So last night I decided to have a small fire for ambiance in the living room fireplace. There's no insert, just an open fireplace. The problem is 95% of the smoke goes up the flu like it should, but 5% spills out into the room. I think the problem is my fireplace is too shallow. If I place logs East/West and shove them all the way back it works fine, but if there's any placed North/South they end up being too long (my logs are 16"), and the last 4" or so of the log's extend past where the top of the fireplace begins to taper to the flu, so the smoke coming from there gets into the house. After about 2 hours our eyes started to burn and the smoke alarm started beeping. I had a window next to the fireplace cracked the entire time but it didn't seem to help much. The only thing that helped was when I finally took tongs and turned all the logs East/West and pushed them as far back as I could. So what are my options if I want to have small fires in the fireplace occasionally? Would installing glass doors on the fireplace help? Right now it's just a metal screen, and I was thinking glass doors might seal well enough to stop the smoke from spilling out? Or would something like this work for force all the logs to the back of the fireplace: It's call the "Grate wall of fire". I'm not looking for heat output, I'd like like to have a small fire now and then for the look and sound.
I would check and make sure your chimney is clean to pull the best draft, push the fire back as far as possible and get the glass door covers. You may benefit from shorter splits too, nothing says you have to burn 16" long splits. Then see how it goes from there. Good Luck
When we lived at home my dad would put a piece of aluminum foil across the top of the fireplace opening. (they only burned occasionally) Maybe 8-10" high. Of coarse something a little more permanent would be the answer. eventually he put glass doors on. The glass doors seemed to hold a lot of the heat back so he would just close the doors part way until the smoke stopped .
It sounds like it is just the depth of your fireplace. Get some properly sized andirons for your fireplace and burn it EW. I think most fireplaces were designed to burn in that manner anyway.
Hmmm, I never thought of fabbing something temporary out of foil, that's a good idea, thanks! Other than that, my chimney is clean. The draft isn't great, but I made sure to get the wood burning boiler in the basement good and hot so the flu adjacent to the fireplace flu was warm, and it did improve the draft tremendously vs having a cold chimney. I do need to get some sort of andirons to keep everything towards the back. Looking at my fireplace design, I guess it was made to burn logs in the E/W direction.
How is the air pressure in the house? Is the wood boiler sucking a lot of air out of a tight house? A friend swears by the Great Wall of Fire. It keeps the fire near the back of the fireplace and exposes a large surface area for excellent radiant heat. KaptJaq
I don't think the boiler burning at the same time was the issue. It's in the basement, and I cracked a window right next to the fireplace just to be sure it got enough air.
