My friend Don lives in New Mexico @ 1900m altitude (this could be useful info, but I don't know how/why at this moment).
He moved into an 'adobe-style' ranch with clay walls. In the corner of one of the rooms is an open fireplace (not a modern-day wood burner) and the flue is not visible, it is boxed in so to speak; 2 of the sides are outside walls, the 3rd side is the curved wall in the living room (See pic, with the fireplace on the left).
He is unable to start the fire without getting tons of smoke in the living room. So we discussed the problem but tbh, I'm only familiar with modern-day wood-burners with a glass door. A few years back I had the same problem with my -then new- woodburner and the suggestion launched here: "Use a heat gun to heat the flue; it will start a draft upwards!" was the 100% answer. I guess that the ambient temp in my friend's living room is higher than the temp of the flue!
He cannot reach the flue to heat it with a heat gun, since it's behind the clay wall. There is a 'damper' inside; it can be opened and shut, and it's located inside the wall, just above the fireplace itself. A metal plate that can be adjusted. He can reach that, he told me. I suggested that he could warm up/heat up the damper plate to kick-start an upward draft. That cold piece of metal is not helping. When heated, it could start a draft But I am not sure that it's even a useful suggestion.
I know that a lot of older houses in the UK have/had open fireplaces as well. What's (was) the common practice to make sure that the fireplace works properly, without smoking the living room?
Last edited by thieuster; 7th February 2025 at 14:13.
Suggest no ‘draw’
Is the chimney blocked? If smokes coming back into the room it would suggest it’s not being drawn up the chimney
The heat gun warms the chimney - I don’t think it has anything to do with draw - just helps start the fire
I presume he’s opening the damper to start the fire - opening the door to the room should crate a draught to help light the fire
Last edited by lewie; 7th February 2025 at 14:14.
In our old cottage on Bodmin Moor with a similar fireplace, we lit a bundle of dry kindling, something that would burn quickly and hotly, then covered the fireplace with suitable metal sheeting which was removed once the draw had established.
Thus there was nowhere for the hotter air to go other than up the flue.
The metal shield had a shuttered louvre at the bottom so that combustion air could be admitted at a controllable rate.
It worked OK; the trick was to know at what point to remove the metal shield and add slower-burning logs.
The flue has to be clear of course; do they have jackdaws in New Mexico?
Last edited by unclealec; 7th February 2025 at 14:58.
Absent a suitable metal sheet to ´close´ the fire hole to encourage the draw, I´ve seen it done with an unfolded newspaper sheet., though not always successfully...We Grandkids would thrill to see Grand dad attempt this feat to cure a smoky sub par fire starting...
1) try creating a draught by opening a window.
2) consider having the chimney swept
3) if the above fails, at this altitude it is possible that he needs the heating. If so, a closed fire is much, much more efficient; if it's just for pleasure, try and find an old local builder of those adobe houses. They know how to make them chimneys work, or know someone who does: it's much more witchcraft than rocket science, and experience is key.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
If he doesn't know when the chimney was last swept, I'd get that done in the first instance - who knows what muck there might be up there, blocking emissions and potentially ready to catch fire.
This ^ we have a wood burner and get the chimney swept every year even though we burn clean and dry wood if there was ever a problem i would expect any insurance company to get out of a claim asap.Originally Posted by JonRA
I FEEL LIKE I'M DIAGONALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE
Yup get it swept first order...
Having had many open fires over the years, first thing is to check someone hasn’t closed the hole in the chimney. (It’s a common thing in the uk when the fireplace is just a show piece to cap the chimney).
Then check it’s not blocked, birds nests are a pain. ( it’s easy to do just get some drain rods and poke them down, remember to sheet up the fireplace first otherwise he might have a lot of cleaning up to do !!! ))
If it’s clear and it’s all ok what I used to do at the beginning of winters is take the powder out of about a box of shotgun cartridges put the powder on a small tray and set it alight. ( it’s burns hot and quickly and moves most rubbish that’s left in the chimney, used to use black powder till I gave up my guns)
If the chimney hasn't been swept first, when the technique can be used to burn whatever's left, I would be afraid of this being the perfect recipe for starting a chimney fire, especially when one has no history as to how the fireplace was used, how often, and when it was last swept.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
He writes: “The flue is perfectly clean and the damper is completely open.”
I’m going list all suggestions given here and he can tick the boxes of things he has done. One thing I need to ask him: how does he know that the flue is clean. Indeed, I have the flues of our wood burners swept and checked every year as well. That has to do with the home insurance policies here.
(Personally, I try to avoid spruce wood. The resin often leaves a lot of sticky residu in the flue. But some people don't mind. As a matter of fact, a neighbour and his son come over to my place tomorrow to cut down two spruces for their wood burners).
Last edited by thieuster; 7th February 2025 at 16:29.
