The bird in the flue

If there's a room we hardly ever use in our house, it's the “rec room” located downstairs, next to my office. At the moment, I'm using it to finishing a Holiday project, and last Tuesday, we sensed a strange, foul odor emanating from the fireplace area. It's an enclosed fireplace fired with natural gas. For a while we were wondering about what that odor might be, but soon my wife remembered hearing some strange noises coming from that room a few days before.

Since it was a bit too early for the Santa's annual visit, we came to the conclusion that it might have been a bird trapped in the flue and fighting its way out, as she heard a series of noises like constant wing flapping for a good couple of hours. The problem is that, short of tearing everything apart, there is little that can be done to access the main flue and the space surrounding the fireplace insert. Further, the downstairs fireplace seats a good 33 feet from the top of the chimney.

I climbed on the roof and realized that when we had that gas insert placed in the spring of 2005, the installer had made three incisions in a protection grid to hoist some of the equipment down and had never closed them back down, resulting in letting birds and other creatures access the flue and fall into it. I quickly proceeded to close off the openings to thwart more unauthorized flying or climbing animals entries. As of yesterday, the odor has subsided. That bird must be well-cooked now...