Have
you fireplace and chimney evaluated and swept annually.
Make sure that your chimney is free of creosote and
is safe to operate. Hire a professional licensed chimney
sweep to insure that your appliance is performing to optimum
performance. We have some secrets that may make your life a little
easier.
Preheat
the chimney.
Just like a chef preheats an oven, you should preheat
the chimney. Before you light a fire, open the damper and
then roll up a few pieces of newspaper and burn the paper to
preheat the chimney to push the cold air in the chimney up and
out of the way and replace it with the warm air coming off the
burning newspaper. Then go ahead and light the fire as you would
do normally.
Use
only seasoned wood.
Use only split seasoned firewood. Do not use
green wood or burn whole logs. Do not burn garbage, painted boards,
pressure treated wood, wrapping paper, Christmas trees or anything
dumb like this in your chimney.
Open
the damper.
There is a damper either at the top of the chimney
or a metal plate at the top of the fireplace opening. You
can open the top mounted damper by releasing the chain mounted
on the wall in the fireplace or pushing the level to open the
metal plate damper.
Open
a windward window.
There is a tremendous amount of air that is needed
to supply air for the fire and it is going up the chimney. You
need to provide replacement air. This can be done by opening
a window. Honey Do can also provide you with a replacement
air device that is inserted in the wall next to the fireplace. Please
ask your Honey Do service technician for additional information.
Raise
the metal grate.
You can raise the metal grate with firebricks. This
will allow more air to under the wood and may help provide more
draft and flow and reduce smoking.
Reduce
the size of the fireplace opening.
We can show you how to reduce the opening with a decorative
metal place over the top of the opening that may help flow and
reduce smoking problems. If your fireplace is too large to draft
properly, we can help you match the size of fireplace opening
to the size of your chimney. When they are properly balance
your fireplace works much better.
Turn
off your furnace.
The forced air furnace fan may depressurize the room
in which the fireplace in located. Both the fireplace and
the furnace are fighting for the same limited amount of air in
the home and especially in the fireplace room. The fan pulls
air out of the occupied space in the home heats it and returns
it to the house. What often happens is that it will pull
smoke out of the fireplace?
Trim
back tree limbs.
Tree limbs hanging over the termination of your chimney may interrupt the
natural flow of the smoke and may contribute to poor drafting problems.
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