Easily and quickly solving a downdraught problem in a woodburner stove
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- This video shows you a great strategy to deal with the really annoying down draught or back draught that you sometimes get with a wood burning stove, allowing to to still light the fire without filling the room with smoke.
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many thanks
Just want to say a massive thank you for this video. We had more or less given up on a log burner that we had installed in our living room about 2 year ago. Every time we tried to light it we had a massive battle with down draft due to a cold external chimney. The result obviously was a smoke filled living room. We’ve used your technique 3 times now with success on each occasion. Brilliant! Thanks!
Glad to be of help
If it’s really cold (Canada) I use a small torch and put directly into the chimney. Works perfectly every time. Thanks for your video👍
Sounds great!
Had a big problem with smoke coming into room from our airtight stove in our airtight home and many ideas from even chimney sweeps until one guy told us just open a window in the room the stove is in before lighting it.....works like magic....problem solved with the negative pressure.
If you can hook up the intake so that it draws from outside the house, it won’t create negative pressure and burn the oxygen that you also would be breathing
Doesn't work when very cold outside: better to use a hair dryer; cut a hole in a piece of cardboard that is cut to size of stove opening and let it run for two minutes or more; depends on outside temperature. Works like a charm with NO smoke.
I was going to try a heat gun.
Use a drop light with a heat lamp bulb
I use "top down" AND "bottom up" simultaneously to start my home-made wood burner. I ignite the top only, to allow the chimney to heat up and as the embers fall through the stack of kindling then the bottom ignites. This method gives me a completely smoke free fire very quickly, with the door closed. Of course the fire starter stack, I call it, is surrounded by large dry logs that will burn for at least 90 minutes or more before adding more fuel.
Top tip, thanks for posting. The glass cleaning video also very useful domostrating how good a damp cloth, ash and a dollop of elbow grease works.
I have tried a lot of different methods and for my situation, this is the only one that works!!! Thank you!!!
You're welcome!
I thought I discovered this trick but you beat me to it with this video. Good!
After a downdraught incident, I've stopped using paper... Causes too much smoke.
My advice would be:
a) USE A WOOL FIRELIGHTER and use the top-down lighting method... This causes little to no smoke whilst immediately sending hot air up the chimney.
b) Open the stove door for 10 minutes before lighting. Any hot air in the room will start to move up the chimney, reducing the downdraught.
Try opening a window near the stove for a couple of minutes to equalise air pressure with outside. Test as per video to see if this stops the backdraft before lighting the stove.
If this would work, it would work more or less instantly. Air pressure equalises in fractions of a second across a house.
I use a tuna can filled with rubbing alcohol to warm the chimney, and to get my kindlin going. No smoke.
I wish I knew a good way to stop the backdraft from ever occurring in the first place. It doesn't have to be windy out and min backdrafts. Guess the weight of the cold air just wins and it falls down into the room. I use a hair drier to prime mine with no issues. My new idea, 80hr candles that I just leave lit in the unit when it's real cold out. That warms the space slowly and that seems to reduce, almost eliminate, the backdraft.
I tried a candle but the downdraught blew it out. Glad it works for you. I may have lit it too late
Amazing demonstration! Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
not very pleasant is an understatement!! man I really got smoked out tonight, but it's -26 here and i'm not sure how i could have gotten it right with such a massive downdraft and temperature issue..
Was good my uncle David lights his stove 1 log on each side left and right one front or back with news paper and 2 fire lighters
Before you all put paper in it. Just use a paint heating gun and blow in your chimney. 5 minutes and you can light your stove
Just throw in a cap full of white spirits, one quick light on top ready fire and slam door shut so much easyer,
I just filled my house with smoke because I didn't recognize a downdraft won't do that again
Yep, me too.
I use a little fan placed in the stove for something like a 10 min, after that I set the fire. it's working in any outside conditions and zero smoke inside.
Don't burn pine... too much creosote. Spend the time making good kindling you won't ever regret it
If you are using an open fire, then use the old trick with the newspaper in front of the fire, covering the firebox. This will provide the same closure as shutting the doors on a stove!
I remember doing that and the paper burning, stoves are so much safer
I remember doing that as a kid when living with mum and dad….worked really well to force air to the bottom of an open fire without the need to pass out from blowing on it! 😀
PS you’ve got far too much paper to start off, it’s absolutely unnecessary. Use kindling. And close your bottom air controls, instead open one of the doors a small amount.
