Fix bad burnt smelly fireplace odors and foul smokey chimney ash stink

So you had a fire or two over the winter months, and even as it sits dormant your unused chimney smells bad. You made sure to clean out the old ash and leftover charred logs from your firebox, but the chimney smells when it rains. You even took out the vacuum hose and really cleaned out the firebox super well. But you are still trying to fix bad burnt smelly fireplace odors and the house smells like smoke from fireplace.

Most of the time, home owners go right to scheduling with their chimney sweep to stop the smell. But a chimney scrubbing can sometimes make the burnt smokey smell worse. Here are a few DIY cheap things to try first to help you stop the smokey chimney stink:

Here are the 3 steps to fix bad burnt smelly fireplace odors and foul smokey chimney ash stink:

1) Seal the chimney low and tight. Your chimney operates like a dirty snorkel for your house. It breathes in and it breathes out. Even if your metal damper is closed, they do not seal tightly. Metal dampers warp when they are heated and cooled repeatedly. Also, the negative pressure in your house from clothes dryers, HVAC, vent fans, etc.. can suck outside air right down the flue and drag in chimney smells. By installing a Flueblocker or Chimney Balloon as low as possible in the flue, you can seal much of the smell outside.

Ash pit causes smokey smell

2) Look for an ash pit. Look at the floor of your firebox. Is there a metal flapper there or an open hole that leads down into an ash dump pit? You may have to pry up and remove the flapper cover of the ash pit to get access to the hole itself. That chute will need to be sealed up tightly too. You can inflate a small Chimney Balloon into the pit to seal it off tightly.

3) Baking Soda to deodorize the firebox. The firebox may be clean and vacuumed out, but the creosote glaze or leftover ash could still be releasing acrid acidic odors. This is how to make fireplace smell good and how to get rid of soot smell in house. Take a full box of baking soda and sprinkle it over the floor of the firebox, and throw it against the walls of the firebox.

You can use a little spray bottle of water to damper the walls to get the powdery baking soda  to stick, but don’t go too crazy with the sprayer. Let that sit in the firebox for a few weeks, and use a vacuum hose with a VERY good filter to vacuum that up.

99% of the time these 3 tips work and eliminate the odor issue, but If you still need to fix bad burnt smelly fireplace odors and foul smokey chimney ash stink contact us for personalized troubleshooting over the phone. You may have some chimney or home related issues to take into consideration.

There are a million variables, and we can help you get to the bottom of it, so you can close the burnt fireplace smell out of your home.