Fireplace Advice To Increase Effectiveness
The main drawback of having a fireplace has to be its inefficiency given the rising cost of energy. In general, a fireplace radiates heat when a fire is burning, but it also creates a convection current that can actually draw conditioned air out of the room and up the chimney, forcing your furnace to work harder than necessary. The fireplace features a damper that is designed to prevent both inside air from escaping and outside air from entering when there is no fire burning.
Your house has a dirty little secret: your fireplace, which is meant to heat it, actually has the opposite effect and ends up costing you hundreds of dollars in electricity. Don’t worry; with a little effort and money, you can convert that ineffective fireplace into a powerful heater that will save your energy costs and give your existing fireplace more appeal.
It’s crucial to only burn firewood that is suitable for burning because many problems with poorly burning fireplaces can be caused by utilizing wood that isn’t adequate for burning.
Making sure you don’t burn any of the following types of wood is part of this:
– Damp
– Green
– Rotten
– Mold
– A manufactured wood product, such as MDF or plywood
– Treated or painted
Additionally, you should never burn anything other than dried logs in your fireplace, including household items and plastics. Dry wood can be distinguished from other types of wood by a number of characteristics, such as being brown in color rather than having a greenish tint, having peeling bark, and having rough or split log ends. Make sure you only burn wood that is dry enough to be used as firewood if you want to get the most efficiency and heat out of your fireplace.
The efficiency of your fire may be impacted if the wood you’re burning in an open fireplace comes directly from the outside or from a cooler area of your home, such as a garage. We like to bring in enough wood the day before each fire to make sure that it is at room temperature because cold wood might be more difficult to burn.
Creosote (tar), which wood can produce in varying amounts depending on how thoroughly it burns, is the primary reason your chimney gets dirty and clogged. Creosote is released in small amounts or not at all when wood burns efficiently, but it can be produced in greater quantities when wood burns inefficiently.
The efficacy of the draft might be decreased by a dirty or blocked chimney, which can also obstruct the appropriate exit of gases and smoke from your home. It’s preferable to have it cleaned before the burning season, but if you burn wood frequently at home, your chimney may need to be cleaned more frequently than once a year. It is advised to hire a Local Chimney Cleaning Hayward professional at least once a year to make sure it can safely remove smoke and waste gases from your property.