Hidden internal chimney

[karenf]

Hi
I would really appreciate some help please. After lighting the fire in my living room I found that the middle bedroom filled with smoke. I have had the chimney checked and remedial work carried out on it and a new 'mushroom' pot put on the top so know that the chimney to the living room is fine. The room that filled with smoke is at the back of the house and above the kitchen. The fireplace in the kitchen has been taken out and has just an alcove now. The bedroom above it still has the chimney breast but with just an air brick. Behind the airbrick is a hole and I have taken some photos with my mobile phone that show the chimney behind it. I have these pictures but don't know how or if I can upload them to here.
Does anyone have any suggestions to why the room may have filled with smoke and if this means I cannot use my fire in the living room.
I was hoping that I might be able to reveal a fireplace in the bedroom but it doesn't look that way.
All suggestions will be really appreciated please.
Regards
Karen[/img]

 

[Lime]

My first thought was that the smoke was coming out of the livingroom chimney where it passed through the floor of the bedrooms.
However you say that the chimney is sound.
By what you describe it could also be that the smoke coming out of the new pot is going straight down another chimney into the bedroom.

Does the livingroom have any ventilation for the fire?

Or there could be something wrong within the stack.

 

[karenf]

The chimney looks as though it merges. You can see in the attic that it joins in like a wishbone effect (the brickwork is quite lovely!). The right 'wishbone' is the one that leads to the living room in the front, I can see an airbrick on the outside wall to this right side. The middle back bedroom is on the left side of the 'wishbone' and I can't see any airbrick on the outside wall to this one. When I lit the fire you could see smoke seeping out of the bricks on the outside of the chimney stack from the outside of the house, but the chap who did the work on the chimney wondered if this was because the chimney was so wet inside before he did the work.
I hope all this makes sense. I really want to have my proper fire going and hope the problem isn't insurmountable. I was scared by someone locally suggesting that the only thing i could do was to have a steel liner down the chimney, at a huge cost!

 

[Lime]

I don't think smoke coming out of the chimney brickwork is acceptable at all.
I would be quite worried about that.
The suggestion that it is because the bricks are wet I don't think makes sense. For the bricks to steam they would have to get hot and most open fires do not heat the chimney that much.


I presume from your description that there are two flues on either side of the "wishbone" and that the outside vent is in the flue of the upstairs fireplace above your livingroom.
Have any of the flues been swept?

 

[karenf]

There is only one flue either side of the wishbone and the wishbone is as if it is upside down, so 2 flues leading into one flue at the top of the chimney.

I will contact the chimney guy again to ask about the smoke coming out of the chimney, thanks for the advice.
There is an airbrick in the wall at the side of the fireplace in the front bedroom above the living room fireplace.

 

[Nemesis]

How many pots are there?

 

[karenf]

There are 2 pots. Tonight I lit the fire in the living room and the smoke in the bedroom was coming through the hole, about the size of a brick, where the plastic vent was. I blocked the hole and no smoke came through, so do i need to have the vent hole or can i just block it up?

 

[Nemesis]

You do need some ventilation yes, or you may get damp.

It's rare that two fires are served by one flue - even if the inverted wishbone does join, there should be still two flues all the way up to the stack and pots.

Is the room in which there is a problem heated? In our house smoke is at times drawn down from one external pot from the living room flue (which is lined) into the other and appears in the bedroom via the open fireplace, possibly because the room is unheated.

However, I suspect what is happening here is that the thin layer of brick which should separate the two flues (the 'feathers') has deteriorated over many years, and the mortar has disintegrated, possibly even the masonry crumbled. There may be quite a gap or even a small one. So smoke is drifting from one flue to another.

 

[karenf]

That explanation is what I was wondering but wasn't knowledgable enough to know for sure. The room where the smoke is coming into has a radiator in it, it has had a damp problem before from the look of the wall when i took the paper off, but it doesnt feel damp now.
If this is the situation what do i need to do to be able to use my fire without fumes and smoke in the bedroom?

 

[Nemesis]

Is this a recent problem? It may just be, as I said, smoke coming from one external chimney down another when the wind and weather is in the wrong direction!
It may even be tha mushroom pot causing a lack of draw and insufficient space for smoke to escape.

However, if indeed the feathers have gone, then (sorry!!!) lining is possibly the only really safe answer. But check everything else out first. it may even be that the living room chimney has some blockage and that's forcing smoke back down. My mother had this happen, after she had had work done on the chimney, (debris had been knocked down by the builder...) and smoke appeared in many odd places - such as the kitchen cupboard and round window frames and skirtings! Under stress the smoke was finding any way out it could, as it wasn't being drawn up the chimney.

Re finding a fireplace - it's possible there was none, but not really likely unless the house is very old.

Flues in the loft and pots are the clues of course, but if there are only two and you can account for those then maybe there wasn't one.

 

[Lime]

I agree with all of the points Nemesis makes.

There is one thing that puzzle me, one of the airbricks.

If there is an airbrick on the outside coming out of the flue for the downstairs living room, why?
Does smoke come out of it?
Has the flue been blocked off at some time either at the chimney or fireplace end?


The problem of smoke in the bedroom must be somewhere between the pots and the division of the "wishbone".
The most likely one (this is purely my guess) is that the new pot creates a restriction and directs smoke downwards into the other pot.

Has the living room chimney been swept?