We've been in our home for the past four years and haven't been able to use the fireplace. The few initial times I did, smoke would back flow into the house and continue to build until it was banked down from the ceiling. I've had a chimney sweep here three times and he couldn't find anything. He's run a camera down both stacks(?), and didn't see anything. He mentioned it looks like it's hardly ever been used so it's clean, and there are no nests in it. When we have used it, you can just barely see a little smoke seeping from the edges of the front glass of the box while the fire is going, telling me that it is coming back down the flue. Yes, the flue has always been open.
This is the fireplace in the upstairs living room, and it's a double-sided unit with it's own stack. That's the one we've tried and have had the issue. Downstairs, directly underneath it, is a second box that has it's own stack that we've never used. One attempt the sweep tried was to cover the spark arrester(?) on the chimney with steel plate on the side next to the downstairs arrester. He was thinking maybe the smoke exiting the one, was being pulled down the basement one causing the smoke and smell to re-enter the house. When it happens, the smell and smoke are almost all concentrated upstairs.
We really want to use the upstairs fireplace, but the smoke and the smell make it a no-go. Any suggestions where I could start?
Thank you.
This is the fireplace in the upstairs living room, and it's a double-sided unit with it's own stack. That's the one we've tried and have had the issue. Downstairs, directly underneath it, is a second box that has it's own stack that we've never used. One attempt the sweep tried was to cover the spark arrester(?) on the chimney with steel plate on the side next to the downstairs arrester. He was thinking maybe the smoke exiting the one, was being pulled down the basement one causing the smoke and smell to re-enter the house. When it happens, the smell and smoke are almost all concentrated upstairs.
We really want to use the upstairs fireplace, but the smoke and the smell make it a no-go. Any suggestions where I could start?
Thank you.