Green Tip: Fireplaces

While they are aesthetically pleasing, and provide a sense of warmth; an improperly maintained fireplace is actually highly inefficient, failing to serve the purpose of heating your home.

When getting ready to use your fireplace for the winter, it is imperative to perform routine inspection and maintenance.  For starters, ensure your chimney has been cleaned, a buildup of soot and ash will make your fireplace burn inefficiently, leading to in-home respiratory issues, and pose a threat to the safety of your home by heightening the chance of a chimney fire. Check the seal on your flue damper, and if necessary, have it maintenanced to ensure the seal is properly working.

On average, a household chimney can send up to 24,000 cubic feet of heated air up the chimney per hour.  In order to reduce this, open dampers at the bottom of the fireplace, install tempered glass doors with a heat-air exchange system that will help to circulate air efficiently, and use grates to draw cool air in fireplace and push warm air out into the room.  In addition, be sure to keep the damper closed when not using the fireplace.

If you are in the market for a new fireplace, you can seal off your chimney and install a gas-powered display that will provide the same aesthetics with about 70% more efficiency, and significantly less maintenance.