Wall vent for open fire

[Daz33]

I have a small sitting room with an open fire. When I light the fire I have to keep the door open about 1cm or the fire starts to smoke. I understand an open fire needs to draw air up the chimney and it is getting this through the open door.

The problem is the draught of cold air coming through the open door from the hall is very annoying and cold! And the cold air has to travel right across the room to reach the fire. I was thinking of putting a hole in the wall and put a vent near the fire so that the fire could draw air from our hall and then that would let me close the door without the fire smoking.

Where I was thinking of putting the vent there would be no one sitting and shouldnt be uncomfortable and its only going to be a few feet from the fire.

Is this the proper thing to do?

 

[Alastairreid]

what kind of chimney pot do you have?.

you can change the pot for one which creates more draw.
or you can get a revolving granny fitted which extracts the smoke.
theres a lot of different products on the market which will solve your back smoke problem without punching holes in your l/room walls.

 

[gday2uk]

Does it still happen after the fire has been lit for 5 mins?
After it has got warm the difference in air temperature should carry it up the chimney. The way to do a smoke test on a flue is to shut all doors and windows then light the smoke pellet to test, so this flue would obviously fail.
May be an idea to get a sweeps opinion.

 

[stuart45]

There are several reasons why smoke escapes back into a room.
One is air starvation. Some people fit a Draught master vent over the door. This is fitted with a mica flap. Another reason is that the throat is badly formed or too large. This can be put right by reconstructing the throat or fitting a throat restrictor. It can also happen if the fireplace is too large or the opening is too high.
Other reasons could be problems with the flue or as stated by alastairreid a different type of pot may help.
It can also be the flue terminating in a high pressure area. Short chimneys on bungalows sometimes suffer this problem.