A wood-burning fireplace can add a touch of elegance and cozy comfort to any room in your home. Here are some important maintenance tasks to keep your wood-burning fireplace in prime condition:
- Have professional maintenance performed annually: Your fireplace and chimney should be inspected and cleaned by a professional at least once a year. This will help ensure a safe venting of combustion gases and a clean environment for burning wood.
- Check for creosote: If creosote and other materials build up in your fireplace, you may need to perform more frequent cleanings. Creosote is a dark or black substance that occurs if wood in your fireplace isn’t burning completely. Remember that creosote is flammable and could create a dangerous fire hazard if it isn’t cleaned up regularly.
- Check the chimney cap: Make sure the chimney cap is in place to protect your chimney from rain or snow and to keep birds, small animals, leaves, sticks and other debris out of the chimney area. Your cap should fit tightly and be undamaged.
- Respond quickly to abnormalities: If your fire isn’t burning right or if there’s smoke in your home, and there seems to be a problem with your fireplace, respond immediately. Put out your fire if necessary and call for professional help. Ignoring fireplace problems could lead to serious health and safety risks.
- Practice fireplace safety: Keep a close eye on children around fireplaces and open flames. Curiosity could lead to a severe burn. Also, make sure you don’t leave your fireplace unattended or leave your house while it’s burning. It’s important that there’s enough ventilation to keep smoke and fumes out of the interior of your home.
Brownsburg area customers have relied on Make It Mowery for professional residential and commercial services for more than 40 years. Contact us today for more information on taking care of your wood-burning fireplace, so you can keep it safe, usable and attractive for years.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Brownsburg, Indiana and surrounding areas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
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