Q&A smoke fills house

Question:

We have installed a woodstove in the past month. It is an Elmira wood stove with a fireplace brick hearth and four foot brick wall. The chimney runs out of the stove, up to the ceiling and straight out the roof. The outside chimney is about 4 -6' above the roof.

When we light the stove we seem to be getting a back draft which has filled our house with smoke. This woodstove can not be used at this capacity. The smell of smoke runs through the entire house and lasts for days.

What is our solution? How do we prevent this back draft inorder to use the woodstove? This stove can not be used until the solution is found!



Answer:

This is a common problem and can be solved. The simplest way is to try and open a window nearby when starting. Other causes and their solutions can be found in the Q and A at http://chi.hearth.com/search.html and the info page at http://hearth.com/what/specific.html