chimney down draft

[Stephen Blair]

hi guys, we got our fire put in last month, it has been frosty all this time with only a slight NE wind with no probs, now its milder the good old SW is back, now i have had to put the fire out because of the down draft, this is going to be a right royal pita as its our prevailing wind and the frosty weather is very unusual for us, whats the best way to stop this, i have been told about the spinning tops, all advice welcome, even daft stuff:sneaky2:

[Ian Leach]

Pm Micks Bro and ask him

[Stephen Blair]

jelly is the man, forgot about him, it will be more fun if he just comes on the thread ian:biggrin:

[arbogrunt]

Shrek, we had this last night. I've had an open fire for years, but last night, for the first time, we had a Baltic-draught blowing down the chimmney!. I decided to light a fire to try and reverse the direction of it - bad move, we had smoke coming into the living room. I had to open the front door and put newspaper over the fireguard to make the some go UP the chimmney, then the newspaper caught fire. What a drama. What could cause this?

[Rupe]

Do you need some sort of cock? A thing that moves with the wind and turns the flue round the opposite side that the wind is coming from?

[skyhuck]

Get a gas fire mate.

[Stephen Blair]

Do you need some sort of cock?

 

rupe you are killing me here mate:lol:sounds like boy for the job though i will need to source a good cock now, it wont be easy getting the cock up in this weather though:001_rolleyes: i need a man to do this for me, i might start a new thread, i bet it would be the quickest deleted thread in the history of arbtalk, hell i would be surprised this post makes it by the mods:lol:

[Rupe]

You should be able to get the cock up ok mate, keeping it up all night might be tricky though but you only need to keep it up as long as the fire is burning!!!!!!!!

 

I would offer to give you a hand..........etc etc etc.

[tommer9]

Smoking fires arent necessarily from a downdraught. If your house has no way for air to get in to feed the fire, you will get 'oxygen starvation' which basically means that the fire cannot expel the smoke it creates as it cannot make enough draught to let it get up the chimney, so it periodically (every few minutes/ even twice a minute) will spew out all the smoke that is caught in the throat of the chimney (the first few feet above the visible fire place. Next time it happens, try opening a window slightly and see if this helps. If it does then you need a draught in the room that the fire is in, preferably an air brick in the wall with a rectangular pipe under the floor to a vent in the floor (which can be closed when not needed) next to the hearth. If you just put an air brick in then you will have a howling draught through the room.

This problem usually happens on the prevailing wind BTW.

 

You could try putitng a cowl on the top of the chimney (which should be dead level in all directions across the top) which will reduce the draw on the flue giving nearly the same effect.

[felixthelogchopper]

Shrek, we had this last night. I've had an open fire for years, but last night, for the first time, we had a Baltic-draught blowing down the chimmney!. I decided to light a fire to try and reverse the direction of it - bad move, we had smoke coming into the living room. I had to open the front door and put newspaper over the fireguard to make the some go UP the chimmney, then the newspaper caught fire. What a drama. What could cause this?

 

Your arris probably