wrote in message
oups.com...
We have a home that has a gas firplace in the basement and a wood
burning fireplace on the upper floor. When we start a fire in the
upper fp we smell smoke downstairs. There's no damper on the gas one
downstairs. The gas one has a pipe that goes up the brick work to the
outside. We noticed this smell got worse after we installed a chimney
cap for the wood fp. So does some of the smoke go down the pipe of our
basement gas fp? If that's the case what can we do to prevent this?

You have a couple of possibilities. When the gas fp is not burning, cooler
air may be rushing down the open flue. With the wood flue nearby, it will
carry down some of the smoke and odor. While a chimney cap is a good idea,
it will diffuse the smoke more than no cap where it would go straight up and
give less carry over.

Both should have caps to prevent birds and squirrels from getting in the
house (happens a lot, DAMHIK) and the gas should have a damper of some sort.