How can I help prevent a chimney fire in my home?
- Make sure the chimney was installed correctly.
- The chimney should not be too close to wood framing or insulation. The chimney or metal flue pipe should pass through the ceiling properly.
- Check routinely for any structural damage to your chimney. For metal chimneys, look for corrosion or rusting of the chimney’s inner layers. Also look for buckling of the inner seam or collapsing of the inner lining. For masonry chimneys, look for cracks in the brick and the tile inner lining of the chimney. If your chimney does not have a inner liner, you should get one.
- Check frequently (as soften as twice a month) for creosote and soot build up. If you see it, hire a chimney sweep to remove it.
Have annual chimney inspections and cleanings.
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Reasons Your Fireplace Doesn't Work
The Chimney Sweeper has had 40 years of experience with all types of fireplaces and continues our quest for more knowledge with continuing education for all our technicians. Often the problem is obvious to someone with enough experience once they can actually look over the entire situation.
1) Is your damper fully open?
Everybody eventually forgets to open the damper. Many dampers also cease to fully open because of water damage or soot buildup behind them on the smoke shelf. A good professional cleaning can usually solve this problem.
2) Is your firewood green or wet from rain or snow?
Remember the main reason your fireplace works at all is the heat inside the chimney. If your wood is not dry and well seasoned it makes more smoke than heat and there simply may not be enough heat for the chimney to work properly.
3) Is your chimney dirty?
The gradual accumulation of soot can seriously affect the way your chimney performs. Thick layers of soot of course can physically restrict the flue so there is no longer enough free area to vent the fireplace properly, (see problem 5) but as little as a 1/4" to 1/2" inch buildup can make more difference than you might think. Consider that a 1/2" buildup will restrict the air flow by 17% for a typical masonry fireplace chimney, and by a whopping 30% for the average prefab. Birds and small animals also think your chimney looks like a hollow tree in which to set up housekeeping. Sweeps often find chimneys literally packed full of leaves, twigs and baby animals. The solution of course is a good cleaning and a chimney cap.
4) Is your chimney tall enough?
To function properly, the chimney should be at least 10 or 12 feet in overall height. Where it projects above the roof, the chimney should be at least 3 feet tall, and at least 2 feet higher than anything within 10 feet of it-including other buildings, trees, etc. If your fireplace smokes because your chimney is too short, the problem is usually worse when the wind blows.
5) Is your flue large enough for the fireplace opening?
There are many variables that can affect this including; overall chimney height, how warm the flue stays, throat configuration, etc., but the basic rule of thumb here is that the area of the fireplace opening can be no more than 10 times the area of the flue (12 times for round flues). An undersized flue simply can't handle the volume of smoke produced, and some of it will spill back into the room. Since there is no practical way to make the flue size larger, the solution may be to make the room opening smaller with metal smoke guards or some creative masonry work. In fact there are now some premanfactured refractory firebox retrofits that work well with a 15 to 1 ratio and deliver twice the heat of conventional fireboxes.
6) Is your home too tight?
Fireplaces require large volumes of air to burn. Visualize a 12" x 12" column of air rising up your chimney and exiting the top the entire time your fireplace is working (but don't visualize your heat bill!). This air comes from inside the living area and must somehow be replaced. With modern energy efficiency concerns most houses have been carefully insulated and weather-stripped to keep out the cold drafts, but an undesirable side effect is that there is often nowhere for all that air leaving the chimney to get back in. This can lead to fireplaces that burn sluggishly and smoke. A temporary solution is to open a window to let in a little make up air, preferably on the windward side of the house. It can also lead to very dangerous carbon monoxide buildup if your fireplace and furnace must compete for combustion air, and a permanent solution should be found at once.
7) Is there a return air grill in the same room as the fireplace?
As the fireplace consumes air and cold air moves into the house to replace it, the furnace is likely to come on. When the furnace comes on, air is drawn into the return competing directly with the needs of the fireplace.
Portions reprinted with permission from CSIA
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