When i light my down stairs fire smoke can be seen and smelt coming from the fire place in the bedroom upstirs
Question:the bed room is not above the room where the fire is lit. my cottage 300 years old
Answers:
sounds like you have a fire in your fire place, congratulations!
GET YOUR CHIMNEY CLEANED OUT ASAP. YOU MIGHT HAVE A BLOCKAGE THAT COULD BURN DOWN YOUR COTTAGE. HAVE A CONSULTATION FROM A GOOD OLD FASHIONED CHIMNEY SWEEP. HOPE THIS HELPS
Chimneys are rarely straight up - if you are getting smoke in other rooms you definitely need your chimney sweeping. You are at major risk of suffering a house fire if you do not. There may be a birds nest at the top - this will be cleared with a thorough cleaning.
It could be the lining in the chimney needs replacing. This is what happened to us - we had the downstairs half of a split-level 2 floor villa. We had an open fire in the bedroom as well as in the living room. We would light both in the winter.
However, our neighbour complained that when we lit our bedroom fire, smoke could be seen and smelt coming into her dining room (which was directly above our bedroom, though the fireplace was not in use). Turned out the lining in the chimney had cracked and needed replacing. As we were due to move shortly, we never got around to it and simply stopped having fires in the bedroom.
I don't think it's cheap to repair, but it can be done. In the first instance, however, get an expert out to tell you if that's the problem and if so, get 2 or 3 quotes.
Hope that helps!
Don't use the fire until you have had the chimney looked at. I doubt that it is only blocked although I think this is part of the problem. It sounds to me as if there is a problem between the two flues, as the only place they should meet is in the open air on the the roof.
You need to have a professional look at it to determine what precisely is going on and whether the fire place is drawing correctly. I lived in an older dorm that was constructed around 1904 and the fire places would never draw correctly and the damper was open. Turns out the chimney for the fire places was shortened to save money and thus our lovely dilemma of smoke filled dorm versus keeping warm.
Do not light the fire, this could be dangerous for various reasons, not least you could be allowing carbon monoxide to enter the bedroom, anyone sleeping in the bedroom with the downstairs fire lit could be injured or worse. Your chimney feathers (dividing wall between flues) has collapsed, the smoke takes a route avoiding the blockage. Remedies are: Re-build the chimney and mid-feathers, or put flue liners in the chimney's which are used, there are class one (solid fuel and certain gas fires) and class 2 (gas fires and more choices of actual fire), class two is cheaper. The chimneys lined will need to be swept, and liners are usually stainless steel or cement based. both are expensive. Hope this helps!
I think the others have said it all and I would endorse their warnings about it not being used.
It is a job for the experts as I have a feeling part of the chimney has cracked and will need to be rebuilt.
your chimney definately needs cleaning
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