Smoking fire place. Who is the expert to call in?

[bumbums]

We have a traditional 30s' fire place which looks very pretty and is in keeping with the house. However when we have a fire in it, the smoke doesn't all go up the chimney. A lot billows over the front of the fire place and our living room is filled with smoke.

Who is the best professional to call in? It was swept in September last year. Do I need a sweep or a builder??

i'd call a chimney sweep first, you may have something blocked in it, eg a birds nest or a large soot build up

We had a new fireplace installed and the chimney swept but a smoke problem exactly as you describe despite the work carried out.

Culprit turned out to be the cowl on the top - it was the wrong sort of cowl for our fire (or for the prevailing wind, can't remember which) so we swapped it for an open cowl (which has wire on top to stop birds getting in) and we no longer have an issue.

BTW it can be very expensive to replace the cowl - the item itself may cost about £80 but everyone I asked wanted to erect scaffolding to get onto the roof and that added £450 to the cost of installation.

We actually got our builder to do it as a freebie when he was extending our house.

an experienced local chimney-sweep is likely to have see similar faults before, and can probably diagnose a problem and recommend a suitable person to fix it, even if it is not a repair he does himself. He will tend to know who is local and good.

BTW have you verified that you have enough ventilation to get a flow of fresh air into the room, to enable the smoke to go up the chimney? You have to warm up the chimney with a small hot fire to get the convection current going, if there is not a natural draught.

we've just started having problems with ours after a loft conversion. This has apparently created a downdraft. The solution suggested has been a taller chimney pot and something called a Vesta cowl (nothing to do with tinned curry, apparently). But we're getting it sorted while the builders are doing the rest of the conversion, thankfully, because otherwise it will cost lots.