I've recently been looking into wood burning stoves. Many installations use a stove pipe that goes straight up through the ceiling and out the roof. Most of these use a single walled pipe for the first room (the room containing the stove), and then through the second floor and attic/roof sections a double-wall insulated pipe is used.
My question is, for what reason is a single walled pipe not used for the second floor room? Surely this would allow more of the stove pipe heat to be used to heat the upper floor? (note I mean the upper room, not the attic section).
The only possible reasons I can see are:
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Fire hazzard. But in this case couldn't a protective guard be placed around the pipe, to stop anything touching it?
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Increased creosote build up. But we're not talking about a massive temperature difference here – so would this really have such a bad effect?
Thanks
Best Answer
You have to use double walled pipe when going through walls and floors and what not because the double wall and the space between the pipes cools enough that it can come in contact with wall materials. Single walled pipe would get hot enough to ignite the surrounding materials.
Also, a lot of fireplace type units use a 2 walled pipe that brings in air for combustion through the outside pipe and exhausts hot air through the inside pipe, but that wouldn't be used in conjunction with single walled pipe.