Chimney - bad draw on fire

ballinloughan

Hi
Recently bought a home. The house is two years old. The previous owners didn't light a fire in the fire place in the small room. Tried to light one last night and ALL the smoke came back down the chimney. The only way I could get the smoke to go up the chimney was to hold a newspaper over the front of the fire to great a drw upwards.

Any ideas what may be wrong? Could it be something with the way the fireplace and chimney where installed? There is a pot on top of the chimney so there should be no obstructions and the prevoius owners did say that they got the chimnleys cleaned before they left.

Any ideas??

delly

Sounds like a pretty common problem of new homes, and that is concrete or render having stuck and dried in the chimney while the house was been built. I never used the chimney in my first house, but like you, tried it one day and got the same result. Got a chimney cleaner in who couldn't even get halfway up with his brush. He went at it with a bit of force and lumps of concrete started to come down, but still couldn't get threw it. Sold the house in the end, but the guy told me that if i wanted it sorted I would have to open up the wall above the fireplace and go into the chimney to fix it. This sounded like a drastic action, but I would recommend you get someone in to try and see if there is a blockage first.

Kashkai

Could be a couple of reasons for this:

1. The chimney itself might not be high enough (i.e. if its not positioned on the apex of the roof). My parents had a chimney built years ago which was built on the slope of the roof but didn't protrude above the apex. Then when the wind was calm, the flue had no draught whatsoever to draw the smoke away and thus it came back down the chimney. They had to raise the height of the chimney in the end to solve the problem.

2. The chimney could be blocked by a bird's nest, old bags shoved up it to keep out draughts etc. Don't believe the previous owners who claimed to have swept the chimney, do it yourself. You can get chimney brushes in any of the larger DIY places.

3. The chimney could be damp from lack of use and the moisture in the flue can drag the smoke back down. This happens to us every time we light the fire for the first time in Autumn. To see the moisture laden smoke pouring out of our chimney, you'd think it was on fire. You need a good strong fire to evaporate this moisture and clean out the chimney.

muffler

Chances are that your problem lies somewhere along the lines of what Prosperous Dave posted.

However I had a problem similar to this some years ago which was basically just down to the house being located at the bottem of a hill - bad draught plain and simple.

What I did (and it was the best money ever I spent) was went out and bought one of the little flue/hearth canopies that you put on at the top of the fireplace. It just slips into place and you can tilt it to adjust the amount of draught. It should cost around 25 or 30 euro. The only downside is that it does reduce the amount of heat eminating from the fire but thats a small price to pay to have the room smoke free

ballinloughan

Cheers All .. I will give the chimney a clean at the weekend. We are kinda on the top of a hill and the chimneys look tall enough .. so will have to wait and see ...

crosstownk

It could simply be that the draught is reversed - it happens to both my chimneys from time to time. Simple to cure. This and other solutions can be found here > http://www.solidfuel.co.uk/pdfs/curing_chimney_problems.pdf