STW open fire experts – advice needed!

We recently moved house and in the lounge is an open Baxi fireplace (no back boiler). Over the course of the last week we have lit four or fire fires and each time Mrs me complains about the strong smell. We have tried coal (smokeless and standard), coal and wood mix and most recently just wood. Is the strong smell common, would having the chimney swept help, is it just something you get used to? Either way, no more open fires for me for a while.

Alternatively, who can tell me about multi fuel log burners?

Have you had the chimney checked? A good sweep should be able to do it. It might be a condition of your insurance, too. If the chimney is leaking then it could be dangerous. If its all fine then enjoy it. Can’t beat the smell of a log fire 🙂

Definitely worth getting the chimney swept- shouldn’t cost too much.

As above. Previous owners of ours used the fire. The sweep took 4 rubble sacks of pigeon, nest and soot out of it. Amazed they didn’t set fire to the thing.

We don’t use it as don’t like the dirt and smell but it doesn’t seem to be a great design. If it would foot in with the house i’d seriously consider putting in a stove as they are generall cleaner,safer, easier and more efficient.

On the list for us but they are expensive and we’d be taking out an original Victorian cast iron Jonny which looks nice.

They do smell a bit. If you’re not used to it, it can be a bit much to start with. My wife complained when we first started using ours in the Autumn. She never mentions it now. Chimney sweep is an essential though as others have said.

Have you got enough ventilation into the room? If we close the living room door with the open fire lit, me and mrs pole are soon coughing and eyes running, open the door a tiny bit and everything’s fine.

Our living room open fire will suck it’s own exhaust down the other chimneys in the house if it is really going. I’ve blocked off the other chimneys using Chimney Balloons to reduce this.

Have you got enough ventilation into the room? If we close the living room door with the open fire lit, me and mrs pole are soon coughing and eyes running, open the door a tiny bit and everything’s fine.

This is not right and sbould not happen. Get someone in to look at your fire.

Have you got enough ventilation into the room? If we close the living room door with the open fire lit, me and mrs pole are soon coughing and eyes running, open the door a tiny bit and everything’s fine.

…and a carbon monoxide alarm at the very least. Doesn’t sound right at all your situation. Seems like for you room ventilation is an issue? We’ve a sodding great air brick behind our fire.

Fires do smell a bit, yet we figure in our house that warm smell to be a bonus; great walking down the stairs to the smell of burning wood and hot iron surely? There is a limit though – doesn’t hurt to get these things checked out.

Make sure there isn’t a damper in the chimney that you are leaving closed!
If it is drawing correctly you should need to close it down to slow the burn – if you have to open a door then something is preventing the chimney drawing correctly.

You need to appreciate that an open fire, when drawing correctly, should suck massive volumes of air up the flue, which is what ensures that all the smoke goes the right way. A big open section flue or a cold flue or a dirty or blocked flue won’t draw as well as a hot, small-section, smooth flue, which is why you can get downdrafts and smoking into the room. As the combustion temperature increases so does the power of the rising column of hot gases, which actually creates a slight pressure drop within the room. You need to admit fresh air to replace what the flue is sucking out or you’ll get poor performance and smoking.

The simple answer is to replace the open fire with a wood-burner or a multi-fuel. I think the latter is more flexible because you can burn a wider variety of fuels and with experience you can create a bed of glowing embers, on which to burn your nice dry logs, creating very hot temperatures and nice clean combustion. A wood burner looks nice because it is usually bigger with a better view of the fire but a couple of logs sitting on a grate won’t burn particularly well; you need to create that hot bed of embers to get the best combustion. The best advice I got was to err on the side of a smaller stove, which you will burn harder and therefore hotter and cleaner. Nothing looks worse than an oversize stove, shut down and smoking up the glass. Something like a Dovre 250 is ideal for most houses.

With an open fire, over 80% of the heat goes up the flue. With a stove it’s about the opposite of that and you won’t get those smells and soot in the room. Find a good chimney sweep and make friends with him – he will advise on the best stove for you, where to get it and the best solution for the flue, whether it needs lining or not to create that smooth column of rising hot gases. He will install everything correctly and make provision for sweeping.

If you’re in the North West, Ian at Acorn Chimneys is excellent and Milligans in Burnley are first class for fuel, stoves, stove spares and friendly advice.

always a bit of smell with an open fire, but shouldn’t be that bad.

also, they can certainly smoke a bit, to start with, until going properly

anyway,

– get it swept
– check there isn’t a damper, or if there is, that it is open

log burners? clicky

Open fires produce massive amounts of carbon monoxide, if there was a nest in the chimney and there was a sootfall while the fire was going, it would block the chimney, you could be rendered unconcious in a few seconds, dead within a minute.
Even the the carbon monoxide alarm may not save you.