Old Smokey's Fireplace & Chimney's Blog

Let Old Smokey’s fix your Smoky Fireplace

Your fireplace offers you endless hours of enjoyment with its warmth and ambiance. However, if there are smoke entering your home with each fire, this can ruin your fireplace experience. At Old Smokey’s, we want you to enjoy your fireplace as long as possible. If you’re having issues with your fireplace, we can help! Let us help you discover what issues are causing your fireplace to smoke, and our experts can also offer the skills and experience to resolve it.

What causes smoky fireplaces?

Most smoky fireplace problems are from airflow issues. If your chimney or home’s airflow system isn’t working properly, you will have issues with your fires not burning hot enough and improper smoke ventilation.

Chimney blockages also have a detrimental effect on airflow. Your chimney is designed to quickly take smoke and gases out of your home. However, if there is a blockage in your chimney, smoke and gases start to back up to cause a smoky home. There are many things that can cause a chimney blockages. Creosote build up or build ups of organic material such as sticks, leaves, and animal nests or even a malfunctioning damper can all contribute to a chimney blockage. The best solution to prevent a chimney blockage is to get your chimney inspected by a Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) certified chimney sweep annually.

Another common issue with airflow is negative air pressure in your home. Sometimes, when a home is sealed too tightly, wind and temperature differences can cause the air pressure outside of your home to be greater than the inside of your home. This turns your home into a vacuum. Since air can’t get in through your windows and doors, it often gets sucked in through the fireplace. Negative air pressure can usually be solved by simply cracking a window until your chimney starts working again.

Other common issues

When smoke doesn’t have a smooth passage from your firebox to your chimney’s outlet, it bounces around your chimney and starts to cause smoke to build up and flow into your home. If there are missing parts in your chimney flue or smoke chamber, it will prevent smoke from venting properly. If this is the cause, it is a good time to have your chimney relined or your smoke chamber parged. These issues are sometimes complicated, and they should only be performed by an experienced, CSIA certified chimney technician.

You don’t have to put up with a smoky fireplace. Call Old Smokey’s today at 260-424-0009, or schedule an appointment online to have one of our CSIA chimney technicians fix your smoky fireplace today!

Add Convenience With a New Gas Log Set

Are you thinking of adding a new fireplace to your home? Do you rarely use your older wood burning fireplace? Wood fireplaces are wonderful, but they do take a lot more work in regards to operation and upkeep. Oftentimes, the inconvenience of chopping wood and starting a wood fire deters homeowners from using their fireplace as much as they would like. But, what if we told you that you could have an authentic looking fire with the flip of a switch? At Old Smokey’s, we are very excited about the selection of gas log sets that we have available. Our gas log sets are easy to operate, easier to maintain, and are usually more economical than their wood-burning counterparts.

Gas Log Sets

A gas log set is an appliance that can either be installed in a new fireplace or be inserted in an already existing gas or wood burning fireplace. It consists of a gas burner and a set of ceramic logs. The burner produces large flames, similar to what you would get with a wood burning appliance, using either natural gas or propane. The fire resistant ceramic logs look like real wooden logs. The effect of the burner and the log set together is a genuine looking wood fire but without the wood.

Gas log sets mimic wood burning fireplace while producing a similar amount of heat. However, they aren’t incredibly efficient heat producers and therefore aren’t recommended for home heating needs. If you are looking for home heating options, check out some of the other appliances that we offer here at Old Smokey’s.

Convenience

Although gas log sets require similar ventilation as a wood burning fireplace, the ventilation system is usually easier to maintain. This is because the ceramic log don’t actually burn and only produces a small amount of gas byproduct from the natural gas or propane. Therefore, vent cleaning is easier due to the diminished creosote production. That being said, it is still important to have you vent inspected every year by a Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) certified chimney sweep.

Gas log sets are much easier to operate than a wood fireplace. Instead of finding a wood source, hauling and stacking wood at home, all you need to do with a gas log set is flip a switch. It doesn’t get much easier than that!

If you want to add convenience and elegance to your home, call us at Old Smokey’s to get an estimate on a gas log set. You can call us at 800-876-6539 or schedule an appointment online here. We look forward to hearing from you!