hello,
i bought a 2 story house and it has a fireplace in the living room.
one big problem though...it doesn't work unless a window or a door is open in the said room or otherwise smoke starts building up over the fireplace. the fireplace can't really heat up the room due to the required airflow.
i need some help to fix this, so i've provided some schematics of the whole installation (sorry, can't take decent photos ATM). my units are metric.
*) this is the house overview:
in this view the back of the house is pretty much north - i.e. where most of the wind is comming from. i haven't calculated the roof angle, but it's less than 45 degrees.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1627980/fireplace/fireplace_image1.png
*) this is the fireplace
it's a weird one...
the base is a quarter of cylinder with radius of about 90cm.
the "exhaust" (not sure about the term in english) is conical, yet not that good looking.
the skeleton inside is probably a metal net to provide a shape. the filling is probably slaked lime, sand and cement + something else,
while the coverage is painted plaster.
what happens is that whenever i start a small fire that produces slightly more smoke,
there doesn't seem to be enough "pull" for this smoke to leave the conical exhaust and it's starts to enter the room.
...if i open a window or the door slightly the smokes goes through the exhaust into the chimney, but the room starts getting cold.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1627980/fireplace/fireplace_image2.png
*) this is a view from the top - looking down the chimney
it's a double chimney...my guess is that the second hole was planned for the bedroom above the living room but it's currently unused and completely closed bellow.
there are these wierd brick cavities between the two chimney holes, which seem more like a construction imperfection and not like something planned.
these seem to go all the way down between the two chimeny holes.
hot air seems to go though the cavities!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1627980/fireplace/fireplace_image3.png
notes / questions:
*) i ran a stone tied to a rope through both holes to make sure they are clean!
*) i'm pretty sure that the chimney needs to be taller, as currently it doesn't follow the "2ft" rule (0.5 / 0.6m)?
should that be the first thing to try?
*) given the "weird cavities" between chimney holes, would those affect the air flow in a negative way?
i've tried closing the second unused chimney hole from the top with a metal plate, but it didn't change anything.
*) someone told me that the chimney should not be a T-shape on top. any idea why is that?
*) it feels like the base of the fireplace is too low, while the cone is too high. would changing that make any improvement?
*) is the "cone" shape a bad idea for an open fireplace in general? perhaps this one needs a complete redesign?
thanks for any ideas!
l.
i bought a 2 story house and it has a fireplace in the living room.
one big problem though...it doesn't work unless a window or a door is open in the said room or otherwise smoke starts building up over the fireplace. the fireplace can't really heat up the room due to the required airflow.
i need some help to fix this, so i've provided some schematics of the whole installation (sorry, can't take decent photos ATM). my units are metric.
*) this is the house overview:
in this view the back of the house is pretty much north - i.e. where most of the wind is comming from. i haven't calculated the roof angle, but it's less than 45 degrees.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1627980/fireplace/fireplace_image1.png
*) this is the fireplace
it's a weird one...
the base is a quarter of cylinder with radius of about 90cm.
the "exhaust" (not sure about the term in english) is conical, yet not that good looking.
the skeleton inside is probably a metal net to provide a shape. the filling is probably slaked lime, sand and cement + something else,
while the coverage is painted plaster.
what happens is that whenever i start a small fire that produces slightly more smoke,
there doesn't seem to be enough "pull" for this smoke to leave the conical exhaust and it's starts to enter the room.
...if i open a window or the door slightly the smokes goes through the exhaust into the chimney, but the room starts getting cold.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1627980/fireplace/fireplace_image2.png
*) this is a view from the top - looking down the chimney
it's a double chimney...my guess is that the second hole was planned for the bedroom above the living room but it's currently unused and completely closed bellow.
there are these wierd brick cavities between the two chimney holes, which seem more like a construction imperfection and not like something planned.
these seem to go all the way down between the two chimeny holes.
hot air seems to go though the cavities!
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1627980/fireplace/fireplace_image3.png
notes / questions:
*) i ran a stone tied to a rope through both holes to make sure they are clean!
*) i'm pretty sure that the chimney needs to be taller, as currently it doesn't follow the "2ft" rule (0.5 / 0.6m)?
should that be the first thing to try?
*) given the "weird cavities" between chimney holes, would those affect the air flow in a negative way?
i've tried closing the second unused chimney hole from the top with a metal plate, but it didn't change anything.
*) someone told me that the chimney should not be a T-shape on top. any idea why is that?
*) it feels like the base of the fireplace is too low, while the cone is too high. would changing that make any improvement?
*) is the "cone" shape a bad idea for an open fireplace in general? perhaps this one needs a complete redesign?
thanks for any ideas!
l.