Stove Pipe Insulation

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

Have you seen this from Dickinson marine? Page 9 covers stove pipe installation.

http://www.dickinsonmarine.com/Manua...l%202010-1.pdf

Thank you for the link. This is pretty much what I was planning on doing. I'm cutting a leveling ring and will install it just as they show. I was hoping to do that this past Thursday but the rain prevented that. Thanks again for the link.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by seahag

Are you saying you plan to fill the entire "excavated" area around the hole, which will end up being 2 1/2 feet in diameter with West System Epoxy? Wow-if that is the case I think of three things right off:
1. Tremendous expense and waste
2.A big nasty "hard spot" in your deck
3. lousy insulation

Oh, and a big gooey mess, although my answer might be that yucky too. I would fill it with foam, and do your epoxy just in the small area around the hole itself, to help seal it off in the event of future leaks.

Maybe I missed something somewhere along the way but that just seemed like a lot of unnecessary epoxy expense.

Thank you for your thoughts. I was indeed going to excavate back a good bit however I should have said that I was going to slip some core material in from the hole, as suggested in an earlier post. I will use the 105/206 and 406 to secure it but there was going to be some core material. I like the sound of the foam. I've never used it but I can see some potential advantages to it. I'll have to make sure it is the right stuff and won't compress or become powder over time.

When it is time to fix the rest of the coach roof, I was considering drilling holes every few inches, applying acetone, then letting it air out, and finally using penetrating epoxy to make it solid again. I saw this done to a few boats over very large areas and it seemed to work well. The other option is to do a traditional core job. Do you have any thoughts on one option versus the other?

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by thinwater

If you read the fine print, it is intended to hold water, to aid in cooling.

The heat is not as scary, in a way, as a spark getting out of the inner pipe. This is one of the reasons for specifying a double pipe, not just insulation. How do you know if the flue has failed?

I hadn't thought about the escaping spark. Thanks for letting me know about that. I think insulating it with the Aluminum Oxide Ceramic Wool or something similar will go a long way to solving that but I will have to look at it again. The Aluminum Oxide I mentioned has something like a 2000 degree F melting point so it should not be an issue if a spark escapes into it.

[UNCIVILIZED]

In addition to using a piece of rigging wire in the chuck of a drill, there are plenty of other improvised "bits" which work for removing material in hard to reach places. The type & construction of which is limited mostly by the imagination. And of course they're both really handy, & usually cheap. Even a piece of coathanger which has lots of angles bent into it, with the elbows of the bends sharpened/roughed up works in some areas. Just make sure to let things dry in between the skins prior to bonding, & that they're as clean & well abraded as you can get them.

Also, there are lots of options for materials to use as replacement cores. With most of them probably being both better than, & cheaper than using pure epoxy. You can even insert blocks of wood, or pieces of wooden dowels into the gap left when the old core is removed. That, or something which has much better heat resistant properties than does epoxy or wood. And to make things easier, you can make your chimney hole stepped. So that the opening in the top skin is bigger than the one below it. Thus it's then easy to insert & bond a big block of core, with gravity holding it in place while the epoxy cures. And you could use a thermally optimized core if indeed you find one that you like.

For the chimney itself, there are lots of accessories which help with optimizing the transfer of heat from it to the surrounding air. Some look akin to oversized finned sleeves, & act like the fins on air cooled motorcycle & 2-cycle engines, with other variants on this. And they also act as something of a safety measure for your hand, in that their increased heat dispersal makes them cooler to the touch than the chimney itself it. Plus many types don't contact the chimney itself, being in that they're larger in diameter, so then you can't accidentally brush up against the chimney... which might otherwise hurt.

Too, it's worth looking into adding a bit of thermal mass near the stove, along with thermally reflective materials. So that you optimize the whole area for holding & reflecting heat. Thus virtually zero heat is left in the exhaust by the time it reaches the deck. And personally, I'm a fan of water coils in & around the stove to aid with this, with or without radiators connected to them elsewhere in the vessel. Or the hot water being setup to be used for cooking, washing, or bathing.

BTW, one caution with epoxies in this application that I've taken for granted that you know, is that they get soft at moderate temps. So that using large quantities of them right next to heat sources isn't the best. Ditto on the thermal properties of some cores, so check the spec' sheets of all of your materials.
Not that epoxy won't work, but there are dozens & hundreds of other materials, sealants & adhesives used on chimneys & fireplaces, round the world.


Ah, & as a safety note. Make sure that your chimney has an outstanding spark arrestor. As for example on the J-boats, when the fireplace is in use, there's literally a crewman on deck who's job it is to track down & snuff out any cinders before they can damage or ignnite anything topsides. Like say, sails.
So it can't hurt to get a good feel for how cleanly your stove burns when you're first getting used to it.