Dear All,
I have somewhat of a quandry on my hands and I'm looking for help from the sages.
At our home we have a potbelly stove in the basement and a woodburning fireplace on the first floor and while each has its separate flue, both share the same chase up to the top of the roof--the flues run side by side all the way up.
Recently, I've noticed a smokey smell running out of the potbelly's downdraft (and consequently into my basement) whenever I burn a fire in the upstairs fire place. I believe the fireplace's rooftop chimney is higher than the potbelly stove's.
The real bummer is that there are return grills in my basement. So whenever I have a fire in the upstairs fireplace, the basement returns have been sucking smokey air--which comes from the potbelly's downdraft--into the furnace, making our entire 1st floor smell faintly of smoke.
I am getting a new damper for my potbelly stove because the one I have now is only 4 inches and it's in a 6 inch flue pipe. Hopefully once that's done we won't have such a strong downdraft anymore.
Do you have any other suggestions? Should I consider making the rooftop potbelly chimney pipe higher than the fireplace's since the fireplace never seems to have a downdraft at all?
Please advise,
Smokey in NJ
I have somewhat of a quandry on my hands and I'm looking for help from the sages.
At our home we have a potbelly stove in the basement and a woodburning fireplace on the first floor and while each has its separate flue, both share the same chase up to the top of the roof--the flues run side by side all the way up.
Recently, I've noticed a smokey smell running out of the potbelly's downdraft (and consequently into my basement) whenever I burn a fire in the upstairs fire place. I believe the fireplace's rooftop chimney is higher than the potbelly stove's.
The real bummer is that there are return grills in my basement. So whenever I have a fire in the upstairs fireplace, the basement returns have been sucking smokey air--which comes from the potbelly's downdraft--into the furnace, making our entire 1st floor smell faintly of smoke.
I am getting a new damper for my potbelly stove because the one I have now is only 4 inches and it's in a 6 inch flue pipe. Hopefully once that's done we won't have such a strong downdraft anymore.
Do you have any other suggestions? Should I consider making the rooftop potbelly chimney pipe higher than the fireplace's since the fireplace never seems to have a downdraft at all?
Please advise,
Smokey in NJ
