Does Your Chimney Smell?

That’s actually not the best question. The best question is: Does your chimney smell so bad that it’s making living in your house a miserable experience?

All chimneys have some odors, but major odor problems need to be looked into. Mercer County Chimney Services of Hamilton, NJ, has a few solutions for your smelly chimney.

Natural chimney odors

You don’t have to be a chimney technician to figure out that over time, wood smoke will make a chimney smell. Creosote, which forms when smoke condenses, is oily and smelly. Mixed with soot, it can make a powerful odor.

Some moisture is normal inside a chimney flue. A lot of moisture isn’t. If you have a chimney leak and water is getting into the flue, it will make the creosote-soot odor problem much worse.

Unnatural chimney odors

A chimney without a chimney cap or at least a flue cover is open to things that can cause odors:

• Tree leaves
• Twigs and small branches
• Squirrels, birds, raccoons and other small animals that build nests inside chimneys
• The occasional dead animal – believe it or not, some of these critters can’t get out once they get in
• Rain, which will add to the moisture problem

How odors move from the chimney to your home

A slight bit of chimney odor is normal and unavoidable. Then there’s the kind of odor that causes people to run out of the house. That kind of odor has a driver, and it’s almost always air.

Naturally occurring smells inside the flue can be pulled into the home by drafts. If you’re having odor problems and you always keep your damper open, try closing it and see if it makes a difference.

Air can go in both directions in a chimney. During a fire, smoke rises with the aid of air to go up and out of the chimney. As you may have experienced, air during fireplace use can also go the other way and blow smoke and ash into the room.

Negative air pressure

The main cause of chimney odors being pulled into the house is negative air pressure. This can happen when you have kitchen and bathroom exhaust fans running and will be worse if the damper is open and every window and door is shut tight. The reverse flow of air can easily pull a ton of bad odors out of the chimney.

Certain heating and air conditioning systems can also create negative air pressure and draw chimney smells into the house.

A house that’s simply too airtight won’t necessarily pull odors out of the chimney, but it could contribute to the problem by preventing air from moving up the flue to push smells away.

Smelly chimney solutions

Here is how to deal with odors from a smelly chimney.

• Have the chimney professionally cleaned once a year to remove built-up creosote and soot.
• Install a proper chimney cap to keep tree and animal debris out of your flue.
• Remember to close your damper; have it repaired if it doesn’t work right.
• Experiment to see if exhaust fans and heat and AC systems are adding to the problem.
• Crack a window near the fireplace to free up air in the room.

Help for your chimney

If it’s time to have your chimney cleaned, or if you need a new chimney cap or damper repair work, Mercer County Chimney Services is ready to help. Give us a call in the Hamilton, NJ, area or reach out with our contact form.