Chimney question

[sixstringsteve]

Im trying to help my mom with an issue with her house, and i know nothing about houses.

So... a few years ago, my mom remodeled her house.

Originally there was an upstairs open fireplace (like the brick ones that santa comes down... with the little rebar stand). A couple years ago she had a fireplace guy put in a nice napoleon cast iron wood burning stove.

There is a gas fireplace downstairs below it and it shares the same chimney. (Im not sure if its the same brick chimney, or if they share the sane metal chute).

She decided to test out her wood burning stove to make sure she knew how to use it. So this week she has been using it to heat the house.

The other day we were visiting and we smelled smoke downstairs, but not upstairs. In fact, you could see a little bit of smoke/haze in the air. The flu on the upstairs wood fireplace was mostly shut to make the logs burn longer when this happened.

Any ideas what might be causing this?

 

[frieed]

an absolute must to make a stove insert work correctly is to have an appropriate sized pipe go all the way to the top of the brick chimney. Been there and finally figured it out. It doesn't need to be double walled if inside a brick chimney, but most installers don't do it at all because you have to break/remove the damper that was installed for the open fireplace. That said, I'm guessing that the gas insert wasn't installed correctly either if you get smoke downstairs. Both should have appropriately sized exhaust vents. A typical chimney flue is way too big for any kind of newer, more fuel efficient, fireplace. Once I put the appropriate sized pipe all the way up the chimney, I could start a fire with a splash of alcohol to get the draft going and never smell smoke in the house.

 

[mesha]

Frieed knows something about everything!

We should have an ask Frieed thread. Find out from Frieed.

 

[sixstringsteve]

I like that idea!

 

[sixstringsteve]

So, one possibility is that the fireplace just has the brick chimney and no pipes in it?

 

[pELYgroso]

I would have her call the guy that installed it and have him come out to take a look and make sure he installed its own flue to the top. when you close the damper, it chokes the fire a bit which makes it burn slower, but it also makes it smoke more. In the right conditions outside, a lot of smoke could be fighting to rise, and take the path of least resistance down the other flue to the basement.

 

[ID Bronco]

I have an insert downstairs and a wood fireplace upstairs with the same "brick" chimney, but they both have separate piping inside the brick/cinderblock exterior. Both work fine, no mixed smoke. I'd get it checked out.

 

[sixstringsteve]

Cool. She has an appointment to get it checked out. $130 just to inspect it. But hey, that's a lot cheaper than a burned down house.

I found some interesting additional articles:
https://www.gratewalloffire.com/Fireplace-smoke_ep_54-1.html

http://blog.mlive.com/home_improvement/2007/08/smoke_coming_down_the_chimney.html

http://www.chimneys.com/articles/smoking-chimney-and-smoking-fireplaces-part-6-fireplace-smoke

 

[frieed]

Frieed knows something about everything!

We should have an ask Frieed thread. Find out from Frieed.

I'm not afraid to try things on my own and I'm old so I've had lots of opportunity.
(which is a nice way of saying I've messed up a bunch of times and had to figure out the right way )

 

[frieed]

I would imagine the winds in Alpine are just as chaotic as they are on my side of South Mountain. If there are two flues to the top and both are the correct size (most flue tiles I've seen are 8x8(64sq in) and a typical stove insert uses 6" round (19 sq in), you may need a windproof chimney cap. I put a vacu-stack on mine in texas (prior to the wood stove insert). https://www.woodlanddirect.com/Vacu-Stack-Solid-Pack-Stainless-Steel-Marine-Chimney-Cap?&a=-