Expert: James Ball - 12/24/2010

Question
Hello,

I live in the top apartment of a 2-floor building. The chimney of the fireplace is about 7 feet tall (measuring from the roof). However, in many cases, especially with south wind, a big amount of smoke enters the apartment.
Besides the usual answers to that (i.e. increase chimney height) I would like to ask something else:
the chimney cap is custom built using bricks and rooftiles. However, the holes around it are not symmetrical, particularly there are 2 small square holes at the ease side (about 1/2 feet wide and 2/3 feet tall) and 1 big hole (bigger that the other 2 combined) at the west side. Could this be the cause of the problem?
Thank you.

Answer
Hello, usually the height plays a very big roll in chimney performance and with out seeing this cap I can not tell, 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, they should be able to help.
Hope this helps
Happy Holidays
James