If I stuffed that much in my stove from the off it would never get going! The smoke would just keep rolling around in the stove until the pressure sends it out of the vents into the room. Lightly scrunched up news paper and small kindling is the way to start allowing the air into the fire and help it burn then build it up slowly. as it burns
Thanks. That worked :-)
Thanks worked a treat
Dont bother with all this faff......just fit a Windkat chimney cowl. It's absolutely brilliant and prevents downdraught in any conditions. Job sorted guaranteed!
I'm gonna try this thanks!
Hope you like it!
Question.... what if the smoke isn't coming back at you through the stove, but in the airspace at the top left corner of the stove? I'm worried that my stove may not have been installed correctly last spring. I thought that everything would be sealed to where smoke could only go out the chimney (or through down draft, out the doors).
My Stove air lets in the doors and at the top, smoke can come out of any of these. Yours may be similar. If you are worried best advice is to get it checked by a qualified person.
I think A damper in the flue pipe is a good solution to a down draft
Is that a Charnwood County 8? We just gave ours away and got a new Stovax Stockton 8 but the donwdraft is ridiculous! Smoke in the room every time we reload it unless we’re quick. Never had a stove this bad and wish we’d kept our crafty Charnwood!
It's a Charnwood County 6, just a bit smaller than your 8
The house I bought had a Stovax Stockton 5 already installed... Awful stove. Noisy and completely uncontrollable... It would either burn through logs in 40 mins, or go out. Built like a tank though and looked good, but I had to get rid of it last winter.
How do you manage the end of a fire, does smoke from the embers escape in the room? Or does the residual heated box prevent the downdraft?
A couple of points to bear in mind here. At the end of the fire you are in effect only burning charcoal, so does not smoke much anyway. The hot stove means that the is still all goes up the chimney. Very occasionally if the embers die very slowly and are very small it can get to a stage where there is no draft. This is when you can get CO released which is very dangerous. Has happened to us twice in 15 years. That is why you need to have a Carbon Monoxide alarm in the room
@@dodeedo Thank you for your response. CO was my main concern. My wife and I just bought a home with a basement fireplace insert with backdraft issues. The children sleep upstairs on the main floor, our room is in the basement. The fireplace is thankfully not a primary heating source and will only be used occasionally. I will take extra care and will ensure we have multiple CO detectors and ventilation in our room. Thank you!
Just moved house and this is the same fire I have, it badly needs fire brick replacement do you have a company I can contact please.
This is a Charnwood country 6 stove, spares available from their website, I also need new bricks
What about every time u need to refeed the fire with new wood, every time i open the door smoke comes into the room, even if i do it slowly and with flue fully open, the chimney has just beeb swept and its still doing it??
That is not an issue I’m familiar with so not able to comment. But it does not seem right
Mine does the same have u resolved your issue?
@@SerenaB3333 it happens when the chimney has cold heavy air in it which then falls down. My only solution is to test first if there is downdraught I use this fix
I tried that with to door wide open as well and still no proper air flo upwards, keeps co ing back downwards after a while please help
Once you have heat in the fire and a flow upwards you get the chimney effect that draws air up, if you are still getting problems would suggest you get chimney checked for blockages, always get it swept on a regular basis. I get mine swept every year
plug a hair dryer up the pipe to start draft upward takes 5 minutes then start fire!!
You need to get new bricks as they are being to brake as stove is so hot
I use a heat gun.
First lay the fire with lots of paper and kindling. You want it to start quickly. Don't skimp.
Second, stick the heat gun right into the stove pipe from inside the stove and let it run until the air is moving up the chimney. I have a 20'+ chimney so this takes about a minute. Then give it perhaps half again as much time. You want to be sure the air is moving well and in the right direction.
Third, immediately start the fire - perhaps in multiple places.
Fourth, close the door / lid.
If the stove is warm you probably don't have a downdraft.
Forgot to ask the name of the fire as I can't seem to find one.
It is Charnwood country 6 there should be a rating plate on the left side of stove giving model info
Thank you very much
i taught ur not meant to put nails or screws ina stove i was told?
I make sure they don't touch the glass. Other than that they dont cause me any issues and they are still intact when I clear out the ashes. The fire is not hot enough to melt them
Rubbish
This doesn't tell you anything useful!