Similarly,we would watch our Dad do the same and became most excited when the newspaper burst into flames, he was a bit prone to fire related drama and once managed to set fire to my newly constructed sledge which was in a store room.... we were lucky to reach teenage .....Absent a suitable metal sheet to ´close´ the fire hole to encourage the draw, I´ve seen it done with an unfolded newspaper sheet., though not always successfully...We Grandkids would thrill to see Grand dad attempt this feat to cure a smoky sub par fire starting...
Yep - I remember the newspaper bursting into flames regularly!
A dear friend of mine owned a respected motor repair garage in Lancashire. He was a long-term pipe smoker.
He was prone to returning home after a diligent day's work, sitting by the range in the kitchen, nodding off, and bursting into flames.
He had the unfortunate tendncy to knock the embers from the pipe bowl, but not quite hard enough. The pipe was then stowed in his overall breast pocket.
If he was lucky, they would smoulder and pat out; if he was unlucky, he got doused with a pan of water.
And remember that some open fireplaces just smoke. They just do.
The way the airflow is drawn up the chimney is very complex and changes as the airflow/chimney warms/cools as the fire get s going and dies down. Our old inglenook fireplace in the Dining Room used to look absolutely amazing, but would on occasions smoke the whole house out if the wind direction changed, or if it was foggy, or if we opened a door somewhere in the house, or if, or if, or if. You get the picture. At other times it worked brilliantly.
I can recall one Christmas day, right before everyone was arriving for dinner, I walked into the room and you couldn't see a thing as the whole room had filled with smoke. We used to have to leave a bathroom window open and have the central heating on full blast to get it warm enough due to the drafts, so ended up swopping it for a woodburning stove.
It is worth making sure the flue is clear as others have suggested, but don't forget that every m3 of air that goes up the chimney to take the smoke away it has to be replaced by inflow air, so you will need a door/window open somewhere nearby to let air into the building - which is why open fires are more about radiant heat and visual affect than real warming/efficiency and have all but died out these days.
Hope you get it sorted, as it will look amazing when it is working properly.
Last edited by Maysie; 7th February 2025 at 17:40.
Highlight of some weekends as a nipper. Flames would invariably be accompanied be an outburst of highly imaginative and vivid profanity, then much shushing and reprimands from the aunties and Grandma.
Yes, the heat gun warms the chimney but is all to do with the draw (not to start the fire - wouldn’t help much anyway). Cold air therein can prevent the hot air rising.
Last edited by Kingstepper; 7th February 2025 at 17:28.
Completely, even with a modern wood burner vs old fire place. if there is dense cold air in the chimney / flue, the room will fill with smoke. A simple lighting block or two is enough to clear, and the build slowly with kindling, doesn’t take that much to resolve at all.
You get a brief warning if it’s going to go wrong as the glass gets condensation on the inside, followed by lots of moisture and then smoke inside the room. Building the heat slowly & pushing the dense cold air out works with either slow small fire or faster with a heat gun.
OP look forward to the learnings on this, chimney blockage vs learning the fire skill base£ on the first style & elevation!
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That's how we do it. The absence of really cold weather makes that we don't have to use the heat gun method here. (I learned the heat gun trick here on TZ-UK).
I sent all the relevant info to my friend. He's clever enough to figure out what he should do (or not do). Personally I would do what was suggested here earlier: have a modern-day wood burner installed. We have a 3 free standing woodturners and one built-in burner. The 3 free standing ones generate a lot more warmth than the built-in.
The first house I remember living in had no heating other than an open coal fire.
We used the sheet of newspaper method to create the draught. Not sure I would recommend it these days, I seem to remember that visits from fire engines weren’t that rare in the neighbourhood although not at our house. I think it was chimneys and chip pans.
Anybody remember folded newspaper firelighters? Called Duckies in our house, parents from Nottingham, seemed to be lots of references to ducks in the Nottinghamish language.
Procedure went something like:
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Last edited by BillyCasper; 7th February 2025 at 23:11.
Been there, done that!
We were posh, we had a draw tin to replace the newspaper. The draw tin was a sheet of galvanised steel with a handle, a safer way to ' draw' the fire and get it started. Gas poker was another useful tool, plug it into the gas pipe, stick it into the coals, turn on the gas, throw in a lighted match and listen to the woof! Getting the hairs on the back of your hand singed was not uncommon, never forgotten the smell.
They were called "bleezers" in county Durham mining villages.
Coal needed lots of heat to get going.
Wood kindling on top of crunched up newspaper.
Wait for the paper to burn the wood for a few minutes, then load cold damp coal on top once there is enough heat.
It used to take 20-30 minutes before the coal was fully alight.
The bleezer (flat metal plate with a handle) can be used to turbo charged the process, and cut the waiting time down.
A log burning fire would need a newspaper or firelighter pre-heat.
The metal plate would need to be curved, with a 20-30cm overlap to fit loosely against the fire surround.
The draft created by the plate is a similar effect to using bellows.
Granny used to leave a small gap at the bottom to force fedd the air under the grate.
There is a metal grate in the fireplace to raise the logs nearer to the chimney, and draw fresh air in underneath the fire?
I can't see on my phone.
I sent your question to the US.
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