Old-timer's advice on cold chimney drafting saved me 3 hours today

Got a call this morning from a homeowner in Scranton whose insert kept puffing smoke back into the living room. I was ready to start pulling the baffle and checking the flue liner, but then I remembered what a retired sweep told me at a trade breakfast last spring. He said, 'If it's below 40 degrees outside, warm the flue with a heat gun for 5 minutes before you even light a test fire.' Sounded like a waste of time, but I tried it. After warming the first 2 feet of pipe, the draft pulled strong immediately and the smoke went right up. Turned out the problem was just cold air sitting in the chimney, not any blockage. That tip saved me from tearing apart a perfectly good insert for nothing. Has anyone else had a random piece of old advice that ended up being the exact fix? What's your go-to trick for cold weather draft issues?

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emery87928d ago

Heating a flue pipe for 5 minutes sounds like a decent trick, but let's not act like it's some magic bullet. Most draft problems I've seen come from actual blockages or bad liner setups, not just cold air. You got lucky that this one was simple, but telling homeowners to skip a real inspection because of this could bite you later. Also, a heat gun only warms the first couple feet, that's not gonna help if the whole stack is cold and wet. Still, if it saved you the labor of pulling the insert, then sure, it's a fine first step. Just don't hand that out as the fix for every smoking fireplace, or you'll end up back there on a colder day.