Draftwright Chimney Diagnostics · Spindlebrook · the smoking-room clinic
Your fireplace is not broken. Its draft is, and draft is measurable.
Draftwright exists for the room that smokes — the fireplace that fills the parlour on windy nights, the stove that will not draw until January. We arrive with a manometer, a smoke pencil and a Level 2 camera, reproduce the failure, and prescribe from readings: damper geometry, chamber roughness, liner sizing, make-up air. Nothing is guessed; nothing is sold that a pascal does not argue for.
The clinic’s premise
Why rooms smoke, in one paragraph
A flue is a column of warm gas that has to outweigh the cold air above the roof — and half the fireplaces in Spindlebrook argue with theirs. An oversized liner cools the gas before it clears, a rough smoke chamber strangles the pull at the throat, a rusted damper seated at half is a wall in the windpipe, and a tightly weatherized house can be so starved for air that the flue loses the argument with the kitchen exhaust fan. Every one of those has a number on it. The number is the diagnosis, the diagnosis is the prescription — and half the prescriptions in this clinic cost less than a dinner, because the fix was a plate and a habit, not a rebuild.
The manometer
Draft read in pascals at the firebox, at the throat and above the damper — before, during and after we reproduce the failure. A reading says oversize, restriction or stack-pressure deficit in a way no ladder and no opinion can.
The smoke pencil
A wand of visible smoke moved around the throat, the damper edges and the room itself — it shows where the pull lives, where it dies, and which way the house breathes when the stove door opens. Low theatre, high evidence.
The Level 2 camera
Every foot of flue on video, for the restrictions, the offsets, the creosote degrees a smoking room is usually hiding — and the cracked crown quietly letting water into the wall. The footage is part of the file you keep — a diagnosis you can replay beats one you have to trust.
Services & rates
The diagnostics card
Every diagnosis starts at the $210 visit and ends with a written prescription naming the fix, the price and the pascals behind both — and the fee comes off whatever the prescription says to do. NFPA 211 Level 1, 2 and 3 inspections all run through the same instruments — a Level 3 question, the opening of masonry, is scoped only from what the Level 2 camera films — so a sale, a fuel change or an insurance question can ride on readings instead of adjectives.
The smoking-room diagnosis$210
Two hours on site: readings, smoke trace, camera where warranted, written prescription — fee credited to any fix it names
Damper plate, re-seated$140
Throat plate cleaned, freed and seated flat; handle replaced where gone — the most common fix the clinic prescribes
Top-sealing damper, fitted$660
Closes the chimney at the top like a biscuit tin, cap included — summer smell and winter draft together
Smoke-chamber pargingfrom $890
Corbelled brick smoothed to code with insulating castable so the pull stops stumbling at the throat
Liner sizing check & relinefrom $2,450
Manometer-verified sizing to the appliance; rigid 316Ti stainless, insulated and draw-tested, where the readings insist
Make-up air planfrom $320
For houses tightened past what the flue can overcome — a designed inlet, specified on paper, not a window left open
The appointment
How a diagnosis runs
The same four movements every time — the only variable is which reading wins the argument.
Reproduce the failure
We light the same fire that smokes the room, close the same doors, run the same exhaust fan. A draft problem that will not perform on demand cannot be diagnosed, only guessed at.
Read the column
Manometer at three heights, smoke pencil at the throat and the damper edges, the room watched for which way the air wants to leave. Numbers on the clipboard, in front of you.
Name the loser
Oversize, restriction, competition or starvation — one of the four is beating your flue, and the readings say which. The camera goes down where the numbers point.
Prescribe, then prove
The fix is written with its price and its pascals, done or scheduled, and the manometer comes back out at the end: the after-reading prints beside the before one, or the visit is not closed.
Readings, filed
The clinic’s ledger
Spindlebrook & district, 2025 — 2026
Rooms that stopped smoking
Six diagnoses from last season with their after-readings. The instruments travel to every one; the prescriptions rarely match.
Four years of smoke on windy nights, two firms, one “needs a reline” and no instruments anywhere. Draftwright reproduced it in ten minutes, read the column, and found a damper plate seized at half and a chamber rough as a cheese grater. Plate, parging, done — and the after-reading is on my fridge like a race result.
The diagnosis cost $210 and talked us out of a $3,000 liner. Our flue was fine; our house was starving it — the new windows had won. A designed inlet, fitted in a morning, and the stove draws with the door shut. They seemed almost pleased to sell us the cheap fix.
Our stove manual said a six-inch liner, the shop sold us a six-inch liner, and the room smoked anyway. The manometer showed the flue gas cooling before it cleared — the run was too tall for that size at our temps. Third size, third season, zero smoke, and the file explains why in one page.
We bought the cottage in February and could not light the parlour fireplace once without the alarms. Two firms quoted relines over the phone. Draftwright arrived, closed every door, ran the kitchen fan, and the room filled while the manometer watched — then showed us the number collapse. The flue was being beaten by the fan, full stop. A make-up air inlet and a re-seated damper, under a thousand all in, and the fireplace has not smoked since. The before-and-after readings are framed in the parlour, which tells you what kind of household we are.
The clinic’s five
The questions the clinic answers most.
Why does the fireplace smoke only on windy nights?
Because wind moving over an uncapped or wrongly-capped termination churns the pressure at the top, and a flue with no margin loses its column to the churn. The readings separate that from the other suspects — often a cap matched to the termination, sometimes a top-sealing damper, and once in a while it really is the tree the neighbours keep blaming.
Could the problem be that my house is too tight?
It very often is, especially after new windows or a converted range hood. Every exhaust appliance competes with the flue for the same air, and the biggest fan wins. The smoke pencil shows the direction; the fix is a designed make-up air inlet, specified in the prescription — not a window propped open all winter.
What are the creosote degrees the camera grades?
First degree is flaky soot and brushes out. Second degree has hardened into shiny plates and gets the rotary head. Third degree is glazed tar — the fuel chimney fires feed on — and gets chemical treatment plus a camera follow-up before the card is signed. A smoking room often hides accelerated deposits; the scan counts them.
Do I need a Level 2 scan or just the diagnosis?
The diagnosis is the readings; the scan is the walls. If the prescription might touch the liner — sizing, relines, fuel changes — the camera goes down as part of the same visit, and the footage joins the file. NFPA 211 requires a Level 2 at any sale, fuel change or after a flue fire regardless of symptoms.
Will the fix really print its own before-and-after?
Yes — that is the clinic’s whole position. The manometer comes back out when the work is done, and the after-reading prints beside the before one on the report. If the number has not moved, the file says so and so do we; a prescription that cannot prove itself is just an opinion with a receipt.
The clinic runs Tuesdays to Saturdays, diagnosis inside the week · (555) 074-5590 · clinic@draftwrightflue.example
Book the diagnosis
Tell us the room, the hearth, and when it smokes — windy nights, cold starts, or whenever the kitchen fan runs. The two-hour diagnosis is $210 with a written prescription, and the fee comes off any fix it names. clinic@draftwrightflue.example