Expert: James Ball - 11/28/2008

Question
I have a brick chimney on the north side of my house. Thus it makes my living room quite cold. I have it plugged to stop down drafts. I want to do an external covering over the chimney to insulate it and hopefully keep my living room warmer. What is the best way to do this?

Answer
Hello Ian, the down draft might be from Negative pressure in the home, What is happening is your home is a better chimney than your chimney, if 10 gallons of air is going up and out of the home per minute then it needs 10 gallons of air per minute and it will pull the air from the path of least resistance in your home and in most cases it will pull that air down an other flue/chimney and with it smoke/odor/cold air the house needs make up air.  and coving it might not help enough, extending the chimney taller might help, I would have a local Certified Chimney Sweep (www.csia.org, there you can look up by zip code to find one near you) take a first hand look at what you have.
James