How to Use and Maintain Your Fireplace

Nothing feels better than being close to your fireplace, enjoying the warmth with your loved ones, especially on windy days. This brings us to the fact that maintaining our fireplace is an important issue that we cannot overlook. So if you are a lover of the glow and crackling sound that comes from the wood fire, then this article on how to maintain your fireplace is for you.

Tips for Using And Maintaining A Fireplace

There are different styles of fireplaces – traditional, modern, and contemporary. The traditional and contemporary styles are more like stone fireplaces that you can design in an elegant fashion. The modern style is made of glass and marble. Whichever style you choose; the following tips will help you maintain your fireplace.  

1. Fit in smoke and fire alarms in specific areas around your house. Ensure they are always in good working condition.
2. Take away combustible materials like furniture, fabrics, and carpets from your fireplace when it’s burning. Placing a safety gate around the area will help to prevent children as well as pets from fire hazards.
3. Regularly remove ash dumps in the area as soon as it gets to the bottom because it could restrict the flow of air. Ensure to put on protective wears like gloves and dusk masks for safety. For your gloves, consider using disposable nitrile gloves. With protective equipment and appropriate tools, it’s safer to handle and remove fireplace ashes. Plus, it’s easier to clean your hands after the job. 
4. Contact a fireplace cleaning professional to check the chimney annually especially if you noticed that a good part of your fireplace has been covered in soot. 
5. Carry out a smoke exit test on your chimney regularly. This is done by lighting up some wood pieces dropped from above to the ground. If your fireplace is in order, the smoke should exit vertically through the chimney. If the smoke doesn’t exit through the proper means but comes into the room, then you need to call a professional for assistance quickly. The possible cause of this could be a clog due to debris or soot, an improperly placed damper, or bad wood.
6. Always use good wood. Seasoned woods are woods that were properly dried and contain less percentage moisture. Avoid using green or freshly cut woods. Splitting your wood makes it easier to dry and burn better compared to burning the entire log. Greenwood has a higher tendency to produce more soot that could clog your chimney.
7. Use hardwood and not softwood. Some hardwoods include maple, ash, and oak. These woods are denser, enabling them to produce the required heat. You can click here to read more about the best type of wood for a wood fireplace.

We cannot overemphasize the need to maintain your fireplace. Always ensure that ash remnants are removed from the area using an ash dump. This should be done after the fire goes out. On the other hand, sprinkling the ash on your flower beds provides useful nutrients for your plants.

It is important to note that periodic inspection and sweeping of the chimney is a very vital aspect of maintenance. This is because, in the long run, your chimney becomes covered with byproducts like soot which are formed as a result of incomplete combustion.

The excessive formation of this could result in an incident referred to as a chimney fire. Hence, you should clean and remove the soot before summer to prevent the formation of acid and the production of a bad smell. However, if cleaning the chimney feels like too much of a task, you can always hire a professional. Simply search for keywords similar to “chimney cleaning near me” online and find a company you trust to handle the job effectively.

Furthermore, ensure to put on a respirator to avoid inhaling the soot or dust as it is dangerous to the health. Also, use a chimney brush to scrub through the walls as well as the damper. Try inspecting the chimney cover and ensure it’s clean and free from soot. You could also make use of a chemical cleaner over time.

As cleaning and inspection are going on, try to also check for cracks, missing bricks, as well as any serious damage to the chimney walls. And ensure that the damper is in its correct position.

Safety Is Important

It is important to understand that as much as fireplaces add aesthetic value to a property and provide us the perfect warmth we desire, we also need to take precautions while handling the maintenance. In cases where the fireplaces are not properly installed, used and maintained it can result in house fires. 

Chimney fires may have exposed embers that can result in home injuries if not noticed on time. Also, wood burning negatively affects the quality of air in our homes. In a proper sense, smoke from fireboxes is not meant to escape into the indoor air. 

If this happens, it means that your fireplace installation was done wrongly or operated wrongly. In addition, the smoke can result in a more dangerous effect called back drafting. Due to this, most homes are built with properly installed smoke and carbon (II) oxide alarms. You can visit https://www.bobvila.com/articles/chimney-fires/ to learn about chimney fires and how to avoid them.

Conclusion

Taking proper care of the fireplace is an essential duty for all owners as it provides heat on cold days. Ensure to carry out periodic checks or better still, contact a professional to assist you. Also, remove soot clogs to avoid fire outbreaks.

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