Too much draw from chimney - fuel burning much too fast

bxboards

Hi

I bought a property recently, and there is a open fire with backboiler - a Dunsley Super Clean. I recently had the chimney swept, so I fired it up today for the first time.

The boiler heats the hot water and radiators - there is no mains gas in the village, but heating with coal should be very economical.

Two problems though - the draw from the chimney is very fierce, fuel is burning at an alarming high rate, its clearly been fueled via a large updraft. A pile of wood that would last all evening in my woodburner, was gone in under an hour.

The second problem is that with such a fierce draw, the chimney is literally sucking the heat right out of the room, so the radiator produces the heat in the living room, which promptly vanishes up the chimney!

How can I reduce the draw - my first thought is that I could look into getting the chimney cowl replaced with something to slow it down a bit, but obviously I don't want to slow it down so much I fill the room with smoke.

Any hints, or any recommendations for a good chimney specialist in Cumbria?

TIA

ivory55

Hi, is it the type with the ash bucket in the floor under the fire with the air drawn from a pipe under the fire ? if so should be some lever or something you can alter to cut air supply. That's how it was in my grand parents place.

bxboards

ivory55 wrote: »

Hi, is it the type with the ash bucket in the floor under the fire with the air drawn from a pipe under the fire ? if so should be some lever or something you can alter to cut air supply. That's how it was in my grand parents place.

Thanks for the reply.

It's basically an open fire with the back boiler built behind.. one of these...http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/dunsley%20superclean.html

So there aren't really an sort of air speed controls, as it's essentially a standard fireplace, with boiler as above inserted.

Ectophile

The on-line description of the boiler refers to a damper in the flue, to control it. Have you tried adjusting that?

bxboards

Ectophile wrote: »

The on-line description of the boiler refers to a damper in the flue, to control it. Have you tried adjusting that?

There is one damper, but two airflow paths - at the front top of the fireplace (damper already closed), and another airflow at the rear bottom of the chimney where the flames and heat goes into the backboiler - there is no damper on this part, and this is where the massive updraft is.

Unfortunately this isn't something that will be solved by twiddling controls - I wish it was that easy.

Chimney_Sweep_3

Afraid thats the drawbacks of an openfire, if you choke the draw too much you will have smoke in the room which is no good, a good designed and fitted openfire is around 25-30% efficient even poor stoves are around double that. Make sure you have a CO alarm if you dry to reduce the draw !