm and a leg if at all...

homeowners ins is designed to cover acts of nature and acts of stupidity.

 

[Rookie1]

I agree. The only reason i have a Naggy.. (Nat gas) is for the hot water baseboard that backs me up when I run away for more than 10 hours.

Still thinkin of doin an OWB eventually, but love the feel of the wood stove inside. besides, can't persuade the wifey to go to a cook stove. NOT YET.

Thats the same reson I have oil furnace, If we go away for a while I dont want house getting too cold. All my other appliances are elect. Im not doing away with that.

 

[Crofter]

One common misconception is that an insurance company wont cover something that is not code/legal/etc. They will infact cover you for something, no matter how stupid. They will most likely drop you and other carriers will charge you an arm and a leg if at all...

homeowners ins is designed to cover acts of nature and acts of stupidity.

If you make an installation that is forbidden in the contract you signed, after you have signed it, and that installation is found to be the cause of the damage, lots of luck! Hire a lawyer and hope you live longer than the insurance company can stonewall!

 

[jburlingham]

One common misconception is that an insurance company wont cover something that is not code/legal/etc. They will infact cover you for something, no matter how stupid. They will most likely drop you and other carriers will charge you an arm and a leg if at all...

homeowners ins is designed to cover acts of nature and acts of stupidity.

They may or may not chose to cover a variety of items. It is true that depending what you want to spend, there is an insurance carrier that will offer an overpriced policy to cover things, however they are not required to cover things they deem a risk, and they can deny coverage, cancel policies, and force repairs to maintain coverage. It is more common to see them force changes or cancel policies now do to economy.

 

[panhead9]

One main problem in this is creosote dropping down to chimney base and plugging off boiler as quite a few chimneys are filled to where the smoke pipe enters it thus creating a CO factory for all occupants. This is a problem as is draft with 2 appliances in the same flue on different levels.

 

[woodfarmer]

"It is ESPECIALLY bad to share a flue between appliances on different levels, as it's a good recipe for getting smoke backpuffing from the lower one."
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So, if your are going to do this and starving to death, I would recommend that the wood stove enters the chimney above the oil furnace entry. However I do not recommend flue sharing.

Remember that downdrafts are real occurrences. Totally separate but parallel chimney flues will often downdraft into each other. In the right conditions, the active fire can belch smoke all the way down the dormant flue and back into the house.

actually it is the opposite, oil above wood if they share the same flue.
also, the reason an add-on wood furnace may share the same flue pipe as an oil furnace is because the manufacturer has design them to operate together, with the understanding that only black pipe be used and not galvanized flue pipe

 

[Crofter]

Will the combination wood/oil units actually fire together. I looked at one a friend had maybe thirty years ago and there seemed to be an interlock (that kept them from operating simultaneously) that you had to manually switch.

 

[Melvin Caldwell]

I had an oil furnace that had to be disabled last year due to a cracked fire box. Can I vent a wood furnace into that flue?

 

[Marshy]

While I wouldn't advise anyone to use that type of connection, it can work without adverse consequences if the chimney drafts well. Have I done it? Yes. Did I have issues? No. Did I know it was against code? Yes. Did I have puff back? No. Excess creosote? No but, likely because it was an old stove with no baffle so flue temps were hot and wood seasoned down to 20% or less. I eventually changed, got rid of the stove and put in a wood boiler and ran it's own class A manufactured stove pipe. If anything happens to the house/chimney, I want insurance to cover it. I'm not sure they would if they found it to not comply with code. Besides, the code is there for our own good really.

 

[NSMaple1]

I had an oil furnace that had to be disabled last year due to a cracked fire box. Can I vent a wood furnace into that flue?

Maybe. Depends on if it is sound and if it meets the wood furnace requirement specs.