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February 17, 2010
Remember that the glass on a wood stove door is not the same as the glass in your home’s windows. It’s either tempered glass or transparent ceramic and is manufactured for use in high heat. Make sure to keep the visibility clear by learning how to clean a wood stove glass door properly.
Use a specially formulated wood stove or fireplace glass cleaner. Some will even condition the glass afterwards by leaving a silicone coating to reduce soot and residue buildup. Always use a soft cloth to wipe the cleaner, as you don’t want any scratches or nicks to damage the door.
For proper fire safety always use ash containers with lids. Not only will a lid keep curious (and clumsy) fingers from reaching into hot ash, but it will also stop spillage.
You don’t want the mess and danger of hot ash spilling onto your flooring or upholstery. After you have emptied the ash from your fireplace, fill your ash bucket, secure the lid and remove it to an area outside. Some recommend filling your ash container with water to moisten and cool the ash even further. Whether adding water or not, be sure to use ash containers with lids for optimum fire safety.
No longer the dirty, polluting fireplaces and wood stoves of the past, new technology has ensured that wood burning is eco friendly.
Let’s assume that your wood comes from a responsible source and is sustainably harvested. Always burn seasoned hardwood for optimum efficiency.
Now be sure that your fireplace or wood stove is designed with proper combustion. New and advanced units use catalytic or non-catalytic combustion methods that keep the emissions well below stated EPA levels. This means you are not releasing excessive pollutants into the air.
So when you use a sustainable and well seasoned fuel source with an advanced combustion technology, you can rest assured that your wood burning is eco friendly.
For safety and comfort, it’s important to protect your hands with fireplace gloves. Keep the heat away from your palms and fingers with a quality pair made of thick cowhide leather.
With a good pair of fireplace gloves you can place logs with precision, clean out ash easily and generally handle your fire responsibly. Look for a pair with reinforced finger tips to prevent wear in sensitive spots. An inner insulation will provide optimum protection and the glove should always extend past your wrist and down your forearm. As a wood stove or fireplace owner, you need to protect your hands with quality fireplace gloves. Fireplace Village carries fireplace and wood stove gloves in all of our New Hampshire locations or buy fireplace gloves online.
Gas fireplaces are known for their convenience and ease of use. Whether you’ve just installed a new gas fireplace or are entering the heating season again, learning how to turn on a gas fireplace is a simple lesson.
If your gas fireplace is an insert model, find and open your flue. Make sure your pilot light is lit. If not, relight it with a long match and switch the gas knob to ON. This should get the flames up.
For a direct-vent or vent-free model, check the pilot light (it may not be out in the open, so have a good look for it). Once lit, most models will begin to operate with a flick of a wall switch.
Protect your precious children with a KidCo hearth gate. The interlocking sections will block off harmful flames, the hot surfaces of wood stoves and the sharp edges and corners that are found around most fireplaces.
The well designed and built hearth gates from KidCo make it easy for you to tend the fire while resting in the knowledge that your children are safe. Short sections can be fitted around most any fireplace or wood stove and blend into your décor easily.
Give your whole family the best possible experience and comfort of a contained wood fire by investing in a child safety gate for your fireplace or wood stove.
February 16, 2010
We saw good question (and answer) about gas fireplaces in the Boston Globe yesterday:
Q. I had a gas fireplace installed in my 2007 house. It is fueled by propane because there is no gas on the street. The pilot light has gone off repeatedly. A faulty part was replaced without much success. Someone thought there was not enough pressure from the propane, and increased the pressure. Still with no success. In December the pilot went out again and it cost me $95 to turn it on, and failed again in a few hours. Now what?
RIPPING MAD
A. Good question. Boosting pressure? Maybe. This might work: Replace the pilot with electronic ignition. Finally, was the unit designed for propane? Check with the installer. And since professionals have been dealing with this for months without success, perhaps a whole new unit is in order. Or replace the unit with a pellet stove, one that has a power vent through the wall and it doesn’t need a pilot.
Fireplace Village provides gas fireplace installation, service and maintenance in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Call or email today to set an appointment.
The stored energy in wood has been used for centuries to heat homes and cook foods. Wood burning heat was the purpose of the huge fireplaces seen in historical homes and estates where fireplaces taller and wider than a man spewed heat (and often sparks) into rooms. Large kettles for cooking and heating water hung on hooks that could be rotated near the fire or directly over the flames.
Burning wood for heat was not limited to fireplaces in homes and businesses. Indian teepees featured heat generated by a fire in the center of the structure with smoke released through a hole in the top. Campfires create heat for outdoor enthusiasts and blazing bonfires on the edge of a frozen pond warm ice skaters. In many areas of the globe, wood is the main source of heat today.
Over time, man has devised ways to better control and disperse the heat from burning wood. The wood stove is the prime example. While a fireplace must be located on a wall of the room, the wood stove allowed that heat to be moved into the room more efficiently. Though designs referred to as “pot bellied stoves” were quite popular for a time, they were not further developed as coal became widely available for burning. The advent of electricity resulted in loss of consumer interest in old-fashioned wood burning heat stoves.
In the energy crisis of the 1970’s there was a fear that fossil fuels would soon become too expensive for all but the wealthy to afford. Homeowners in colder climates began seeking safe and efficient wood burning stoves in response. Soaring electricity and natural gas prices combined with recent environmental concerns today are again focusing consumer interest on clean burning, efficient wood burning heat alternatives.
