What to do about fireplace smell?

[Tussiemussies]

Looking for some help on this issue. We just had our firplace flue cleaned and had had the old broken damper removed and a new type of damper installed that goes on the top of the flue which is supposted to be much more efficient.

We have lit two fires so far, the wood has been seasoned for three years. The draft has been very good, some of the wood must have had pockets of more moisture in them because when the fire got to a certain place on the log, smoke came spewing out but was drafted straight up the flue.

Both times we have lit a fire the whole house winds up smelling like smoke and tonight while we sat in the room with the fireplace, my husband eyes bothered him.

Any ideas why this could be happening? We had a fireplace in the last house we lived in and never had this issue.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. chris

[bae]

You might want to try cracking a window somewhere in the house, a bit across the room usually works nicely, to get some additional draft/airflow going.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Try better wood. Trying buying some wood or something (if practical), but the wood for sale at a hardware store or whatever is usually at least decent quality (at least if it's plain wood not the weird burn forever logs).

Some of the old logs that have been sitting around forever in your yard, they have termites, dry rot or both, they're soggy, who even knows anymore, not so much so, and that bad wood tends to be stinky. So good quality wood is a test. But yea if it's not the wood then it's something about the fireplace.

Yea it might well be safer just to get the whole thing inspected so you at least know it isn't the fireplace, but bad wood by itself can be a problem.

[CathyA]

Sounds like you're getting more smoke in the house than you realize. (you have smoke detectors, right?).

We had problems like that and had a chimney sweep guy over, and he taught us that we weren't heating up the chimney FIRST, before lighting the fire. What you do is roll some newspaper up and light it and hold it up in the chimney. Do that a couple times, then light your kindling. Get a good kindling fire going first, before you add anything bigger. Then add smaller logs, and when they get going well, then you can add larger logs.
Do you have a cold air inlet in your firebox? Do you have any glass doors on your fireplace? Don't open any windows, as that can draw smoke from the fireplace into your house. And don't run your dryer while you're having a fire......that can also draw smoke through your house.
But the most important thing is heating up your flue well before starting a kindling fire. (Have the kindling all ready to be lit, before heating the flue). And build your fire slowly.
Good luck!

[Gregg]

You might want to try cracking a window somewhere in the house, a bit across the room usually works nicely, to get some additional draft/airflow going.

+1 Yup, try that first.

[CathyA]

Well..........from what our chimney sweep said, and from our own personal experience.........opening a window with your fire going will draw more smoke into your house. Its fine to open a window to air out the house when the fire is cold......but I certainly wouldn't do it if your fire is making smoke.

[Gregg]

If you open a window and smoke draws INTO the house you have a potentially serious problem with your fireplace. Any form of combustion needs make-up air. Fresh air, oxygen specifically, is one of the necessary components to feed the fire. If your house is sealed up tight there may not be enough fresh air available to keep a strong draw going. A fireplace or woodstove draw should constantly pull quite a bit of air into the fire and right out the flue, if there is not enough air available the draw will die down which would allow smoke to creep back into the house rather than going up the chimney.

Another time that can happen is when the fire is dying down. Hot air rises. Very hot air rises fast. That is what happens, or should happen, when you have a good fire going. Late at night when the fire is fading out and the air outside gets very cold there may not be enough temperature difference to maintain your draw. If you have doors on your fireplace that is a good time to close them.

[CathyA]

We have a cold air inlet in the firebox, so maybe that makes a difference.

[peggy]

We had issues with smoke getting into the house, more especially with the downstairs wood stove than the upstairs fireplace, and building a fire in the fireplace would fill the downstairs with smoke. Nasty nasty! We had extensions put on the flues, one higher than the other, and that solved it.

[redfox]

If we have any inside fan on, like the bathroom or laundry vent fans, our very sensitive Rais woodstove down drafts. We make sure those are all off, then crack the window open right above the stove. There's a fresh air intake under the stove, but the slightly open window helps.

Also, if there's a cold air block in the chimney, it will take a bit to open up. To remedy this, I light a piece of newspaper on fire, and hold it up into the chimney opening. It burns off quickly, and breaks the cold air lock. (The chimney sweep suggested this to me.) Then, I lay the fire & light it.

[razz]

Do you have an heat recovery air exchanger going? That may be part of the problem. The old one in our house installed when we built 22 years ago had problems but the new replacement seems to be fine.

[Tussiemussies]

Thanks everyone for your ideas. Last night at 1:30 in the morning the carbon monoxide detector went off in my bedroom and hallway which is strange since the fire had been out for some time by then. We are going to try opening a window. We did just have a chimney sweep here about three weeks ago and they said everything was fine. We may have to call them back. Our wood has been in the garage for as long as we had it, so it should not be wet, but for some reason with both fires we have had so far, when the fire had burnt a log to a certain point smoke came spewing out, but it was totally being pulled upward. Thanks everyone for your help!

[bae]

Another possibility is that the fire is *too small*. It needs to be hot enough to gasify the wood - it is the gases that burn, not the wood itself. If the temperature/oxygen flow is too low, all you will be doing is making charcoal out of the wood, and slowly smoldering.

I start with a small, intense fire, then build it up over time until I have a good solid bed of coals. At that point, you can consider adding small amounts of fuel to keep it going, but until you have a sufficient fire going, that won't work well.

[CathyA]

Just curious Tussiemussies........was it your CO detector or your smoke alarm that went off? I, too, have a CO detector, even though we have no gas appliances........thinking its useful when having a fireplace too (in addition to smoke alarms).

Something's funky with your fireplace........or you have gas somewhere else. You have no gas appliances? Even smoke coming out of a log shouldn't be a problem, if it has a good draft up the chimney. Where has the wood been stored? It was from the previous owner, right? (And if it was your CO detector, make sure it doesn't just need a new battery).

[Tussiemussies]

Thanks Cathy A, I think that our detector signals both CO and fire....not sure but the alarm said one at one point and then another at the end. We don't have gas in our house so that can't be it and the wood is ours we moved from garage to garage when we moved. I think we are going to have to call the experts in again before our house starts to permanently smell like smoke!