10/22/07 The stovepipe parts I bought from Sutter's in Ballard a couple weeks ago were ready so I picked them up. The guy warned me that by reducing the pipe at the stove it might smoke. I didn't believe him. I assembled the offset I needed by using an 18" section of pipe with an adjustable 90 degree elbow on each end. I adjusted the elbows until I got the 12 5/8 inch offset I needed to match the stove location to the chimney location. Then I used masking tape on all the joints to keep the pipe in that configuration.

10/23-25/07 I went up to the property for 3 days Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:40 and was eager to get the stovepipes installed. The weather was a nice cool 45 degrees. On one of the return trips to the pickup carrying the stovepipes up to the cabin, I carried the extension ladder down and loaded it into the pickup. Joe wanted to borrow it last week and I had forgotten to take it home. This way, I wouldn't forget.

In my eagerness, I installed the first sixteen feet of pipe and was fitting the offset on top before I realized I had forgotten to install the damper. That needs to go in the first section of pipe above the stove.

I lifted the stack up out of the stove and held it suspended with a rope. Planks on the highest scaffold kept the top of the stack from tipping over. Then I tried to install the damper. I measured for the holes and drilled them. But since the reducer (actually the stove people call it an increaser) was still attached, I couldn't reach far enough up into the pipe. I also couldn't remove the increaser because the fit was too tight. I had really jammed it together before I fastened it with screws.

I made a wood jig that could hold the damper up into the pipe while I tried to thread the handle through the holes in the pipe and the holes in the damper. Since I couldn't see what was going on inside the pipe, I just couldn't get it put together no matter how hard I tried. After sweating over it for an hour or two, I gave up and took the joint apart and removed the lowest section of pipe. Then, with the pipe horizontal at a comfortable working height, I was able to get the damper installed.

I put the pipe back together again feeling pretty stupid about forgetting about the damper. Then I took the offset and the slip joint up to the highest scaffold and tried the fit. I put the slip joint down into the stack and then fit the offset into it. This left the top of the offset about four or five inches below the chimney fitting. The slip joint is eighteen inches, so I had plenty of play to make the fit. The offset seemed to be the right amount and the pipes seemed to fit. I felt pretty good about it, but it was getting late and I was very tired and shaky up on the wiggly scaffold so I quit for the day. I fed a couple gray jays before I went in.

On Wednesday morning, I finished installing the pipes, but I had more complications. I started out by fitting the top elbow to the chimney and then fastening the four screws in the slip joint. That kept the pipe up around the chimney flange. I got off the scaffold and looked at the pipe from various positions to check for plumb. I discovered that it was quite a bit out of plumb. That was unacceptable. After thinking about what to do, I ended up hanging a plumb bob from a rafter near the chimney so that I could get the pipe aligned nice and plumb. I took the pieces of tape off a couple joints on each elbow so I could adjust them, and after a little twisting, I had the pipe very nice and plumb. I put the tape back on the joints to hold it there until I screwed it together.

Before I went any further, I had to install a metal collar that will eventually be screwed into the ceiling. It has to go around the chimney before the stovepipe is attached, so for the time being I screwed it to the rafters. When I install the ceiling boards, I'll just re-install it.

Then I discovered that I didn't have enough sheet metal screws for the stovepipe. Each of the pipe sections came with four screws and I thought all the parts did. But the increaser and the elbows didn't come with screws. I scrounged up some screws and fortunately I found enough of the right size. Unfortunately they were pan head screws instead of Phillips. It is really hard to drive a quarter inch pan head sheet metal screw without drilling a pilot hole and without dropping and losing a screw. I didn't have any extra screws, so I got the drill up on the high scaffold and drilled pilot holes. There wasn't much of a working platform up there and it was pretty wiggly so every move had to be careful and deliberate. It is also hard to apply force to the screw or the drill because there is nothing to push against.

Anyway, I found that even with the pilot holes, I couldn't get the screws started. I didn't want to use the next size bigger bit that I had because I thought it was too big. So I decided to tap the holes. Even though the threads wouldn't match, at least they would give the screw something to grab onto and get it started tapping its own hole. I got the tap and die set out, selected a tap and went back up on the scaffold. That worked so I drove in most of the screws.

