Painted or vitreous enamelled stove pipes:
what’s the difference?

When you go looking for pipes for wood-burning or pellet stoves, you generally find two types of product: painted or vitreous enamelled. You should definitely choose the latter for two reasons: one technical, the other, aesthetic.

Technically speaking, vitreous enamelled products pass the V2 corrosion resistance test specified by European regulations because the vitreous coating provided also inside the pipe makes it practically invulnerable to corrosion by the acid condensate produced by smoke. This is not the case for painted pipes: built in iron and painted only on the outside, they do not pass the V2 test;

As regards aesthetics, you should consider not only the product when it’s brand-new, but imagine how it will look after installation, and after it has been exposed to the effects of high temperature, manipulation (installation, routine cleaning, etc.) and the leakage of condensate.

In this sense, painted products perform poorly. The paint used to coat them changes color and even begins to peel through exposure to high temperature. They are also very easily scratched, and their accumulations of dirt resist every type of washing. Paint applied to stainless steel is particularly weak because it has trouble adhering to such a smooth surface.

The color of a vitreous enamelled pipe, instead, is guaranteed not to change, even with high temperature and soot fire. It resists scratching and can be washed with any cleaning product. Enamelling is a type of vitrification, and requires the baking of the piece at 850°C, so it fears no high temperature at all. The pipe is vitreous enamelled both inside and outside in order to acquire truly exceptional corrosion resistance inside, and remarkable aesthetic stability outside.

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