uhmmm.. .anyone know anything about open fires and chimneys?

[winestein]

I went upstairs tonight to get DS ready for bed and his bedroom stank of fire smoke.. (I have had an open fire all day... as have had virtually every day for the last month though).

Obviously DS is sleeping in my bedroom tonight... his room is the only one that smells and I think is the only one that coincides with the chimney.

Can something have happened inbetween lunchtime when I was last up there and this evening to make it stink? I do know I have been burning "smokier" logs today... slightly damp if I am honest..

Anyone got any advice on how to find out what's going off? Could it just be the damp logs and the extra smoke has found an existing crack which wasn't previously apparent?

(I have gone out and looked at the chimney btw, to see if it's raging a fire out of the top, but no sign!)

It can be to do with wind direction or fog. If the wind blows from an awkward direction or if the air is quite foggy then smoke can be held in the chimmney more than usual. This means that you can find smoke coming back into the house. It would not come in at the fireplace as the air flow upwards will be strong here. It will collect further up the chimmney and percolate through small cracks wherever it can find them.

To be on the safe side I would have the chimmney cleaned unless it has been done very recently.

It can be to do with wind direction or fog. If the wind blows from an awkward direction or if the air is quite foggy then smoke can be held in the chimmney more than usual. This means that you can find smoke coming back into the house. It would not come in at the fireplace as the air flow upwards will be strong here. It will collect further up the chimmney and percolate through small cracks wherever it can find them.

To be on the safe side I would have the chimmney cleaned unless it has been done very recently.

It could be that cracks are forming, if you have the chimney on all the time that could be accelerating the process (because of the heat).

I would wait and see what happens tomorrow (build a normal fire), if it is still there I would think it had to do with a crack.

Anything else unusual that you can think of? Was the chimney pulling as normal?

Thanks NC Birdy... that all sounds hearteningly rational! It was cleaned about a month ago (approximately 2 hours before I started having fires!!)

So, basically, if I am confident it's clean (and there are cracks in DS's wall at where the chimney would be which fits in with your theory) I have no need to worry overly?

Admittedly, I cleaned it myself, but I am pretty sure that 1 hour of brushing until no more soot came down from any rod position (and 2 binbags full of soot later) it was a pretty good sweep.

ib.. yes, chimney seems to be pulling reasonably well given the still conditions so I don't suspect a blockage anywhere.

What can be done if cracks are developing?

Well, we put in a pipe into our (old, cracking) chimney - but that connected to a built in thing - you could do it but you would need some sort of thing at the start of the chimney to funnel it all in.

Clear as mud?

If not presumably you should be able to re-render the chimney?

No, no... crystal clear! I generally "get" the conventions of fires and stoves... ('cept my smoke problem today, obviously!)

Not sure how I would get in to render the chimney as it's in the centre of a semi detached... if you know what I mean. Plus, the smell is strongest at floor level so I suspect the biggest crack (if there is one) may be under the floorobards... bugger!

Doesn't sound like fun...I hope it was just the weather playing up!

my parents had a crack under the fire - on the bases of the hearth. This led to heat being transmitted through to the floor joists beneath and one terribly exciting night when we opened the airing cupboard and a gust of smoke billowed out. We called the fire brigade who came out, took the fire to bits and hacked out the base of the hearth uncovering smouldering beam which when exposed to air sprang into flame - swiftly put out. No major damage done but you do need I think to know where this crack is - because if it's in the base of the fire it needs checking. I should also say the night we had the fire Dad had been burning some eastern european dodgy treated coke stuff and the wind was blowing against the house so the fire was very, very hot and the heat wasn't going anywhere.