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!