Fire in One room, Smoke in Another

Garry17

Hi folks, maybe someone can help me out here

I'm living in a house with 2 fires.
1) Solid fuel stove in kitchen with back boiler
2) Open fireplace in sitting room

On a couple of occasions I'v had a fire on in the Kitchen only to find the sitting room full of smoke.

Both fires are exiting the roof from the same chimney stack but with seperate chimney pots

Anyone got any ideas as to what may be going on.

Many thanks

nophd08

Sounds like you have a down draught in sitting room chimney, so smoke is exiting one pot and entering the other.
Not sure how you would fix this, maybe with some sort of cowling on sit room chimney.
I've also heard of builders leaving one chimney pot higher or lower than the other to try and eliminate that problem, maybe someone more qualified will have a better solution, I know there are a few chimney experts on here.

demanufactured

I had this exact problem when i bought my house.

Is the room with the open fire well ventilated,im guessing its not and the open chimney is acting as a vent,sucking air down , and bringing smoke with it.

Garry17

demanufactured wrote: »

I had this exact problem when i bought my house.

Is the room with the open fire well ventilated,im guessing its not and the open chimney is acting as a vent,sucking air down , and bringing smoke with it.

I have window vents in both rooms, both open

Martron

if you look up the chimney do you see only one source of light ?

i think its a vent/pressure issue. perhaps if you close up the vents in the room where the smoke is reentering. and see what happens.

try getting a smoke bomb from the joke shop and have a good look whats happening

demanufactured

If you need a temp solution untill you get it saorted , you could light a very small fire in the open fire , just enought to warm the flue and create an updraught, then you could light the stove.

slimjimmc

or stuff a chimney balloon up the open hearth to block* the flue with the added benefit of stopping cold air getting in or warm air getting out of the room.


* the balloon maintains a trickle vent to keep the flue dry.

bbam

Hi..
We had this exact problem in a house we rented many years ago... after alot of messing about a lad came and fitted a small extension piece to one of the pots and the probelm never came back....