On 09 Aug 2005, news wrote

Peter Hawkins wrote:
My house is Oil Fired CH but the living room also has an open
grate. The problem is that in the winter there is a huge draught
up the chimney when the wind blows. This draught is so strong
that it has bowed the living room door from the air being drawn
from the hall. It is also strong enough to allow me to burn fuels
like Phurnacite, typically used in glass fronted fires.

Obviously this makes the room very hard to heat with a radiator.
Is there any sort of baffle or cowl which can be installed on the
chimney to limit the draught. I still want to burn the occaional
fire but I want to reduce the draught.

I shove a big bundle of newspaper up my fireplace to stop draughts

beware, tho, don't do what I did once: came in drunk, set a fire
and lit it without removing the newspaper !

I bult the fireback and installed the fireplace and at the time I
thought about making a flappy damper like the one displayed here

http://www.rumford.com/segflyerplan.gif

as it was I couldn't be bothered.

I made a quick-and-dirty damper for one of our houses out of sheet
material with some draught-proofing brush strips on either side; it
rested on a few masonry nails on either side (which acted, in effect,
as a couple of side battens).

It was a bit messy -- you had to be careful taking it out, as there was
invariably a small shower of soot sitting on top of it -- but it cut
the draughts out.

(Like you say, though -- don't forget to remove it before lighting a
fire. Messy....)


--
Cheers,
Harvey