I was wondering if anyone as had this problem?

I started a fire for the first time since I owned the house. The flue was open and chimney was clear of obstruction/s. The wood was not green.

I tried to open a window to provide more air, but that seemed to do nothing.

The house was built in 1964, so it's not a real tight house.

The chimney has three exhaust ports if that's the right term. The fireplace (main floor), wood stove in the basement along with a wood fired oven also in the basement are all connected to a single chimney, but have separate exhaust ports. Hope that make sense.

Any help would be great.

 

Does this happen all the time or just when you start the fire?
When I start mine it will puff smoke back until the chimney warms up.

 

Yeah, column of cold air, already warm house, hot air off fire has trouble climbing up cold dense air in chimney.

 

Once you get a fire running an updraft is created from the heat rising out the chimney, this updraft should suck the smoke up and out...

 

My guess is:

1. The house is taller than the chimney and has more natural draft than your chimney. A leaky upper floor adds to the problem. Solution - add height to your chimney and seal leaks in any upper floors.

2. Your old chimney may be pretty leaky and incapable of holding a draft all the way to the top. Solution - install a seamless liner/chimney (the double-wall insulated stainless steel chimneys are the best).

3. Install a pellet/corn stove and run the 3" diameter chimney through the existing chimney and all the way to the top. A pellet stove has an induced draft fan that forces the smoke out the chimney. You could even run the small chimney straight out the side wall as long as you have power to the induced draft fan.

Open fireplaces are for looks anyway. Their heating value is actually a net loss for the house.

 

The fire was going real good and hot, smoke was still coming into the room.

 

I suspect Pop-Pop you're are right. I've always liked the idea of a corn or pellet stove, but the wood stove I have really works well and is already in place. I just want to use the fireplace for the "looks" not for a heat source.

So it's possible the fire box it too big for the chimney?

How tall should the top of chimney be from the roof?

 

I had the exact problem with my old fireplace that came with the house. Look inside and see what shape the ceiling part is. Mine was flat, with the chimney in the middle, not a pyramid shape. What was happening is that the smoke would collect in the outside corners of the fireplace and not make it to the center where the draft started. The heat below would push out that smoke into my living room instead of up the chimney. I could never fix it. I replaced
the fireplace.

 

In the 40+ years of use, I suspect your chimney has had many creosote fires. Assuming it is a masonry chimney, it probably leaks like sieve as a result of the fires. If this is the case, you have a choice of relining it, abandoning it in place by running a smaller pipe thru it or, simply stop using it. When I built my present house, I used 6" dia. S.S. insulated chimneys. Creosote fires will not harm them and they provide super draft because they do not leak. When I installed a pellet stove, I ran a 3" pipe up thru the larger pipe to maintain sufficient velocity of the burned gases (per instructions by stove maker).

The newer airtight woodstoves need a SMALLER diameter chimney (usually 6" dia.). If you discharge an airtight stove into a large (8" - 12") chimney intended for an open fireplace, it will not have sufficient draft to operate properly.

 

Chimney draft problems can drive you crazy and bring a man to tears.

I have a solid steel square tube flue that goes from the concrete floor, up through the roof, to a point about four feet above the peak of the roof; from top to bottom, it is about thirty feet tall.

I fought smoke problems, until I built a downward angled tube that is "Yed" into the flue, that has a blower shooting up the flue through it.

Whenever I get smoke coming back, I turn on the blower.

With the blower on, loose articles in the house will be sucked through the dampers, and up the chimney.

 

Are you saying that you have 3 heat sources ending up in one single flue. In other words a 3 into 1 ? If you look down your chimney from the roof, how many holes are there? If you don't have 3 flues going up through your chimney all the way to the top, you are for one, violation of code and secondly when you have a fire in the basement stove the other 2 heat sources are drafting cold air in above that stove from outside. Therefore your basement stove has to work three times as hard to heat up that whole chimney, all the while the other two are fighting to keep it cool.

Try a very small fire way in the back of the stove to "try" and heat the flue up enough to reverse the draft. Eash heat source, including gas water heaters have to have their very one flue. all the way to the roof. otherwise it is a violation of code and God forbid you ever have a house fire and the cause if a flue fire, I highly doubt if you will be covered..

I would get a chimney sweep to take a look. Flue safety is a serious thing that should not be taken lightly... ( My house burnt to the ground when I was ten from this)
Here is a good sight

www.hearth.com

www.woodheat.org

 

Try holding a lit peiece of newspaper in the chimnet before you light yoiur fire... See if you can get a draft started before the actual fire is lit.... I have no idea why this is any different than just lighting the fire but it seems to have worked for me many times.. I used to have this problem especially if the wind was blowing out of the east.

 

RDC, The chimney has three separate flues. One for the main fireplace, one for the wood stove and one for the wood burning oven. The wood burning oven is not in use and the flue is uncapped. The chimney top is roughly 4' above the centerline of the roof.

This was the first fire ever for this fireplace. The previous owner never used it. Looking down the main flue, it's clean as it can be. He used the wood stove in the basement for heat. The flue was capped closed, until I decided to try to use the fireplace.

I hate to even try to start another fire, but maybe I'll try some of what was suggested here and build a small kindling fire and see how it goes.

 

did you have a bathroom fan or house ventilation fan running at that time? my house vent fan is powerful enough to pull the smoke out of my wood stove inlet vents until it is darned hot.

 

That's what my dad always did before a fire