This chimney needs expert inspection for safety and condition. What Causes a Water Heater to Rust on the Bottom? We discuss: What do white powdery stains mean when found on a masonry chimney exterior indoors or outside? Chimney blockages can also cause carbon monoxide buildup inside your home, so have your furnace’s exhaust system thoroughly checked and clear all obstructions as soon as possible. Red or rust-colored stains at or around or originating at a metal chimney or chimney rain cap may be caused by rust or by other even more dangerous conditions. The chemistry of the water leaks in your chimney, if we accept your conclusion that the stains are from "exhaust gases leaching through the flue liner" would be more complicated. Call a professional service person for adjustments. If you can’t enjoy your fireplace because smoke always leaks into your home, call Chimney Saver Solutions today at 804-440-4000. see EFFLORESCENCE SALTS & WHITE DEPOSITS. That means a chimney flue and chimney exterior inspection followed by the necessary repairs. The right procedure is to first make the chimney safe, before working to remove ugly stains on its exterior. Why Does Smoke Puff out of a Wood Stove & a Stove Pipe? If the problem is not identified and resolved immediately, the furnace could start a structure fire or cause an explosion. From your photo I can't see the chimney base - it looks unusual - with just a few inches in contact with the structure - leaving me with further questions: Natural gas or LP gas would not itself produce a white residue in or on a chimney. For details There are some chimney liners that are not compatible with gas appliances because of the material from which they are made. the size of the smoke pipe going to the chimney is much larger than the chimney opening. Flame shuld be bright yellow/white....not orange and smokey. Coal furnace chimney now used for gas. The "quality effloresence cleaner" you tried was probably formulated with that chemistry in mind. ... can you connect a forced air gas furnace and a wood burning stove with a tee into the same chimney? See CHIMNEY CAP & CROWN DEFINITIONS for examples of rust damage at chimney tops, caps, and crowns. Who cares about being so picky? - 2AAKA0M from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations and vectors. Immediate action is be needed. Contact a heater repair technician to inspect your oil furnace, diagnose the issue and make the necessary repair. In general, gas condensate has a specific gravity ranging from 0.5 to 0.8, and is composed of hydrocarbons such as propane, butane, pentane, hexane, etc. InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. Here we discuss stains found on or at chimneys themselves both on the building exterior, and in the building interior at walls or ceilings near chimneys. Soot from fireplace flues washing down onto the roof - characterized by staining appearing below was leaning well away from the building - not so easy to notice when inspecting the chimney base shown at left. [4] Additionally, condensate may contain additional impurities such as:[5][6][7]. The smoke is normal and unavoidable, and it goes away quickly. We explain what these chimney stains might mean, why safety hazards may be present, and how to proceed to inspect and repair the chimney. - retrieved 2018/05/31, original source: www.csia.org/gas_fireplace.html. if u used old diesel fuel to run your furnace could this cause a black smoke from chimney On 2017-02-11 by (mod) - smells after the oil burner was serviced, odors come out of ducts I would look for a heating oil spill in or around the furnace and for wet spots showing a leak in oil piping. It is not efllourescence...a quality efflorescence cleaner made it worse when applied...Any info would be very helpful! In the photograph below, notice the black stains originating at the chimney shoulder on its left side, and the cracking stucco on the chimney's right side in this photograph. Your furnace and water heater which are most likely both gas, vent out to your chimney. Now without looking more closely we're not sure if we are seeing a history of creosote wash-down the chimney sides from a woodstove or other heater (the flue is too small for a fireplace), or alternatively, we might discover that the chimney interior flue is damaged, cracked, leaky, sending rain-washed creosote or condensate out thorough the chimney at cracks and mortar joints. In addition, if gas combustion itself is producing ANY soot, black or white, the heating equipment is very unsafe and should be shut down until it has been diagnosed and repaired. Often, in fact, there’s an opening or gap. Hankey a Minnesota home inspector. Left unattended, water entering a masonry chimney risks damage to the flue (unsafe) and to the chimney structure (unsound and unsafe). Watch out: See CHIMNEY RAIN CAP OPENING SIZE for an example of a constricted chimney cap, a different and immediately dangerous cause of red and yellow stains at the chimney top shown at above right. In this photo of Roger holding up a sooty pinkie finter on a rooftop suffering impressive black stains, the black stains on the sides of this chimney near its top are probably soot or creosote wash-down. It’s only when it can’t that there is. Stains and leak damage to a chimney may be visible in the attic. I agree with most everyone. At SLATE ROOF DEFECTS Questions & Answers we provide additional discussion about sources of white stains that may be found on chimneys or on roofs below or near chimneys. If you want to prevent this, blow off the burners with compressed air before starting the heater. Natural gas compounds with more carbon atoms (e.g. We identify common dark brown or black stains