Fireplace Safety and Efficiency Tips

Whether it's for the cozy ambiance fireplaces create or simply for the practical use of reducing heating costs, many buyers have a fireplace on their list of wants when buying a home.

Here are three "hot" tips for keeping your home fireplace burning safely and efficiently.

1. Fireplace Preventive Maintenance

Excessive heat and chimney fires are produced by the buildup of creosote—a highly-combustible byproduct (mostly tar) of burning wood. Whether using your fireplace year-round, seasonally or just when the mood strikes you, chimney preventive maintenance is an essential home improvement project for keeping your home safe.

• Chimney inspection: Hire a chimney service technician to inspect your chimney at least once a year. Loose bricks, cracks, missing mortar and damaged dampers and lining may need to make your home improvement list.
• Chimney cap: Chimney caps with spark arrestors (metal screens) prevent snow, rain, animals, and debris from entering the chimney. Moreover, spark arrestors prevent floating embers from escaping the chimney and possibly setting your roof ablaze. Your technician ensures the chimney cap and spark arrestor are functioning properly.
• Chimney sweep: A 2016 report by the National Fire Protection Association states that the leading factor for home heating fires was a failure to clean the chimney.

2. Building a Fire

Learning how to build a home fireplace fire safely and efficiently are excellent skills to master. There's more to it than tossing some wood in the firebox, dousing it with lighter fluid and—uh-oh—don't do that! Be patient, and take fire building seriously.

• Choosing wood: Only burn dry, cured wood. High moisture levels in wood create more smoke, doesn't burn as efficiently and tends to produce more creosote. Cover your woodpile, but leave the sides exposed to airflow. Hickory, white oak, beech, and other hardwoods burn longer than spruce and white pine. However, sufficiently dry firewood is more important than the species and density.
• Building a fire: Open the damper first. Next, place larger logs in the back of the firebox. Put smaller logs on top of the larger ones. On top, place your wood kindling and tinder, such as bunched-up newspaper balls. This "upside down" fire will burn cleaner and hotter than placing kindling and tinder on the bottom. Remember, start slowly, be patient and build up.
• Only burn firewood: Your fireplace isn't an incinerator. Disposing of crates, construction scraps and painted or stained wood, for example, may seem harmless enough, but treated woods release harmful chemicals into your home.

3. Fireplace Safety and Efficiency

Be mindful of the fireplace surroundings and the fire. Keep tinder, such as newspaper and other combustibles, at a safe distance. Use these tips to keep the warm glow inside the firebox.

• Spark guard: When you cozy up with your significant other in front of your fireplace, sure, you want sparks to fly—but not sparks from the fireplace fire! Close the mesh spark guard when the glass doors are open.
• Dampers: You don't want your energy dollars going up the chimney. Close the damper and glass doors when you are not using the fireplace.
• Alarms: Test your smoke alarms and CO detectors at least twice a year. Alarms/detectors should be installed outside each sleeping area, on each level of your home and about 8 to 10 feet from your fireplace and any doors to attached garages.

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