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This may be a daft idea but do either of your neighbours have a coal fire?


Sometimes when people put in wood-burning stoves or fireplaces they forget to check the chimney and builders, especially amateurs, working on party walls sometimes damage chimney breasts when doing other work as these are often only one brick thick.


So before you put a fireplace in you have to make sure the chimney is proper with a smoke test and if smoke comes out in the wrong places i.e. your neighbours upstairs fireplace whether it has been removed or not, then it's time to put in a sleeve in the chimney - if you do not do this, you fill your neighbours house with smoke the first time

you light a fire.


The same goes with rows of terraces with a shared loft where one broken chimney flue can send smoke into however many houses there are in the terrace

More and more people are installing wood burning stoves. I have had one for years. I haven't lit it yet but I know that when I do it may give off a smell of smoke in the atmosphere. I do burn smokeless fuel, so I'm complying with council regulations. I have my chimney swept and checked every year. As winter approaches there will be a number of households lighting wood burners and so long as they are not breaking the law there's not a lot can be done. If you truly believe it was coal being burned then the person responsible is breaking the law and could be fined heavily.

nunhead_man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> This may be a daft idea but do either of your

> neighbours have a coal fire?

>

> Sometimes when people put in wood-burning stoves

> or fireplaces they forget to check the chimney and

> builders, especially amateurs, working on party

> walls sometimes damage chimney breasts when doing

> other work as these are often only one brick

> thick.

>

> So before you put a fireplace in you have to make

> sure the chimney is proper with a smoke test and

> if smoke comes out in the wrong places i.e. your

> neighbours upstairs fireplace whether it has been

> removed or not, then it's time to put in a sleeve

> in the chimney - if you do not do this, you fill

> your neighbours house with smoke the first time

> you light a fire.

>

> The same goes with rows of terraces with a shared

> loft where one broken chimney flue can send smoke

> into however many houses there are in the terrace



Not daft at all.


I have an open fire (not used at the moment obvs!), one of my neighbours has a woodburning stove I believe, and I don't know what the other one has.


However one of the first things I did was to smell up the chimney, and the smoke was definitely not coming from there.


Also the smell was much stronger outside than inside my house.

savvygirl Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

If you truly believe it was

> coal being burned then the person responsible is

> breaking the law and could be fined heavily.



It definitely didn't smell like wood, and reminded me of coal fires from my fifties childhood (the days of London smogs).


But I looked up and down the road and couldn't see any smoke from a chimney.

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