Enter the clearances from your stove’s label or manual (or choose “unlisted”), then what you measured. The checker shows the margin for each distance. It is guidance, not an inspection: your stove’s listed clearances and NFPA 211, as applied by your local code official, decide.

Wood stove clearance checker

Guidance only. Your stove's certification label and installation manual set its clearances, and NFPA 211 and your local code official have the final say. This checker only compares numbers you enter; it cannot see your installation. Get the permit and inspection your area requires.

1. Your stove

Does the stove have a safety-listing label with clearances?

Connector (stovepipe)

Listed manuals often give different clearances for single- and double-wall pipe. Use the column that matches yours.

2. Required clearances from the label or manual (inches)

Back wall (required)

Side wall (required)

Connector pipe to wall/ceiling (required)

If the manual lists one.

2. Unlisted stove: NFPA 211 general defaults

For an unlisted stove, NFPA 211-based standards call for 36 in from the stove to unprotected combustible walls and ceilings and 18 in from single-wall connector pipe. Approved wall protection can reduce these by set amounts; your code official decides. (Maine Forest Service / State Fire Marshal summary of NFPA 211.)

3. What you measured (inches, to unprotected combustibles)

Measure from the point the manual specifies (stove body, heat shield or flue centerline). Leave a box blank to skip it.

Back wall (measured)

Side wall (measured)

Connector pipe (measured)

Your check

Back: required (in)

Side: required (in)

Pipe: required (in)

Back: margin (in)

Side: margin (in)

Pipe: margin (in)

Back wall: closer than the required clearance. Do not install or use it this way; move the stove or ask your code official about listed wall protection.

Side wall: closer than the required clearance.

Connector pipe: closer than the required clearance.

The distances you entered meet the numbers you entered. That is not an approval: check the ceiling, corner, front and floor-protection figures in the manual too, and have the installation inspected.

Double-wall connector on an unlisted stove: use the pipe maker's listed clearance.

How this works and its limits

Margin = what you measured − what is required. A listed stove's label overrides everything else (Drolet: "the information given on the certification label affixed to the appliance always overrides the information published in any other media"). Unlisted defaults: 36 in stove, 18 in single-wall connector, per Maine Forest Service / State Fire Marshal, NFPA-based installation standards. This tool does not cover reduced clearances with wall shields, alcoves, mobile homes, hearth pads or chimneys. Results are guidance, not an inspection or a code ruling.

If you are human, leave this field blank.

What the checker uses

Listed stoves: only the numbers you enter from the certification label or installation manual. The label overrides other sources; Drolet states that “the information given on the certification label affixed to the appliance always overrides the information published in any other media.”
Unlisted stoves: the general NFPA 211 defaults of 36 inches from the stove to unprotected combustible walls and ceilings and 18 inches from single-wall connector pipe, as summarized by the Maine Forest Service and State Fire Marshal. Approved wall protection can reduce these by set amounts; the code official decides.
It does not cover reduced-clearance shields, corners, alcoves, mobile homes, hearth pads or chimneys. Read the clearances guide and the hearth pad guide, get the permit your area requires, and have the installation inspected.