Smokey chimney

[jj4091]

Many years since we had a coal fire & had similar problems. Resolved by fitting OH pot on chimney stack which made air be drawn up the chimney even when the fire was not lit.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Back in my father's day, we had a smokey chimney until the chimney had warmed up a little, after the fire was got going. The way he would get it going quickly, with minimum smoke in the house, was to set it, light it and immediately put what I think they called a 'draw tin' in front of the fire - a sheet of galv. tin, with a handle on the back. The tin would block off almost all of the upper part of the fire place opening, just leaving an air gap at the bottom. Air was drawn in quite fiercely, the fire would be got going very quickly and the smoke had nowhere to go but up the chimney. Except - not having a properly fitting draw tin, he would use a sheet of newspaper to help seal the gaps. Often the paper would catch fire, to test his reactions

 

[foxhole]

A property of that age will have room vents, they must have been removed /infilled .

 

[conny]

My mum used to use the newspaper method as well. She would sometimes put a small shovel in front of the paper to reduce the chance of the paper catching fire but if it did she simply screwed it up, threw it on the fire and got another sheet of newspaper to begin again.
We have a log burner and until it gets used regularly on a daily basis, (like now), we always open a window for 5 minutes when we first light it. Never have a problem with smoky rooms these days.