hello, (ack, wheeze) all!
i just bought a house and used the fireplace for the first time last night and the smoke seems to roll correctly and some vents out, but smoke also rolls into the room.
a friend said if the box heats up first, the smoke will then stay in the box. is this true? and how do i brave the smoke until the box heats? there is a gas stub up, but not into the box. or is it the climate (Mississippi) where its 70 in the daytime and 40 at night.
any guesses?
thanks,
a.m.
Replies
p.s. also, the fireplace obvously used to work at some time,
how can a fireplace break, its just a box?
a.m.
"how can a fireplace break, its just a box?"
Nop, it is not just a box. It is box that is "hopefully" connect to a flue that exits out the top of the house.
I would get the chimney checked. Probably have a birds nest or dead aminmal in there.
Ditto to what Bill recommended ........... find a good chimneysweep and get it cleaned and inspected.
OPEN THE DAMPER ALL THE WAY FIRST BEFORE STARTING FIRE!!!!!!
Open the damper full. Stick your head into the box and look up. Is it clear? This may not be conclusive but it's a start.
When you are lighting the fireplace, first take a loosely rolled up newspaper, light it, and stick it up the flue until you see and hear the flue drawing the air up. When the air in the flue is cold, it prevents hot air from going up. By heating the air in the flue you eliminate the cold air cap.
Also try opening up a window to provide more make-up air in the room/ house. Slowly close it and see if it affects the flue's air flow/ effectiveness.
thanks, all. ill give it a try.
When opening the damper put on old clothes and take a mirror and look at the smoke shelf (area above and around the damper) Like someone suggested something could be in there. I had a duck fall down mine once. Also look up the chimney with the (damper open) in the middle of a sunny day. you should be able to see light.
If the chimney is crudded up and there is a lot of trash (straw, ash, stuff) around the area above the damper then call a chimney sweep. For a couple hundred he'll keep your fireplace safe, clean, and minimize the mess you will make if you try to clean it yourself. Plus he will inspect the flue and give you reccomendations on what is going on with your chimney.
If you are into it the mess you can go to the local farm store and buy a rope, chimney brush, and a weight to brush all the crud out of the flue down to the smoke shelf. Then take your shop vac and suck out all the crud around the damper.
The newspaper trick is essential to get a chimney to draw. Do that before every fire.
PS after you get it together in the draft department the long term plan may be to hook up the gas line to a log set or use it as a fire starter for regular logs. It'll give you something to dream on.
You've already got plenty of good advice, now how about some humour? What if you have the bones of an old burglar in there? It's been known to happen.
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."
--Marcus Aurelius
piffin, some how I dont think your kidding about that one?
Oh, I forgot to add the smiley face for that graveyard humour.
I just watched a TV report. I think it was from England. The fire dept had to demo a chimney to rescue some yahoo that forgot his house keys and thought he could slip in head first, 'till he got halfway down.
I demoed a 120 year old chimney made of rock in Colorado and found two bones that could have been from a forearm or a deer leg contained in it. I asked a cop friend what I should do about it. He said, "Assume it's a deer bone and don't bother us. We don't work on cases that old and don't want any headaches like that. Believe me, It IS a deer bone. Some wise guy stuck it in there."
It must be a deer bone - but he never looked at it..
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."
--Marcus Aurelius
Is the top of the chimney high enough? Per a Vt Castings/Majestic class I just took, it has to be above all of the other "chimney" tops (through roof vents, ridge vents, etc.) If not, it be comes an air intake for the higher "himneys."________________________________________________
"I may have said the same thing before... But my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." Oscar Wilde
That was my thoughts .They are normally three feet higher than surrounding peaks. Its probably the damper .
Tim Mooney
Edited 11/27/2002 9:30:48 AM ET by Tim Mooney
Mississippi? I was thinking about a snake! Hsssssss Snap!
Hey honey I cleared out the flue, bring me a razor and get ready to suck out the poison.
That was no burglar, that was Mr claus! (I would never intentionally call Piffina a fool. It's that Moosehead, again).
Edited 11/27/2002 8:34:26 PM ET by Cairo
That silly Moose licking your head again?.
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."
--Marcus Aurelius
Then again , maybe the fire place never worked correctly . Get back to us after you have checked the cleaning.
Tim Mooney
the fireplace is truly fascinating. as per attached sketch (did it work?)
-the damper is horizontal
-there is no bottom on the stack (see sketch...i have never seen this before; it is all steel, so it might be rusted out?) doesnt that seem to help draw out air from the house or would cold air falling eternally push it into the house?
-there is a low shelf created by the damper (that can be torched out or reciprocated out; the smoke starts to roll here and in all the books ive seen, this condition needs to happen 8" min. above the top of the firebox front opening.)
-i think it can be fixed; and the previous owner labeled the fireplace 'broken' on the disclosure statement. i bought two carb.mon. detectors and will keep trying.
keep advising.
a.m.
Piffin beat me , but since you posted to me the draw wont work for wood. You might consider running a gas insert . Might as well give up lighting things in it that burn . You could have supplied this information at the start of the thread. Seems you already know what you need to know , but was checking our pulse. You checked it .
Tim Mooney
No, Tim, this is more a case of trying to make a Subaru do what a Land Rover is designed for. Or trying to get a chicken to lay goose eggs.
If this thing was originally installed for gas, the pipe might only be a "B" type pipe and totaly unsafe for wood burnig under any circumstances. Wood fires require an "A" pipe.
.
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."
--Marcus Aurelius
Edited 11/27/2002 10:26:58 PM ET by piffin
Am I missing something ? I was reccomendening a gas burning stove insert. Forget wood.
