I have a 2 year old direct-vent fireplace natural gas unit that I had installed with the venting going up the existing chimney with a flue liner. It has worked great until last night when I noticed a draft coming from the fireplace. When I turned the unit on it seemed to be venting into the living area.
Is there anything besides a blocked flue that could be causing this problem. We have it on nearly every day up here in sunny Minnesota and last night was the first hint of a problem.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Replies
most likely a cold stack..in order to draft well the cold colum of air has to purge..i.e. heat up and rise. If you vented flue gas is not hot enough to overcome the temp/weight of cold air that is what happens..the cold air just falls down the stack..probly just hit the extreme end of the equation..a bit warmer outside it will work fine..wouldn't hurt to check for a blockage or a factor above that might create a backdraft type scenario..like a sudden change in the depth of the snow creating a shorter stack protrusion than normal.
And get a good quality CO monitor - with at least a digital redouit - not the $29 model, the $40 -50 one.
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Great advice on the CO detector, I had a CO problem a few years back & had a detector let us know about it. This past monday I was talking to a client & they had a level of 55ppm on the 2nd floor & 234ppm in the basement. She told me she unplugged it because the alarm was getting to her & thought it was just a low battery. Thank God she realized there is no battery, that it had a cord!!!
She plugged it in and watched as the number climbed again & then called the fire dept. Turns out they were getting a back draft on one of there boilers.
I had my final inspection this week in there home & talk to the inspector about the CO problem & ask him why CO detectors were not required by code like fire detectors
His response was "I wish they were"
PJE
I'm glad they did'nt just go to bed that night, they still owe me a little over $3000.00 yet for the job I just completed.
Not just that they are one of those customers I will hate to be done with, they were a pleasure to work with.
FWIW, as a Carbon Monoxide Analyst, I won't work in a room with >35ppm! The levels you mentioned are quite dangerous!
A couple of years ago a DR on LI in NY lost his family because they didn't believe their CO detector and took the batteries out to keep it from making that noise!
It's amazing to me that when a CO alarm goes off, people just don't want to believe it!
The country's leading expert on CO analysis is a guy named Jim Davis.
According to him one of the main reasons there aren't CO monitor requirements started when Chicago required them in the early 90's.
The first fall they were required, alarms started going off all over Chicago. The fire dept and gas company (i) told folks to open their windows and then (ii) they came out and sampled the air in the houses (after ventilation) with (iii) do detectors which had very poor sensitivity; much less sensitive then the consumer models then available - they used one detector with a minimum sensitivity of 100ppm, and another with a minimum of 2,000 ppm!
AND, they then concluded that co monitors weren't reliable!
Many gas co and firefighters are not adequately trained in CO testing - if a CO alarm goes off, call a heating company with a trained CO Analyst - ask if they use a draft gauge as part of their testing -if they don't -try elsewhere.
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I'm matching tool donors to a church mission to Haiti - we're shipping a bus converted to a medical facility in (now it looks like) April and can fill it with clothes, tools and all sorts of stuff needed in that poorest of all countries. A few hand tools or power tools can provide a livelihood for an otherwise destitute family. Please email me if you have tools to donate.
Thanks to Jeff and David and Jim and Rich and Steven and Mark and Jason and Shep and Jen and Mike and Joe for their offers!
The first donation just arrived! Thanks and God bless!
I think what they are saying is to be careful because your fireplace could be back-drafting due to a negative pressure in your house. The negative pressure could be caused by a very strong kitchen or bath exhaust fan(s), a cloths dryer, etc, which would then initiate the back-drafting. If the fireplace unit is still under warranty, I'd get the fireplace company out there pronto. I have found in the past that some of those direct vent fireplaces are not as air-tight as common sense would dictate. It is a little odd though that it was OK up until now. Could the top of the stack be obstructed by snow, ice, or something else? From where is the make-up air supplied for the direct vent fireplace - is it through the exhaust pipe, or is there an inlet port somewhere other than the in the stack? What brand is the fireplace?