My stove won’t light, and smoke is leaking out into the room; what should I do?

It sounds like you have a cold plug in your chimney. When the chimney gets very cold, an invisible plug of cold air can form in the flue. This means the chimney is plugged and pushes the smoke back down and out of the stove into the room. This can occur when a chimney has not been used for a while, a sudden change to colder weather and is known to be clean.

The solution to this is straightforward. First, allow the fire you have created to extinguish. The rapid or normal firing of your stove will not assist in this matter. Once the fire is out, light a small fire using only kindling and flamers, the idea is to slowly and gently increase the internal temperature of your chimney, which will remove the cold air plug.

You may wish to ventilate the room by opening doors and windows to help clear the smoke away.