Reducing smoke from chimneys

[Scythe13]

This is a little trick, I can't remember where I heard it though.

If you roll up a newspaper and light the end of it, then hold that up the flue, it will heat up the flue. Apparently this stops (or at least reduces) the amount of smoke coming from the fire.

Less smoke, less visibility, more avoid-ability/concealment.

[Steve]

The key to less smoke is a hot fire, to make a small hot fire in a large stove put firebricks around the outside edges, open at the front to let the heat into the room. The heat will be reflected from the sides and back into the fire, it will burn hot and clean.

[Timelord]

Using smaller pieces of dry seasoned hardwood like Oak, on top of the initial kindling, will burn hotly. You can always feather the edges to make the oak catch more quickly. Other hardwoods are also suitable for this. Firs should also go up well due to the resin in the wood. You could also try using "meths" as a smokeless accelerant.. Pine cones catch well and give a red hot glowing coal very quickly. A few of these added to the initial fire will help concentrate the heat - especially if in a reduced confined area as Steve suggests. Regards, TL

[BFG Central]

If you build a rocket stove mass heater you retain the heat from 1 burn for over way over 12 hours in the thermal mass and the rocket stove does a second burn leaving very little visible smoke.
They also use a 10th of the fuel.

[Tarrel]

(7 June 2013, 12:55)Scythe13 Wrote: This is a little trick, I can't remember where I heard it though.

If you roll up a newspaper and light the end of it, then hold that up the flue, it will heat up the flue. Apparently this stops (or at least reduces) the amount of smoke coming from the fire.

Less smoke, less visibility, more avoid-ability/concealment.

A cold air column in the flue can lead to smoke coming into the room when you first light a fire. Pre-warming the flue as you suggest can reduce this. I don't know if it would have any effect on the smoke from the ongoing fire though.

[BDG]

Smoke is caused by incomplete combustion. No fancy trick or type of stove will leave you smoke free, although they can help; however, if you are clueless, you are going to make smoke. Use dry materials, well seasoned wood, more surface area of wood exposed means a faster and so hotter burn.

All burning newspaper in a chimney does is create draw, pulling air into the fire, which would help in theory, but in practice it is only easy to do on an open fire and you just start drawing air from the room, rather than air through the fire. When I start a woodburner, I use a little scrunched up paper and very dry softwood sticks and good, seasoned wood on that. I do not add the wood until the sticks are burning. Still get a little smoke starting up, but after a few minutes it is done.

The only real reason for pre-warming your flue is to stop the smoke going cold and falling back into the room as Tarrel says.

If it is a small fire outdoors, dry, thin or split sticks. Have a decent amount at hand.