If you own a home with a fireplace, you may be wondering what you can and should do to keep your fireplace in good working condition (even if you don't use it regularly or at all). There are several steps that you should take to maintain and care for your fireplace. Get to know a few tips to help you out with your fireplace maintenance. Then, you can be sure you are doing what you can to keep your fireplace in the best condition possible going forward.
Be Sure You Have Ample Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Detectors
When you have a fireplace, you want to be sure that it is not leaking noxious fumes into your home or causing a great deal of smoke to get into your home when you have a fire burning. As such, one of the most important fireplace maintenance steps you can take is to be sure you have ample carbon monoxide and smoke detectors around your home.
Be sure that you have a detector in the same room as your fireplace. That way, if carbon monoxide or smoke do leak into your home, you will know about it right away and will be able to deal with it.
Clean the Fireplace Regularly
If your fireplace is wood-burning, it can be beautiful and fun to light a fire and gather round to listen to the crackling and just enjoy the fire. However, when you do use a wood-burning fireplace, you will have ash and other debris to deal with after the fact.
You do not want all of that to build up in your fireplace. As such, you will want to clean out the debris on a regular basis. Ideally, you would do this the day after every fire you light, but once every few fires would be okay too.
Have Your Fireplace and Chimney Inspected Annually
In order to ensure that your fireplace is functioning properly and is in the best shape possible, you will want to defer to the experts. Have a professional chimney and fireplace inspection done at least once a year.
Preferably, this would be done in the fall or at the beginning of the cold season when you will use your fireplace most often. However, if you use your fireplace year round, you may want to have it inspected twice a year because of the additional wear and tear.
Knowing these fireplace maintenance tips, you can be sure you are taking the right steps to maintain your fireplace from now on.
Share4 August 2020
Moving to a hot climate freed me from dealing with snow and ice in the winter. However, it also brought a lot more heat during the summer. I had resigned myself to paying big bills for cooling nine months out of the year when I found out from a friend that my air conditioner was struggling and need in of repair. Once a technician stopped by and gave my equipment a tune up, my cooling costs were nearly cut in half! This surprising discovery prompted me to head online and blog about my experiences. Even if you and your family only use the air conditioner a few times a month during the summer, you can benefit from my tips on keeping the equipment running smoothly and efficiently. You'll appreciate the combination of cooler indoor temperatures and lower monthly bills.
