Cold Air Plugs
Cold Air Plugs
We have had a harsh winter, which can often cause issues with your stove and chimney and solid fuel stove users sometimes come up against 'Cold Air Plugs'.
This can be a bit surprising and definitely alarming. It's particularly common for insulated twin wall flues or exposed chimneys to experience a 'cold plug'. It occurs when temperatures drop suddenly and an invisible plug os 'heavy' cold air forms in the chimney. The result is that the chimney is effectively plugged and pushes smoke back down and out of the log burner into the room. It can occur even overnight if temperatures drop rapidly. It can also occur where a chimney has not been used for a while (but is known to be clean, i.e,not blocked with a bird's nest).
A solution is to try leaving the door of the stove open for about half an hour prior to lighting (the chimney will start to draw warm air out of your room) and/or start by lighting a firelighter on its own, opening the air vents then closing the door, then light the fire normally using the 'top down' method of firelighting. The idea is to gently increase the internal temperature of your chimney, which will gently dissipate the cold air plug. The key word is 'gently'.
