Best Way to Quickly Clear Cold Air From Chimney?

[njtuna]

i am new to burning (second year for me). sometimes my chimney has cold air blockage when i am going to start a fire, and i try to get rid of it by burning newspaper. it works, but by the time it starts to move the cold air, my whole house is full of smoke. are there any tips/tricks out there to get this done faster or with less smoke? forgot to add that this is a fireplace xtrordinair, not a wood stove. thanks

 

[chainsaw kid]

I have a wood stove and what works for me is I pull the pipe off the wall shove a piece of news paper in, light it, and quickly put the pipe back on and light the fire. I have never had a problem with smoke in the house since.

 

[goof008]

Same thing used to happen to me. I could never let the fire go out, or I smoked the whole house up when I re-lit it. What I did this year was I took a small electric heater with a fan built into it and put it in the door way of the stove for a while. It actually got the black pipe warm. Anyway, when I built the fire all the smoke went right up. To add to it, my stove is in the basement, and the top of my chimney is about 35 feet above it as it is about 5 feet above the 2nd story roof line. That's a lot of cold air, but that little heater did it.

 

[Cedarkerf]

Very interesting

 

[Austin1]

I have the same problem with my fireplace, I don't use it often as I use the wood stove everyday. But I use a hair dryer just stick in the flue for 10seconds.

 

[njtuna]

hair dryer sounds great. going to give that a try. also have a heat gun, if the hair dryer doesn't work. thanks for the tips!

 

[wahoowad]

crack a door or window in that room right before lighting. makes a huge difference for me. sometimes it starts to draft sooner than otehr times. I always follow the same procedure and use the same amount of starting newspaper, but some days get more smoke in the room before it starts to draft. usually not enough to bother me. Crack that window a few inches and see.

 

[ckliff]

Our chimney cap looks like a "conquistador" helmet. It rotates around and whatever breeze there is really sucks up the air! Get one of those and live in a windy area

 

[ray benson]

crack a door or window in that room right before lighting. makes a huge difference for me. sometimes it starts to draft sooner than otehr times. I always follow the same procedure and use the same amount of starting newspaper, but some days get more smoke in the room before it starts to draft. usually not enough to bother me. Crack that window a few inches and see.

I always open a window or sliding door a few inches. You may try a portable butane torch with the newspaper. The heater or hairdryer sound like good ideas and you probably already have them.

 

[chowdozer]

Sounds like you have too much horizontal on your flue. I have about 6" of horizontal and 14' of vertical and never have the problem. The hot air wants to naturally rise but has nowhere to go but in the house.

 

[blis]

there are usually 2 conditions that cause smoke to come inside the house, which are 1) fire doesnt get enough air -> vacuum on the inside of house -> it sucks air from chimney to inside, 2) its more warm outside the house than inside.... There is also one possible reason, which too short chimney, but i doubt thats the problem in this case....

 

[njtuna]

new house, so the vacuum is possible. it's sealed pretty tightly inside. the house is 30ft high off ground level, and the chimney extends 5 ft higher than the peak of the roof- would guess the chimney is 32-34ft tall. it only happens maybe 1-2 times 1per week, with 2 times being a lot.

 

[njtuna]

yes, chimney on outside of house. doubt the liner is anything fancy either. saw them build it. it is plywood box structure all the way up.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

My stove does this when it gets cold and damp inside, the dampness makes the air heavy as hell and its hard to get it to reverse and go up the chimney.




I found that if I stack my wood in the stove and then place about a half of a fire starter brick on top and light it, it gets the draft going and lights the fire without smoking up the house.



.

 

[Rob G.]

I also have a Fireplace Xtrordinair and a chimney chase outside of the house envelope.
When it is extremely cold out and the fireplace has been idle for long enough, the cold air blockage can be difficult to overcome.
We burn 24/7 during the winter so it is rarely a problem.
I found that when it does happen, the heavy steel plate in the back blocks attempts to get the draft started, so I remove it (the plate just rests on a few supports) just long enough to start the draft with a handfull of paper, then I replace it before I light the fire (I have the fire set up beforehand).
Unfortunatly, the steel plate is too heavy and awkward for my wife to do the same (when I work late she doesn't mind starting a fire).
Recently I tried sliding the plate about 1/2" - 3/4" away from the back of the firebox. It still rests securely on the supports, but lets warm air from the handfull of paper go behind the plate without removing it and starts the draft. We have not had the fireplace idle long enough to test this idea.
Hope this helps.

 

[njtuna]

thanks rob g. that is very helpful. we use it pretty much every day, after we get home from work, and all day/night on the weekends. but sometimes the chimney gets blocked. what is you average burn time? they advertise 8-10 hr burns, and the only way i have approached that is when there is lots of ash in the fireplace (around 2-3 inches), and i stuff it full of firewood. still, seems to burn pretty fast. granted, i have been using soft maple and hemlock mainly so far, and a little bit of silver maple (that coals pretty well).

 

[chuckp]

I have a new quadrafire stove in the basement with a masonry chimney on the exterior. I anticipated a draft problem so I left a tee with a cap in the black stove pipe from the stove to the chimney.
If I open the cap and hang a streamer or piece of paper on the tee with the stove cold, the backdraft if strong.
All I have to do is crack open the door or window, and the I have immediate up-draft. It's really quite amazing.
I never would have believed my basement was like a vacuum.