Neighbours smoking us out

absolute0

Our neighbours have recently bought a large outdoor pizza oven and have located the flue just underneath our top floor windows without consent.
Every time they have the thing on it belches smoke into our house (even with windows shut - they are old windows with gaps).

Where do I stand with this legally?
With working from home and them having it on in the afternoon it is causing myself & my family health concerns.

FreeBear

There are rules and regulations as to how close to a property a flue can be - First port of call (assuming the neighbourly chat has failed) would be the planning department at your local council. Then give Environmental Health a call as the smoke shouldn't be causing a nuisance.

TELLIT01

If all else fails, a squirt of expanding foam would stop it.

Ectophile

TELLIT01 said:

If all else fails, a squirt of expanding foam would stop it.

Presumably squirt the expanding foam down the chimney of their pizza oven?

ashe

How large are we talking here? Something like an Ooni or an actual stone built one? Having used an ooni they don’t kick up a huge amount of smoke 

NSG666

TELLIT01 said:

If all else fails, a squirt of expanding foam would stop it.

I suspect you are only kidding but never be tempted to do anything like this. A few years ago a neighbourly dispute led one neighbour to foam up the flue of the other's boiler. One neighbour died of carbon monoxide poisoning and the other went to prison.

MalMonroe

As FreeBear mentioned, I'd have a word with the neighbours first. Could be that they are just utterly thoughtless. I've lived near thoughtless ones before, more than once.

(In fact, their response usually was "oh, no! We never thought. . . ") Most reasonable people don't set out to annoy their neighbours. (I hope!)

Then, next step if they are stubborn, the council. 

At least it's not a meaty barbecue, which doesn't appeal to me, a vegetarian. Fortunately my neighbours do all of their cooking indoors. Phew!

Jeepers_Creepers

This is absoluteo a statutory nuisance at the very least.

AbsoluteO, have you said anything to your neighb? Do you have any reason to suspect it's anything other than simple thoughtlessness, with emphasis on simple?

Anyhoo, a nice approach is the first option - if you don't do this, then don't expect any sympathy from your council or Legal Protection.

On that point, do you have LegProt on your house insurance?

If you want a good read, then try: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/part/III

Sandtree

Nuisance smoke: how councils deal with complaints - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

How smoke complaints are assessed

To work out whether it’s a statutory nuisance, smoke is usually assessed by environmental health officers from the council. They can look at:

• the amount
• how often it happens and for how long
• how unreasonable the activity is (for example, smoke from an everyday activity like cooking is unlikely to be a statutory nuisance)

Most councils do have guidance on how they deal with BBQ smoke complaints and whilst it normally does state that they consider frequency and severity. I cant see a pizza oven being dealt with in any other way after all you get the likes of a Big Green Egg that can be used as a BBQ, pizza oven or slow smoker. 

A pizza oven shouldnt be giving off lots of smoke unless they are using poor quality/not properly prepared woods etc and even those should go down significantly once they are up to temp. 

Plus its probably like most toys, they'll use it a lot to start with and then fall out of love with it and it'll be a once in a while thing. The issue with antagonizing them is that it may encourage them to use it more often. Suggest a pizza party to them where you bring some decent hardwood fire wood and gift them a looftlighter to get the fire going quickly and they'll have better pizza and you'll have a lot less smoke.

Rosa_Damascena

MalMonroe said:

As FreeBear mentioned, I'd have a word with the neighbours first. Could be that they are just utterly thoughtless. I've lived near thoughtless ones before, more than once.

(In fact, their response usually was "oh, no! We never thought. . . ") Most reasonable people don't set out to annoy their neighbours. (I hope!)

Then, next step if they are stubborn, the council. 

At least it's not a meaty barbecue, which doesn't appeal to me, a vegetarian. Fortunately my neighbours do all of their cooking indoors. Phew!

Tell me about it! But at least being outside the smell disperses fast, people don't want to be cooking for any length of time when they could be drinking and chilling.

TELLIT01

NSG666 said:

TELLIT01 said:

If all else fails, a squirt of expanding foam would stop it.

I suspect you are only kidding but never be tempted to do anything like this. A few years ago a neighbourly dispute led one neighbour to foam up the flue of the other's boiler. One neighbour died of carbon monoxide poisoning and the other went to prison.

Yes I was joking, but this oven is outside and the worst that would be likely to happen if the suggestion was followed is a blowback of smoke.