"ransley" wrote in message
...
On Oct 14, 8:58 pm, "cm" wrote:
We have a two sided fireplace in our house. The house is 18 years old and
the fireplace is original to the house. We purchased the house about a
year
ago. We tried several times last winter to have a fire and most of the
time
smoke backed up in the house. We have tried having a window
partially/fully
open and warming the chimney prior to lighting the logs, with no luck.

I measured the chimney height tonight and it is taller than it needs to
be.
I was told it needs to be 2' taller than the point where it is 10' away
from
the roof. There is a large rooftop A/C unit 7' feet away from the chimney
that is 2' taller than the chimney. Should I raise the chimney above the
A/C
unit? What else should I look for?

Thanks,

cm

If this is the same kind of 2 sided fireplace that I had in my previous
house, there were two dampers and both of them had to be open in order to
start a fire and a window had to be cracked open. A rather hot and
relatively smokeless fire had to be started (paper) and kept going several
seconds before adding dry kindling and finally wood to the fire.

We had glass doors on both sides and they had to be open when starting and
then closed when the fire got started properly. Even taking all precautions
to start a fire without getting smoke into the living area, it was a
difficult task to accomplish. Once started though, it seemed to work well.

Good luck