When consumers demand – manufacturers supply. The efficiency of wood burning heat begins with the stove itself. Newer, more efficient wood burning stoves provide a much higher margin of safety than was possible only a few years ago. The exhaust of a wood stove is critical as the fumes must be directed outdoors correctly. An improperly vented wood stove presents a health hazard from carcinogens and gases created by the burning process.
The wood used is another consideration. The wood fuel may be split logs or might be wood chips, pellets, or charcoal. Much of the firewood used today is the by-product of natural forests, logging, and lumber mills. Wood must be “seasoned” by allowing it to dry after being cut. Green wood must be seasoned a minimum of six months before use but standing dead timber is ideal as it is partially seasoned when cut.
Wood burning heat is highly dependent on the type of wood used. Hardwoods are preferable with hickory and oak ideal but sometimes more expensive. Most wood is split and allowed to air dry for seasoning but kilns can also be used to speed the process. A good hardwood, properly seasons, provides the long burning, heat-producing flames we expect for our roaring fire.
Adding a gas fireplace when remodeling a kitchen or bath has become popular with homeowners in colder climates. The price of natural gas, propane and electricity that are routinely used as fuel for heating homes has skyrocketed in recent years.
Adding a fireplace to a kitchen may initially appear to provide only a design element for a country home or farmhouse effect. In reality, this can be a common sense addition to your home. For busy families with two wage earners, time spent at home on weekdays is limited. Mornings are a rush to get dressed for work or school, grab a cup of coffee and a quick breakfast and then everyone is out the door till evening.
If you’ve lived where winters are months of bitter cold, you’ll recall jumping out of bed to turn up the thermostat in years past. Now you set the automatic thermostat to come on early in the morning so your family will wake to a warm and comfortable home. You heat the entire house using a considerable amount of energy – only for the one hour mad rush in the morning.
Some lucky homeowners, especially in the Midwest, have discovered beautiful fireplaces behind walls when they remodel an old, outdated country kitchen. When the older homes were built that kitchen fireplace provided the only heat to the room. Fifty years later an owner added a modern kitchen (for the period) and the fireplace was viewed as old fashioned. The solution was to build a wall covering the fireplace.
When the hidden fireplace was discovered in a later renovation it often became the focal point of the new kitchen. Many of these featured arched openings and some retained pot hooks and other accessories piled into the firebox. Originally, homeowners who discovered these hidden treasures often insisted the original wood burning capability should be maintained. In time, even the “natural fire” holdouts have often replaced wood with its smoke and messy ashes with clean gas fireplace logs for quick heat and low maintenance.
A gas fireplace in the kitchen is practical. It can be turned on and will instantly begin producing heat in the room. Your family will have a cheerful fire and a warm room to meet for breakfast, prepare lunches and be out the door.
If you think a gas fireplace in a bathroom is a luxury beyond your means, perhaps you haven’t looked at the new options available. The ambience of flames is a given but the instant warmth a small gas fireplace produces in a bathroom is pure comfort on a cold morning or to relax after a stressful day at work.
There may be nothing that is as practically luxurious as including a gas fireplace in your bathroom design. If remodeling your bath isn’t in the foreseeable future, you can still add a gas fireplace. Contemporary ventless designs offer all the features in a readymade fireplace that can be easily mounted on a wall.
Including a gas fireplace in a kitchen or bath remodel may be the best home improvement you can undertake – and one you will truly enjoy for years.
Creosote build-up is extremely dangerous when it accumulates on the inside chimney walls of your fireplace. All burning wood creates creosote but some types of wood produce the tar-like substance faster than others.
Wood fires create and releases gases. These gases are unburned substances that will coat the flue and liner of the chimney over time. This creates a tarry substance called creosote. The danger of a chimney that has been coated with a glaze of the tar is that they can cause a fire to occur in the chimney.
Although you can’t avoid creosote buildup you can limit how often you need to have the chimney cleaned by burning only well seasoned wood. Burning only hardwoods and keeping fires small and hot is helpful, too.
It doesn’t take a thick coating of creosote to provide enough fuel for a chimney fire. Experts have estimated over 90% of chimney fires are caused by ignited creosote and the buildup may be as little as 1/8 of an inch coating the interior surface of the chimney or vent pipe.
Smart homeowners have chimneys manually cleaned on a regular basis. If you do it yourself it’s a messy job. More importantly, you may not remove enough of the creosote to guarantee safe operation of your fireplace during the coming winter. Special brushes and tools are needed which makes calling a chimney sweep the best option. Look for a company that is certified as a professional chimney sweep. They will not only thoroughly clean the chimney but will also inspect for broken tiles, cracks or other problems that could present a safety hazard for your family.
A clean chimney is great but the moment you begin using the fireplace again that creosote will begin to build up once again. You can increase the period of time between expensive professional cleanings by using chemical cleaners after the chimney sweeps do the job.
There are various sticks, powders, logs and liquid sprays that inhibit the buildup of creosote when used each time you burn a wood fire in your fireplace. An additional bonus is that the products reduce the odor that can build in your chimney and fireplace. The sprays, which are cheapest to use, may also be one of the most effective methods. These are used each time you light a fire, are extremely simple to use and will help you avoid creosote buildup.
Fireplace Village carries many creosote management and creosote reduction products including creosote cleaners, creosote destroying logs and wood stove thermometers. Visit one of our New Hampshire locations to buy creosote cleaning and fire safety products or buy online.
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