Keep Your Fireplace Smoke Free

Smoke coming into your room, also known as back puffing, is not only an inconvenience; it also poses a threat to your family.

Fireplace smoke is dangerous to breath as it carries with it deadly carbon monoxide. Smoke coming into your room, also known as back puffing, is not only an inconvenience; it also poses a threat to your family. You will need to have your fireplace properly diagnosed and treated to find the cause of the back puffing and eliminate it.

If you have a smoking fireplace, complete the following steps:

Your first step is to ensure that the fireplace has a large enough supply of fresh air to replace the dangerous gases that are escaping up the chimney. All the exhaust fans, even ones on a different floor, should be shut off. These fans are definitely pulling some of the household air into them, and may even be pulling in your fireplace smoke. Try opening a small window or cracking open a door near the fireplace if the problem in not fixed by turning off the exhaust fans.

You can fix the problem with a Vacu-Stack Chimney Cap if your fireplace only emits smoke back into the room on a windy day. The Vacu-Stack Chimney Cap will create a vacuum up the flue as the wind passes through the chimney cap. The more the wind blows, the harder this chimney cap pulls the smoke up your chimney. This will keep the smoke out of your room and up the chimney where it belongs.

There are three things you can do if your fireplace back puffs on both windy and calm days:

• You can install a Smoke Guard to reduce the size of the fireplace opening. This only works if the front area of your fireplace (width times height, in square inches) is more than ten times the area of your flue. You can determine the area of a square or rectangular flue by simply multiplying wide times length. For a round flue you will want to multiply 3.14 times radius times radius. A Smoke Guard works by allowing the flue to work more efficiently, as the opening of the fireplace will be better proportioned to the size of the flue. You can find Smoke Guards with either a black or brass finish.
   
• Did the smoke clear up when you opened a door or window as described above? If the answer is yes, but you don’t want to keep your window or doors open on a cold winter night you may want to think about installing a small vent near the fireplace to allow fresh air to enter the room.
   
• The Exhausto Fan can solve any back puffing problem. This fan mounts to the top of your chimney and is entirely weatherproof. You will never again have a smoky fireplace as this power fan creates a forced air draft that quickly pulls smoke right up the chimney.
   

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