When I went to work on the very top joint, I had trouble even drilling the hole. I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I even broke my bit. Fortunately it broke right near the chuck so I could still use the bit since I only needed a quarter inch or so to drill the holes.

Come to find out that the pre-drilled holes in the top elbow were so far from the edge that the screws almost missed the flange sticking down from the chimney. The screws hadn't penetrated the flange at all. When the drill tried to penetrate the flange, it just bent back and that was what broke the bit. It took me quite a while to figure this out.

To fix it, I drilled another set of holes in the elbow much closer to the edge in order to catch the flange. Then I started going through the same drill, so to speak, to drill and tap the pilot holes. But, kneeling on that rickety scaffold, trying to hold the pipes up snug against the chimney with one hand, I found that I couldn't drill, tap, and start a sheet metal screw with the other hand by itself. Even if I could, it left me nothing to hang on with.

Then I got an idea that worked. I happened to have a couple drywall screws in my pocket. These are made for penetrating sheet metal studs and they have a nice tight Phillips head on them. You can easily drive one in with one hand. So, I held the pipe in position with one hand and when it was where it should be, I drove a drywall screw in. This held the joint fast so I could then drill, tap, and drive in a short pan head screw in the other three holes. Finally, I took the drywall screw out. Then it dawned on me that it would have been much easier to use a drywall screw in the first place to make the holes for the short screws and forget about drilling and tapping. But, as my dad used to say, we get too soon old and too late smart.

The pipe was now nice and tight and it was nice and plumb. I was very happy to have finished the job. I took all my tools down from the scaffold and started dismantling it. I got the top two tiers dismantled and put away before lunch.

After lunch, I put away the rest of the scaffold and cleaned up around the stove. I was eager to light a fire and try it out. I started out with a small cardboard fire and then stoked it up with quite a bit of cardboard. When it blazed up and got hot, the stovepipes started smoking pretty bad. My heart sunk. I thought that maybe the stove guy was right and it wasn't going to work with that reducer (increaser) in there. I did a lot of experimenting, scurrying, adjusting, opening windows, and so forth trying to figure out what I was up against. The smoke smelled like paint and hot metal, so I got to thinking that it was simply burn-off of the pipes and that they would quit smoking once all the oily stuff and whatever was on the outside finally burnt off. I got a nice wood fire going and the pipes quit smoking so I figured that the problem was solved.

I really enjoyed sitting in front of that fire. I tried a lot of combinations with the damper and the air intake control on the stove. If everything was open, then the fire really blazed and you couldn't see any smoke coming out of the chimney. I figured that that was the way to burn the fire. That would keep creosote from accumulating in the pipe. The stove has a thick firebrick lining so it will absorb and retain a lot of the heat from a hot burning fire. Anyway, I spent quit a bit of time relaxing in front of the fire. It worked well with the door wide open too. It was just like having a fireplace in the middle of the room. I took some pictures of the stove and the fire. This was a red letter day for me, in spite of the installation problems and the nagging uncertainty of the smoking problem.

On Thursday morning, I was curious as to whether the stove would smoke again now that it had cooled off. I stoked it up with a bunch of small wood and lit it. When the fire started roaring, the pipes started smoking again, but not as bad as before. The smoke didn't smell like wood smoke but instead it had that metallic paint smell again. I figured, or at least hoped, that this fire had heated the pipe further up and that this was again just burn-off. After everything was hot, the smoking stopped again. Another possibility that occurred to me was that the cold air in the top of the chimney might be blocking the flow at the beginning. Next week I'll do an experiment by pre-heating the stovepipe with a propane torch and see if that makes a difference. I'll feel a lot better when I get that smoking problem solved.

I had brought some 5/8" allthread and some 5/8" hex nuts with me so I went to work and bolted the newel post and the stair stringers to the CB66s. I fed the gray jays a couple times while I was working outside. Next, I cleaned up a little in the cabin and vacuumed the floor. The fire was just dying out when I went in for lunch. I left for home at 1:30.