barometric damper blues

[smeller]

Perhalps someone out there could help me with this long winded problem...We built a new house 6 years ago, and have a walkout basement with all of my heating in it. A wood stove, an oil furnace, and an oil fired hot water heater. At the time they were all hooked into one 7 inch chimney ( contractor said was ok).. and we used it for approx 1 year with major downdraft issues. Eventually we decided to separate the oil from the wood, to try and help the smoke billowing out of the wood stove, so we keep the 7 inch flue as it was for the wood, and installed a 6 " chimney to handle the oil furnace and water heater. NEw problem.....smoke and fumes occationally pour out of the barometric damper of the oil fired things...One thing i notice is that the 6 " pipe coming out of the 2 units is quite flat..maybe 3 % slope, before it take a 90 and goes up the chimney. The wood and oil chimneys are approx. 16 inches apart, and end at the same height as each other 3 stories up.
If anyone had the time to read all that and can get a picture of what is happening, is their any advice i can get...the contractors in my area have 3 fingers and play banjo.

ps... i was planning on setting up a small computer fan infront of the barometric damper to blow positive air all the time up the oil chimney...is that a good idea?

signed...smelly

 

[begreen]

Welcome, Mr. S. (Gotta get a new handle, you won't be smelly once this is remedied.) This probably can be fixed, though you've started off with some really bad advice. First off, your contractor was dead wrong. That kind of opinion can kill people. He should be called on that one.

Each appliance should have a dedicated flue. You need to have a qualified heating contractor look at the setup. My guess is that you'll need to add a flue or a power venting system for the HW heater. The other issue is that you have a lot of air hungry heating devices in one space. If this is new construction, there needs to be adequate fresh makeup air supplying these devices. Otherwise, it will pull makeup air from anywhere it can get it, including down the flue. Is there a fresh air supply to the hw heater and furnace? Does the woodstove have an outdoor air kit?

Can you post a picture of the setup and/or a diagram? That will help. Also, what make and model woodstove?