3 easy steps to fix bad burnt smelly fireplace odors and foul smokey chimney ash stink

3 easy steps to fix bad burnt smelly fireplace odors and foul smokey chimney ash stink

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

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.

My house reeks of smoke long after the fire is out in the fireplace.

My house reeks of smoke long after the fire is out in the fireplace.

Smokey House

Q: How can I stop the strong burnt odor smell from the fireplace and from my home? It is even there when I am not using the fireplace and it is an unpleasant smell. -GHJ

A: GHJ, The first thing you have to do is stop the odor at its source by closing off the flue and chimney airtight. Your damper will not do this since it is metal and it will not lend you a tight enough seal. You can use a chimney plug or a chimney pillow to seal it off so no more odor will descend the chimney. The creosote up there can give off a surprising amount of stink especially if the wood was moist or pitchy.

The white vinegar trick will work very well if you put a large flat bowl of it in the center of the room for about 24 hours. With kids or pets, this may not be very practical.

If the weather is nice you can also open the house up and use fans to exhaust the air outside. Turn your furnace off before you do this though. As my mother always said, “No sense in heating the neighborhood.”

If you need the smoke smell out of a surface then put baking soda on it overnight and vacuum it off in the morning. – Jason

The real issue of this question is indoor air quality. Read more about indoor air quality at http://www.theworldwomenwant.com/yourworld/home/air.php?page=ar

How a Chimney Balloon fixed a leaky and smelly fireplace chimney

How a Chimney Balloon fixed a leaky and smelly fireplace chimney

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This is a story from a Chimney Balloon customer that talked about their Chimney Balloon and how it solved their leaky & stinky chimney problem on Google Home Improvement groups.

Below was the resolution to their problem:

Hello, I just thought I’d post an update and the conclusion of my fireplace saga, in case it’s of use to the next person looking for fireplace help.

First, we called the fireplace guys back, who said the old damper maybe wasn’t working after all and also found more suicidal squirrels.  They removed them and installed a new damper cage.

There was no improvement with the draft, only it was more smoke and less foul. We were considering our options and we’re going to call and give the chimney guys hell.

We decided to get one of those chimney pillows as a temporary stopgap until we could get the problem solved once and for all.  In the meantime, we noticed that bricks on both shoulders of the fireplace were loose and there was lots of cracked mortar and moss.  There was no direct evidence that this was causing the draft – no air coming out, the lining was intact under the bricks, that we could see at any rate. But it was clear that this was only going to get worse if water and plant life kept getting in and we didn’t want bricks to start falling off the chimney.

So hubby bought a chimney pillow and some sort of masonry cement caulk
and glued the loose bricks and filled in the large cracks.

Instant cure. We weren’t even trying to fix the draft problem, and I still don’t know exactly where the leak was coming from, but this fixed it.  We still get some smell when the heat or certain fans are on, but that’s expected.  The Chimney Balloon will fix probably that.
MK

This was the initial posting of their fireplace problem:

Hi

Good morning,

I am having an ongoing fireplace saga that I am hoping the good folks here can help me with.  We just bought a townhouse this fall, built in 1973, with a fireplace.  To make a long story short, here’s the timeline of what’s been going on.

The fireplace was sealed (opening covered in plastic wrap) when we bought the house.  We unsealed it. Fire burns fine, but the smoke smell and strong draft pour in when not in use.

Did some research, found out about negative pressure – the house seals like Tupperware so this makes a lot of sense for us.  We opened a window in the basement next to the furnace.  No change.

Brought in a professional to do the sweep/inspection that we should have done in the first place.  He cleans out the chimney, fixes the damper that was apparently never closing, removes an interred squirrel of great antiquity.  He also replaces the crown and says water has been leaking in and causing mold for a long time.

The draft problem is now completely fixed, but the strong smell still fills the living room and creeps around the house from there – a foul, wet, moldy-sooty smell.

So I see two angles here.  One is trying to improve the condition that is still causing the fireplace air to come in.  The other is dealing with the nasty smell in the fireplace. But this is so far out of my realm of experience, I am not sure. I don’t mind a little soot smell, I understand that’s part of owning a fireplace, but you can’t stay in that room and breathe without opening a window.

What should we do?  Will a steady regiment of fires and ventilation improve things over time?  Is there something more drastic we will need to do?  Is there something that might kill the mold we suspect is up there?    We think the fireplace may have been sealed from the inside but exposed and leaking to the outside for the 12 years the previous owners lived here. Is there an air-tight plastic cover or something we could fit over it when not in use?

Any help would greatly be appreciated.- MK