HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN ADAPTER

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Build-up of creosote at the base of my neighbor's stovepipe due to the use of an adapter employing the crimpled end up

The chances are good—if you become a real dyed-in-the-wool wood burner—that you'll eventually run across a situation in which you'll need to make a stovepipe adapter. We generally think of using adapters to connect one pipe to another of a different diameter, but—in practice—I've more often made adapters to satisfy my insistence that the crimped end of the stovepipe be placed down so that sooty condensate won't dribble out at every junction. In other words, I have often had to build a special adapter just to connect a six-inch stovepipe to a sixinch collar.

My neighbor recently encountered a situation that provides a good example. His range had a seven-inch stovepipe collar, sized for use with the crimped end up (the messy way), and his roof jack was sized for six-inch pipe. Thus, he had two problems: first, to reduce the pipe from seven to six inches, and second, to invert the whole thing so it wouldn't drip.

He bought a commercial adapter, and was able to put the stove into service. But since the adapter was also crimped the wrong way, so much condensate dribbled out of the joints in the pipe that a tarry deposit began to build up at the base of the pipe (Fig. A). It looked bad, smelled worse, and even caught fire a few times.

Build-up of creosote at the base of my neighbor's stovepipe, due to the use of an adapter employing the crimped end up. This homemade yet dripless adapter, fashioned by the author from a joint of eight-inch pipe, simultaneously inverts the stovepipe and reduces It from seven to just six inches.

Next he pounded the crimps out of the adapter and inverted the pipe. Now the pipe didn't streak, but all of the creosote leaked out where the adapter joined the stove. In his next attempt to solve the problem, he slit the adapter to try to make it fit inside the stovepipe collar, but that didn't work either.

Finally we made a proper adapter that fitted tightly inside the collar (preventing dripping) and that simultaneously reduced the pipe from seven to six inches (Fig. B). This type of adapter is easy to make with only a few simple tools:

1 . Obtain a piece of heavy-gauge commercial stovepipe, preferably galvanized, in a diameter one inch larger than the larger of the two elements to be connected.