Posting this because I didn’t find this solution when I looked for one a year ago. I haven’t checked for it on this forum since then but I want to just make a post instead of it being an answer to someone posting a question about how to do it. This will work for a wood stove or a fireplace. Open a door or window far enough to allow cold air into the house, more than comes down your chimney. This makes the air in your house want to escape, and where does it go? Up your chimney. Light your fire while the air is going up your chimney, and the fire is quickly strong enough to sustain the updraft and you can close the window or door not long after you light the fire (1-3 minutes). See below for the story how I came to find this out.
I have a Jotul F500 that has a flue exit to the rear, not top (you can make it either way on the F500). The single wall stove pipe goes horizontally about 1 ft before changing to double wall stove pipe to pass through the exterior wall of my house, then it immediately hits a T intersection and turns up to go up the chaise about 3 stories, to the peak of the roof over the second floor. This makes it a very long external chimney that gets cold. Doing nothing but trying to light it when a cold downdraft was coming into the house through the stove made the smoke come out, and every way I tried to heat the air up, like filling up the firebox with newspaper and lighting it all, did not reverse the downdraft. I looked on some forums and did not find the solution that worked, among ideas like use a propane torch or hair dryer to heat the air.
During the 3rd time I was smoking up the house, I noticed when I opened the door and windows to start clearing the smoke out, the smoke stopped coming out of the wood stove. It was because of the cold air coming in the house pushing the air in the wood stove up the chimney.
I have a Jotul F500 that has a flue exit to the rear, not top (you can make it either way on the F500). The single wall stove pipe goes horizontally about 1 ft before changing to double wall stove pipe to pass through the exterior wall of my house, then it immediately hits a T intersection and turns up to go up the chaise about 3 stories, to the peak of the roof over the second floor. This makes it a very long external chimney that gets cold. Doing nothing but trying to light it when a cold downdraft was coming into the house through the stove made the smoke come out, and every way I tried to heat the air up, like filling up the firebox with newspaper and lighting it all, did not reverse the downdraft. I looked on some forums and did not find the solution that worked, among ideas like use a propane torch or hair dryer to heat the air.
During the 3rd time I was smoking up the house, I noticed when I opened the door and windows to start clearing the smoke out, the smoke stopped coming out of the wood stove. It was because of the cold air coming in the house pushing the air in the wood stove up the chimney.