as well as white or light-colored stains or white powdery material that appears on masonry chimney surfaces. Inside the building it is important to inspect building walls for signs of chimney leakage and it may be appropriate to have a professional inspect the safety and condition of the entire chimney flue. Besides having an abiding interest in popular science, Deziel has been active in the building and home design trades since 1975. How to diagnose & evaluate stains on chimneys outdoors or indoors & where to look for signs of chimney damage. © Copyright 2020 Hearst Communications, Inc. But many don’t realize that a gas heating appliance – whether it is a furnace, boiler or even a water heater – relies on the chimney for proper venting of the exhaust. Watch out: sooting gas fired heating equipment is very dangerous and risks production of fatal carbon monoxide gases in the building. Do this: Stop your furnace ASAP and contact a furnace technician for help. I notice black smoke coming out of the chimney when the furnace… We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website. ... is plugged because the furnace vents into a brick chimney in the center of the house (I'm guessing this was from using wood heat AGES ago) Thank you for your helpp Brandon Thank you for looking. No gas appliance should ever produce black or white soot deposits. Wood-burning stoves and fireplaces produce more smoke than clean-burning gas furnaces, but both require venting through a chimney or stovepipe. Those indicate improper combustion, increasing the risk of a fatal carbon monoxide poisoning. If so, you have a serious problem that needs fixing. I hardly have any smoke coming out of my chimney, but I burn seasoned wood and burn hot with a fairly recent (1993) woodstove. Well if we don't understand what's going on we don't understand the risks involved nor what to do about the stains on your chimney. As a landscape builder, he helped establish two gardening companies. see CHIMNEY CAP & CROWN DEFINITIONS. Note: appearance of your Comment below may be delayed: if your comment contains an image, web link, or text that looks to the software as if it might be a web link, your posting will appear after it has been approved by a moderator. This article describes stains that appear on chimney surfaces both indoors and outside. Richard. Photos of soot at a metal chimney cap and on the roof below were provided courtesy of ASHI inspector Roger Hankey. 4 reasons a soot smell is bad news: 1) Soot is the result of incomplete combustion, meaning that your furnace isn’t burning the gas properly or efficiently. This chimney is suffering water damage from at least two locations. the byproduct of gas burning is water which condenses into steam when it meets cold air. My neighbor, however, who sells firewood (much, much more than me) burns in a woodstove that "came with the house" and everytime that he's burning it looks like steam emitting from a nuclear power plant. This is because the manufacturer coated the burner parts with a thin coat of oil to protect them from rust. Look for water leak stains on the flue and chimney base inside the building and inspect the chimney top carefully from outside. 9 years ago. posted by JJ86 at 6:30 AM on December 8, 2006 The chimney flue is short, the chimney cap is thin and cracked, and of course there is no rain cap. Our photo of red-brown roof stains below and around a metal-enclosed chimney (left) was taken in Wappingers Falls, NY. Watch out: But efflorescence might also mean that water is running inside of the chimney flue or chimney structure. Natural gas and propane are both smokeless fuels, so when your gas heater is smoking, it's because something else is burning. - 2018/05/31 Old Gas Furnace Blowing White Smoke Through Vents. The trained and certified chimney sweeps at Chimney Saver Solutions are experienced experts at resolving problems with smoking fireplaces. You pay for the piping required, we sweep away the service charge every other company charges*. The dark stains at the upper center of the brick masonry chimney shown above are probably algae growing in higher concentration on the masonry surface that is most-wetted by runoff from the chimney top. A white powdery, fluffy, soft, or crystalline stain found on masonry surface is usually efflorescence. That was clearly the case in the photograph shown at page top.At left our photo shows soot stains running down a masonry chimney and onto the roof surface. Photo: Wm Kibbel: Owners of old homes are often very proud of their working fireplace. Steam going up the chimney. If a chimney leak were just from rainwater blowing in at the chimney top or down its sides, the chemistry of the white effloresence that would be produced would be principally determined by what the relatively soft (thus aggressive) rainwater could dissolve from the flue liner clay (not much as that's hard-fired), the concrete used in building the chimney, and the bricks themselves. You can also remove debris by brushing it off, but that may require some disassembly to access the burners. Clean the blower at the beginning of the heating season and again about midway through the season. Chris Deziel has a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's degree in humanities. Black, gray or thick smoke coming from an oil-burning furnace is a sign of a serious problem and should be considered an emergency, whether the smoke is coming from the chimney, exhaust vent or combustion box. Probably your chimney's clay liner is ok but that's another question to discuss with the certified chimney sweep. Efflorescence may appear on the outside surfaces of a chimney both outdoors and inside as well as inside the flue itself.