gonjah wrote:
Out of curiosity: How high does the chimney extent above the roof
where it comes out of the roof? My thought is the chimney *might* not
be exposed to enough cold air. We used to get smoke in the house when
it wasn't cold enough outside to get the chimney cold enough to
create a good draft. Apologies if you've already addressed this. I
haven't read all of the responses. I guess another question could be:
How cold is it outside when you fire up your fireplace? Is it
blustery cold or just cool outside? I could only use my wood burning
stove when it was really cold. Otherwise it would smoke up the place,
but my chimney was only about 4 feet above the roof line. On *really*
cold nights it worked fine. But it wouldn't get really cold until
late November. I wouldn't think of using it in October.

CAn you explain to me why having a cold upper chimney would increase the draft?
I can understand whay having cold air outside might, but it seems that a cold
chimney itself would just cool the exhaust, and lessen the draft, since the
draft is produced by the lesser density of HOT gasses.