The fire box needs a smoke shelve above the damper which it doesent have , but the chamber below would work if the first had been installed. The latter is nothing but a cleaning dump which stove flues use all the time . Ive never seen one with a fire place however . Usually if one is installed it is in the fire box itself . That was pretty weird . I can just imagine this dude building it on advive given somewhere. I think the dump was meant to be a smoke shelve trying to decipher someone elses opinion. In other words a total screw up built the chimney .
Tim Mooney
Through wall installations to an exterior metal chimney are common enough and you are right, the missing base plate is for cleanouts (somebody lost it or it rusted out) but when you install a wood stove to such a chimney, you have to have a vertical leg of two or three feet frist to let the smok start it's ascent. .
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."
--Marcus Aurelius
so i should sell the firewood i just bought?
my plan was to make a metal cap to cap the bottom of the flue. then, before starting a fire, as yall suggested, light something and drop it in to heat up the air. this should help the draft tremendoulsy, right?
another option; i can also cut the lower lip of the damper box back a couple of inches flush with the fire brick (a. on the sketch i think) to allow the smoke to rise a bit higher before rolling. or am i wasting my time making a corvette out of a chevette?
oh, and happy holidays to all.
a.m.
Lets see if I can explain this to you.
A fire place draws up to 330 cu ft per minute . It does that also robbing the heat from the fire. A fire place is for looks only. It needs a big capacity of air intake to run it draw. With that volume of air draw it needs a "smoke shelve" above the inlet , plus adequate sizing . You dont have a smoke shelve in your drawing , so forget the fire place for now.
A fire place insert is a wood stove installed in the opening. An insert only draws about 50 cu ft per minute on start up, and tapers down to 20 in running mode. A wood stove doesnt need a smoke shelve because it doesnt run that type of volume . Its restricted to start with. You could use a fire place insert if you check the following things ;
The chimney must be at least 3 ft higher than any structuce and 4 ft is better .
Make certain you have a clean out door at the bottom of that chimney and its locked . [as with a catch] The column that goes below the fire box now is for cleaning out the chimney. You may use a stove if the chimney is in good condition, but not the fire place. Its hard to give you advive on the chimney when I havent seen it. I would reccomend hiring a home inspector or a chimney sweep guy, unless you are able to make the decision if the chimney is safe. You havent given any information at all about the chimney. I hope this helps . From our cabin to yours,
Happy Holidays
Tim Mooney
i cant attach the damn thing! i click upload and nothing happens.
If the flue has a horizontal portion as shown in your drawing then I beleive there's where your problem lies. That horizontal portion acts as a shelf of cold air or better described - as a cork. Maybe, as a gas fired fireplace this is ok, but for the amount of heat and smoke generated by a wood fire I don't think this is proper.
IFor a solution, is the flue metal or masonry?
Again, you can work around this cork of cold air by sticking a lit rolled newspaper up the flue and into the horizontal portion. That will then heat the cold air in the main shaft causing it to rise and continue to draw air up the flue.
Can you make a curve from the lintel to the top of the damper opening to provide direction for the smoke flow?
I'll try to attach a doctored version of your original drawing (I tried to do it in MS Word but I've never done it in that program before. Lets hope it works. If not I'll cad something and save it otherwise.
PS of course that just covers this cross sectional view. In and out of the picture you'll have to restructure the metal to push the smoke up into the center of the damper.
You have my sympathies. Pretty cruddy project to band-aid to functionality.
(Didn't work doctored drawing didn't paste.) I'll have to go back to words. If you get some heavy gauge metal you might be able to create an air flow into the damper. Sort of a 90 degree corbel.
(Anyone know how to get AutoCAD LT 2000 to save as a TIF or a BMP? When I get to the home PC I have Adobe Pro there to help in the transition, but even that is new territory taking a DXF or DWG and converting it.)
Edited 11/27/2002 4:27:54 PM ET by Booch
Don't know about converting the files but Autodesk has Volo View Express that you can download for free that will allow you to read dwg/dxf files
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/section/0,,837637-123112,00.html
That is a great link for reading them. I have several people in our place using that to view the drawings the customers send in and the ones I create.
I guess I could see if that has tools I don't have in the LT program. Nope. It doesn't convert either. I'll try another method then have to post the voloview link if that doesn't work with the cad mockup.
In AutoCAD, I go to File>Export and pick .wmf or .bmp formats. You'll then be asked to pick the objects you want to export, so window aound or across the sketch objects. You can also rename at the same time. I then use IrfanView to convert to .jpg. Be careful to size the CAD window to the drawing, or else you'll get a bunch of black (or white) background, and the objects (lines) may be faint or blotchy.Be seeing you...
WMF is the only format allowed in AutoCAD LT besides the DWG file. BMP I could directly paste in the forum. I'll try further. Thanks for the info.
Sorry, I didn't understand about it being a metal prefab unit. That changes everything. A picture truly is worth a thousand words. BTW, your sketch is in a smaller JPG file below.
You absolutely NEED a bottom on that chimney stack. It's a poor design for wood in the first place but without the cleanout cap, getting it to draw is like trying to push water uphill with your fingers or trying to pick up a piece of jello with only two fingers. The stack will never warm up, something which is essential for a good draw. If you have a temp inversion or low air pressure as preceding astorm, I would expect yours to pull air down instead of draw smoke up.
I would recommend not using it for wood burning as is. The chimney does need to be taller than others. Basic rule of thumb is that every elbow will reduce the draw by fifteen percent, requiring an additional fifteen percent of height in the stack. If your drawing is right, you have a trap at the top of the fireplace unit too which further impedes flow.
Hope this helps.
BTW, when you are uploading a picture, you just have to wait for the title of it to show up in the dialouge box, then press the "done" button. A large file like that takes a while.
.
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.
The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."
--Marcus Aurelius