Ctwoodtick
Minister of Fire
I wish the best to the OP. They made no mistakes in this situation.
The OP asked for opinions and definitely got a variety of them. Up to her now on how to proceed.
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New Wood Fireplace and Now Angry Neighbour
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The OP asked for opinions and definitely got a variety of them. Up to her now on how to proceed.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I'm not sure why you'd assume that. Without getting into numbers, I can tell you that I've spent most of my life living in houses presently priced into the mid-7-figures, including the one mentioned at the beginning of this thread where we burned four fireplaces. That was in the center of a town, four homes per city block on 0.75 to 1.0 acre lots that were deep and narrow, our neighbors to either side were less than 100 feet away.
Expensive homes do not imply PITA neighbors, in fact my experience has been almost directly the opposite. Almost unilaterally, the worst neighbors I ever encountered were in the first homes I bought as a young adult, in very down-scale neighborhoods. Talk about people with some issues...
Agreed. Sorry, poor choice of words, on my part.
It would be nice to have an "update" but I think the OP got scared off! 😃
Expensive homes do not imply PITA neighbors, in fact my experience has been almost directly the opposite. Almost unilaterally, the worst neighbors I ever encountered were in the first homes I bought as a young adult, in very down-scale neighborhoods. Talk about people with some issues...
Didn't say expensive = PITA. What I was saying is your dealing with people that have a lot of money invested in their home and typically have the resources to deal with such issues.
I scanned through a lot of the replies more quickly than normal on a thread like this.
Yeah, it sounds like a lost situation and a very hard to deal with neighbor.
At the same time, I'm not sure that the OP is really running the fireplace the best they can. If they are just using a few small pieces of kindling and wood just bought this year, that seems like a recipe for long, slow, smoky starts with smoke blowing to ground level for an extended period of time. We would all agree (I think) that we owe nearby neighbors better than this.
If the OP is still monitoring the thread, my advice would be go to go big on kindling (like an earlier piece showed), a fair amount of newspaper, and some wax fire starters. And try some small packs of "kiln-dried" wood from the local big box or other store that is probably a lot drier than any load of "seasoned" firewood that you just go delivered (and which was probably cut two weeks before they delivered it to you and full of moisure). Maybe the OP's husband is also just terrible at starting a fire and the OP has to take this over to make sure it is done right? My dad for years was horrible at having a fire in the fireplace - he used wet wood, not enough kindling, not enough logs, etc. etc. It was always a disaster. And yes, my mom got fed up and in their retirement home is a gas fireplace (not his choice, but I can't blame my mom).
There are probably some basic things you could do to run the fireplace with less emissions and then see what happens after that. You could also put up an inexpensive nylon netting "deer fence" to keep her away from your house to avoid any intrusions when you were burning the least smoky fires you could.
Sometimes, it also just works to be passive aggressive. Smile, nod, be polite, then just do what you are going to do.
Yeah, it sounds like a lost situation and a very hard to deal with neighbor.
At the same time, I'm not sure that the OP is really running the fireplace the best they can. If they are just using a few small pieces of kindling and wood just bought this year, that seems like a recipe for long, slow, smoky starts with smoke blowing to ground level for an extended period of time. We would all agree (I think) that we owe nearby neighbors better than this.
If the OP is still monitoring the thread, my advice would be go to go big on kindling (like an earlier piece showed), a fair amount of newspaper, and some wax fire starters. And try some small packs of "kiln-dried" wood from the local big box or other store that is probably a lot drier than any load of "seasoned" firewood that you just go delivered (and which was probably cut two weeks before they delivered it to you and full of moisure). Maybe the OP's husband is also just terrible at starting a fire and the OP has to take this over to make sure it is done right? My dad for years was horrible at having a fire in the fireplace - he used wet wood, not enough kindling, not enough logs, etc. etc. It was always a disaster. And yes, my mom got fed up and in their retirement home is a gas fireplace (not his choice, but I can't blame my mom).
There are probably some basic things you could do to run the fireplace with less emissions and then see what happens after that. You could also put up an inexpensive nylon netting "deer fence" to keep her away from your house to avoid any intrusions when you were burning the least smoky fires you could.
Sometimes, it also just works to be passive aggressive. Smile, nod, be polite, then just do what you are going to do.
sneefy
Burning Hunk
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