Corvedale Stove & Flue · stove fitting & flue engineering · Little Hembrow · Est. 1998
The stove is the easy half. The flue is the fitting.
Corvedale fits woodstoves and engineers the flues they deserve — liners sized from draft readings rather than off the shelf, hearths built to code and to last, and every install commissioned with a lit-fire reading before we call it done. A stove hung on an oversized flue smokes, creosotes and sulks; we pair the firebox to the chimney and stand behind the marriage.
Liners sized from manometer readings · Level 1 · 2 · 3 to NFPA 211 · every install draw-tested with the fire lit before sign-off
What we do
What the studio fits
The fitting — stoves set right
Hearth cut and laid to code, clearances to combustibles measured twice, the appliance connected in the right register and the room left warmer than the brochure promised. We fit the stove the room actually has — a heat-load calculation and a tape measure come before any catalogue.
The liner — sized, never guessed
Rigid 316Ti stainless sized from the appliance and the manometer, wrapped so the flue gases stay hot and draft clean, terminated and draw-tested. An oversized liner is the quiet cause of half the smoking stoves in the valley — the gas slows, cools, and lays its tar down as third-degree glaze on the walls.
The commissioning — proven with fire
The last hour of every install is a fire we light ourselves: draft read in pascals at full burn and at overnight slumber, spillage checked at the door seals, the readings written on the commissioning sheet. A stove is not fitted until the fire has proved the flue, and the sheet says so.
Why we size from readings
The pairing is the warranty
A stove and a flue are a marriage of volumes: the firebox pushes a certain amount of gas at a certain heat, and the liner has to carry it at a speed that keeps the walls above the condensation point. Guess the size and the pairing fails slowly — smoke at lighting, glaze by February, a chimney fire within three seasons. We read the draft before we order the steel, which is why ours are the installs that still draw in year ten.
The pairing guarantee
If an install we fitted smokes or creosotes abnormally in its first season because the liner was mis-sized, we re-size and reline at our cost and re-commission with a lit-fire reading. The readings are on your sheet; the promise is on ours.
How it goes
From commission to first fire
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
The survey
Room, stove, chimney — measured
A heat-load calculation for the room, the appliance shortlist narrowed with you, and the existing flue camera-scanned to NFPA 211 Level 2 before any steel is ordered. The flue decides half the stove choice, and it decides it first.
The build
Hearth and plate
Hearth cut, laid and levelled to code; the decorative plate and register set; clearances to combustibles measured, photographed and filed. The room is sheeted, and the room is yours throughout.
The liner
Dropped, wrapped, terminated
Rigid 316Ti lowered a section at a time on a recorded run, insulated wrap keeping the gases hot, termination and cap set and screwed. The old clay stays where the camera said it could stay.
The commissioning
Lit, read, signed
We light the first fire ourselves. Draft in pascals at full burn and at slumber, spillage at the seals, the readings written on the commissioning sheet — and the warranty runs from that sheet, not from the invoice.
Little Hembrow & the valley, 2025 — 2026
Recent installs
Six commissions from the season, photographed at the lit-fire reading. The sheet in each picture carries the pascals; the rooms carry the winters.
Commissioned since 1998
The studio ledger
Figures off the commissioning sheets, not the brochures. The smoking-complaint line is the one we watch — it has fallen every year since the sizing rule became absolute.
Two shops sold us the same stove; Corvedale was the only one who wanted to read the chimney first. The liner they specified was two inches smaller than the other quotes and the room is the warmest in the valley. The commissioning sheet is pinned beside the thermostat like a diploma.
Our “smoky stove” was four years of misery and two sweep bills a season. The manometer took ten minutes to show the flue was simply too big for the appliance — re-lined to size, and it lights first match, every morning, since.
They lit the first fire themselves and stayed to watch it slumber down — wrote two readings on a sheet and told us what each meant. When the gasket failed in year three, the sheet made the warranty argument for us. Nobody had to be persuaded; it was all written down at the start.
Before the survey
Stove questions
The five the studio answers by the second minute of every first call. Anything more particular, bring the room’s dimensions and the chimney’s history — we will bring the camera.
Why does my new stove smoke the room out?
Nine times in ten, sizing. An oversized liner slows the flue gas below the speed it needs, the gases cool, the draft stalls and the smoke comes forward into the room instead of up. The manometer shows it in minutes, and the fix is a liner sized to the appliance — not a bigger stove, and not a hatful of advice about opening a window.
Can I keep the open fireplace and add a stove?
Often, yes — an inset stove with a lined, register-plate-sealed throat, or a free-stander on the hearth with the old flue properly closed over. What you cannot do is share one unswept flue between an open fire and an appliance; the camera survey says which of the three arrangements your chimney can actually carry.
What liner does a woodstove need?
Rigid 316Ti stainless, insulated, sized from the firebox output and the measured draft. Flexible liner has its place in crooked flues; rigid outlasts it, insulates better and drafts cleaner, and on a straight run there is no contest. Cast-in-place pumice is the answer when the flue is too bent for either.
How big a stove should I buy?
Smaller than the showroom suggests. A heat-load calculation beats a guess every time: most rooms are over-stoved, and an over-stove gets run slumbered all day, which is exactly the cool, smouldering burn that lays third-degree glaze. The right stove runs hot twice a day and clean all season.
Does the chimney still need sweeping with a lined stove?
Every burning year — NFPA 211 and us both. A good liner cuts the creosote but does not abolish it; the commissioning sheet sets your interval from the first season’s grade, and the sweep that follows reads the sheet rather than starting again.
Autumn commissions booked four to six weeks out; surveys inside the week · (555) 068-9057 · studio@corvedalestove.example
Commission the pairing
Tell us the room, the stove you have in mind, and what the chimney has been asked to do until now. The survey carries a Level 2 camera scan and a heat-load calculation, and no steel is ordered until the readings have argued for it. studio@corvedalestove.example