Autumn is the season when summer days are gone, evenings are cool and every stove owner is looking forward to striking the match again after a long time and the true idyllic comfort will come.

We quickly get a couple of logs, maybe some kindling, a kindling - and we can see ourselves looking into the fire. But there will be smoke accumulating in the stove, and eventually, maybe even outside. All the positives are gone and only questions remain: What's going on? Why is this happening? Is it just happening to me?

How do these situations arise?

This is a problem with insufficient chimney draft, which can be caused by two main factors.

The first is an atypical temperature distribution - the appliance and the bottom of the chimney are colder than the top. The cold air at the bottom of the chimney falls down, which happens most often in autumn. A small amount of chips does not produce enough heat to warm this cold air and start the chimney draft properly.

The second reason is moisture, which can soak into the chimney liner material and the appliance itself after the summer months. In this respect, the maintenance of the chimney and the appliance is also crucial. If deposits remain on the chimney walls or in the appliance after the previous heating season, they are always saturated with airborne moisture after the summer shutdown and make the start of the new heating season significantly more unpleasant.
In short - dry ash in the stove or soot on the walls of the chimney will soak up moisture over the summer and until we dry it out, the chimney will not work properly.

If this undesirable effect occurs - how to proceed?

It is of course best to have the chimney and the appliance cleaned. But if we get into a situation where we need heating and the chimney sweep won't come until next week, we can choose a temporary method.

The principle is simple: we need to heat the air in the chimney flue. To do this, we can use a hairdryer or a heat gun and blow warm air in through the chimney door for a while. This can usually achieve a working condition.

There is also advice like "put burning newspapers in the chimney". But these practices are very risky from a fire safety point of view. If the soot in the chimney were to catch fire along with the newspaper, we would suddenly have an emergency in the middle of the house - soot burning and a fire hazard.

How to prevent flooding problems?

The obvious advice is to have the chimney and appliance cleaned and checked right after the season, ideally in spring or early summer. This will prevent most problems.

The second piece of advice is to optimise the heating method. Use the correct top firing procedure - do not fire the whole batch of fuel at once, but only the top part. This will minimize the amount of smoke and increase the initial flame temperature from the first burning chips.

This is also related to the optimum amount of chips. If we have problems with flooding during this period, we need to use a larger amount of chips to increase the initial temperature of the flue gases, which have to be "blown out" by the pressure resistance in the chimney.

Proper preparation of the heater and chimney after the summer and a clever flooding procedure will save a lot of nerves and smoke in the living room. Autumn smoking from the stove is not a sign of a bad appliance, but a natural reaction of the chimney to the change in temperature and humidity. Those who know what to do can have a warm home quickly, safely and without undue stress.