What makes firewood smoke

A flue can become blocked by leaf debris, animal nests, or the buildup of creosote, a dark brown to a black coating that forms in the chimney when fire by-products harden. These obstructions can reduce or prevent the passage of smoke from the firebox to the outdoors through the flue and lead to back-puffing.

Far more seriously, when the temperature in the flue is high enough, creosote build-up or debris can ignite a chimney fire that can do serious structural damage to your home. Uncovering dark buildup when you scratch a finger against your chimney walls is a telltale sign of creosote buildup while observing nests or debris when you put a flashlight up your chimney flue can tip you off to a larger obstruction in the flue.

If you spot either, call a CSIA-certified chimney sweep to inspect the chimney and, if needed, clean it to remove creosote buildup, nests, and other debris and keep back-puffing at bay. A strong chimney draft requires neutral air pressure—that is, outside air enters the home at the same rate that inside air exits it, so that indoor and outdoor air pressure is the same. This allows fire by-products to exit the flue as the outside air enters it. However, in a house with negative air pressure—usually newer, energy-efficient homes that are well-sealed with weather stripping or caulking—more air enters the home than exits it, so outside air pressure is higher than that indoors.

The greater influx of air from the outdoors pushes down smoke in the flue until it enters your home. To determine if this is the case in your house, next time the fireplace is smoky, open a nearby window or door while the fireplace is in operation. Wood moisture levels can be tracked with an inexpensive handheld moisture meter which can be picked up at your local hardware store.

If you really want to reduce fire pit smoke effectively, using the right wood at the right moisture level is going to give you the most bang for your buck. In addition to moisture, there are a variety of other drivers that could be the culprit if you are having regular trouble with fire pit smoke.

Some of the following, combined with high moisture, could already be making your recent fire pit burns a smoky mess. The belief was that pine and other softwoods gummed up your chimney quicker than other types of wood.

Anyway, softwoods like pine , junipe r, balsam , spruce , etc. With that said, these wood types with pitch that has been exposed to air and hardened can smoke quite a bit when burned. The terpene in hardened tree sap, which is in high concentration in fatwood, ignites quickly, helping the rest of the fire get started. You can find fatwood at your local hardware store, from your firewood supplier and a handful of online vendors. If you are interested in finding your own fatwood out in nature, this is a very good tutorial on how to do it at Instructables.

What is terpene? Terpene is the naturally occurring flammable chemical in tree sap that makes pines and other softwood wood types excellent firestarter wood. Well-seasoned softwoods can work if your options are few, but understand the limitations. A key component to building a quick-starting long-burning fire is good airflow. Just throwing a few logs into the fire pit with some kindling may not get it done, leaving you with smoldering fire pit fuel instead of a raging fire.

A teepee or log cabin firewood stack will keep air flowing and provide housing of sorts for your tinder and kindling. Take some time to do this right because all you will have is smoke and no fire.

See the images below for an example. Sometimes it makes sense to collect debris from the forest floor to use as kindling, tinder, etc. By debris I mean pine needles, pinecones, tree bark, etc. If you do use items like these to get your fire started, make sure whatever you collect has no green on it, and everything is good and dry.

Certain types of treated cardboard will smoke heavily when burned in a fire. Not only will you have to deal with the smoke, but you may also get a sampling of certain fumes that may not be healthy for you and yours. Stick to tinder, kindling, and firewood in the fire pit. A little newspaper at the beginning of the fire to get things going is ok.

Now we can get into a little more detail on how to use this information to keep fire pit smoke to a minimum next time you have a fire. The following are action steps and other pointers you can use that address a number of smoke-reducing workarounds that can be used in combination with each other or on their own:.

As we covered above, wet wood is bad when trying to keep fire pit smoke down. Using adequately dried wood will produce much less smoke and perform much better and for a longer time. Wood smoke can affect everyone, but the populations known to be at greater risk include: children, teenagers, older adults, people with lung disease -- including asthma and COPD, people with heart disease, outdoor workers, and people of low socioeconomic status, including those who are homeless and with limited access to medical care.

Research indicates that obesity or diabetes may also increase risk. New or expectant mothers may also want to take precautions to protect the health of their babies, because some studies indicate they may be at increased risk.

Air cleaners and air filters in the home. It's important to limit your exposure to smoke—especially if you are more susceptible than others:. If you have heart or lung disease, such as congestive heart failure, angina, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema or asthma, you may experience health effects earlier and at lower smoke levels than healthy people.

Older adults are more likely to be affected by smoke, possibly because they are more likely to have chronic heart or lung diseases than younger people.

Contact Us to ask a question, provide feedback, or report a problem. Symptoms like fever or chills, muscle or body aches, and diarrhea are not related to smoke exposure.

Any species of wood, when wet, will not catch completely until it dries out. Much of the excessive smoke emitted by wet wood is actually steam mixed with small particulate matter. Season firewood properly and keep it out of the rain. The hotter a fire burns, the less smoke it produces. Hardwoods emit less smoke than do softwoods because the hardwoods burn hotter.

Even softwoods need not create excessive amounts of smoke. Common fire building mistakes include using too little firewood or to clumping pieces of wood too closely together. Both of these practices can cause the wood smolder rather than burn.