How to Measure the Length of a Pipe for a Wood Stove

Where you permanently place your wood stove determines how much stove pipe you will need to properly vent it into a chimney flue. Measurements will vary depending upon whether your stove is vented through an outside wall into an existing masonry chimney or straight up through the ceiling into a prefabricated chimney. Venting it through an outside wall into a masonry chimney will require that you to figure in the length of the elbow necessary to create the bend in the pipe. If you vent it through the ceiling, an elbow won't be necessary.

Measuring tape
Yard stick
Paper and pencil

Instructions

- 1
  Set the wood stove up in what will be its permanent location on a protected floor and at least 36 inches from all unprotected walls and other surfaces.
- 2
  Measure the diameter of the flue opening in the wall or the ceiling from the inside edges, and do the same for the flue collar opening on the stove, to determine what diameter size stove pipe you will need.
- 3
  Measure for a through-the-wall installation by placing one end of the yardstick on top of the stove's collar and the other end against the wall below the flue opening, so that the wall and the yardstick form a perfect right angle.
- 4
  Mark the wall with the pencil at the spot where the yardstick rests against it.
- 5
  Measure the area on the wall from the pencil mark to the inside bottom edge of the flue opening, as this will provide the vertical length of the pipe needed to fit into the top of the stove.
- 6
  Measure the distance from the inside edge of the stove collar to the wall just below the chimney flue opening, as this will give you the length of pipe you will need between the flue opening and the stove flange. Allow eight inches for the height of the elbow.
- 7
  Add two to three inches to the horizontal measurement to provide enough extra pipe to fit into the chimney flue opening.
- 8
  Measure for a through-the-ceiling chimney system by placing one end of the measuring tape on top of the wood stove right near the flange edge and running it to the ceiling flue opening.
- 9
  Add two to three inches to this measurement to allow for extra pipe to fit into the stove collar and the ceiling opening.

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