Fireplace - Misplanning by architects / general contractor

Hello, The architect of our general contractor planned a stainless steel exterior chimney for a fireplace that was planned from the beginning on the 1st floor. Yesterday, we received an email stating that with the chimney we chose, such a long chimney pipe is necessary that it would extend far beyond the roof, causing structural problems. This is very different from what was drawn in the plans for the building permit and approved by us. See plan. I have to honestly say that we are annoyed that the pipe now stands so extremely high and that we believe the architect should have known about this in advance and warned us of this problem. Otherwise, we would have preferred to choose a masonry chimney. Instead, we are being blamed that this problem arose due to our chimney height (the outlet is at 1.65m height). That can't be right, can it?! That is a completely normal chimney height that an architect must consider in his planning when a chimney is planned. Our next question is whether anything can be done to make the chimney pipe possibly a bit shorter?

Well, it should be clear that the chimney requires a certain draft height. Otherwise, a stove simply won’t work. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with the stove chosen itself. But the stove on the upper floor just means that the pipe has to extend further out. Otherwise, it probably won’t draft properly. I think I once read that at least around 5 meters are always required.

To what extent an architect “has to” know something like this… I don’t know. It’s good that he noticed it so early.

To be honest, we don’t know anything about stoves and chimney flues. That’s why we had it specially planned by the [GU] or their architect. And it can’t be called timely, because we can no longer move it to the center of the house, where, with a built masonry chimney, there would have been other options.

From my perspective, no planning error by the architect. Depending on the stove and required draft, usually 3-5m chimney height is necessary. The stove installer/seller, who should also carry out the chimney sizing, knows this. Whether masonry or stainless steel does not matter. Edit: clearly, a chimney built into the center of the house would probably have been more effective. But stainless steel as drawn should actually also work. Stove installer already involved? Best regards

Yes, the stove builder is involved.

I had actually relied on the drawing from the building application, trusting that the chimney would look like that later. But that definitely doesn't work if the chimney is located on the 1st floor as planned. No matter which model we choose. I do think we should have been informed about this when buying the chimney through the general contractor.

Edit: a simple chimney without draft assistance/fan probably needs 4-5 meters. That means we are already significantly higher than originally indicated (black drawing). Right?

It should also be considered here that a chimney should always go above the ridge because of roof windows or, if you don't have any, because of the neighbors.