Any Chimney Sweeps / Experts in the house?

[schmalex]

Our chimney has recently started blowing smoke back into the lounge (both on first light and when it has been burning for a while). We had it swept a couple of months back & looking up it with a torch yesterday, there doesn't seem to be a blockage.

It has been drawing beautifully for the last few years, so I am at a bit of a loss as to why this might have happened all of a sudden. Can anyone shed any light?

[Rocksteadyeddie]

Have you tried covering the front with newspaper whilst it is lit to encourage it to draw? My MIL always uses this trick and it seems to work.

[HOGEPH]

Anyone seen Father Christmas lately?

[randlemarcus]

First thought is has the wind pattern changde - have you chopped a tree down, or added another chimney?

Second thought is have you swept something away that was creating a nice flow in the flue?

[Penny-lope]

HOGEPH said:

Anyone seen Father Christmas lately?

[schmalex]

No trees have been chopped down, no new fires have been built. I am pretty sure that nothing was knocked off during the last sweeping, as it has been working fine up until a couple of days ago it's very strange & most annoying. I will try the paper trick

[nomisesor]

1. Feel (or use a match) to see if there is a downdraft/downdraught [sp?] - if the chimney hasn't been used for a while, it can cool, and the column of cold air can reverse the flow. You can feel the cold air descending, and smell the smell of tar in the room - or if you light the fire, the smoke will blow back.
2. Rarely, if the wind in our area is from the NE rather than the usual SW, it can blow back the smoke in the NE-most chimney - which we can't use in those circumstances.

[General Price]

My chimney has a mesh guard on top to stop birds getting in.About a week ago when the temps got to -10 it froze up and the fire started blowing back.I stuck a lump of wood soaked in creosote on the fire and 5 mins later the heat obviously melted the ice and it has been fine since.

[schmalex]

See, this the weird thing. We use the fire very regularly & have never had a problem. Just checked it with a match & there is no down draught. Even when it was roaring away on Xmas eve, it was still puffing out a bit of smoke every now & then. I checked it yesterday & there appeared to be a bit of sooty buildup about 3' up the flue, which I wondered was igniting & creating a warm air plug that was stopping the fire drawing. I cleared that away & tried it again tonight, but to no avail - still smoke coming into the room.

It's very perplexing

[tenex]

The last place I was at had this problem in very cold still weather.(-15c approx) It was probably caused by dense cold air rolling down a hillside and settling at the bottom. The dip then fills up and more comes down on top of it. Because there is no general air movement this process goes on all night as the air gets colder and colder. There was no practical solution.
Smoking fires are more a dark art than a science.
Hopefully the problem might go away as the thaw is here.