Tips to Achieve Fireplace Safety in Your Home

Fireplaces and chimneys account for more than a third of home fires involving heating equipment, which makes it critical for you to learn how to keep your fireplace burning correctly and safely. Here are some essential guidelines to ensure fireplace safety.

1. To minimize the buildup of creosote and soot, use dry, well-seasoned wood that's been cut to the right length.

2. Before starting a fire, open the fireplace damper. You may have to use a flashlight or a mirror to look into the chimney to verify that it's open. Keep it open until the fire has been completely extinguished.

3. Avoid overloading the fireplace. A slow, steady burn is safer than a roaring fire. Large fires generate more smoke and can crack your chimney.

4. Don't position newspapers, Christmas trees, furniture, books, and any other flammable object close to the fireplace. In case embers are thrown into the room, you'll want to be sure there's nothing nearby that can catch fire.

5. Never leave a burning fireplace unattended. That implies you should never leave your home or go to sleep while a fire is blazing away.

6. Have a trained chimney sweep inspect and remove obstructions like creosote from your chimney before the cold months set in. Creosote buildup can ignite abruptly and cause a chimney fire.

7. Inspect the chimney cap regularly to make sure it's securely attached. If you don't have one, be sure to have one installed to prevent animals or debris from entering your chimney and increase your home's fireplace safety.

8. Carbon monoxide detectors and smoke alarms are a must-have for fireplace safety. Install and maintain them on every level of your home and outside every sleeping area. Interconnect them so that when one alarm sounds, all the others sound as well.

9. Even a single spark could cause a home fire, so you should always have a fire extinguisher close to the fireplace to augment fireplace safety.

These fireplace safety rules will help you keep your family and home comfortable and safe this winter. For all your heating and cooling needs in the Broken Arrow area, don't hesitate to contact the professionals at Air Assurance.

Boost Home Energy Efficiency With Easy Fall Projects

Boost Home Energy Efficiency With Easy Fall Projects

With winter just around the corner, it's time to turn your attention to boosting home energy efficiency. This will not only increase your comfort when colder weather comes calling, but it will also help you save on heating costs. With that in mind, here are several easy fall projects that will help boost the energy efficiency in your Broken Arrow area home.  

• Clean your gutters – It’s easy to forget about your gutters since they're not always in your direct line of sight. As such, they can often fill up with leaves, dirt and debris. You’ll want to clean all of this out before winter arrives to ensure that water from rain and melting ice and snow can flow and drain freely. Without this drainage, the water remain in the gutters until it freezes over. This adds weight to the gutters and can damage them, as well as your roof.

• Check for air leaks – You can lose a lot of warm air through air leaks, which results in higher energy costs as your heater attempts to replace this loss of warm air by working more than it should. Check your windows and doors for drafts, and plug any holes or cracks by using caulking or weatherstripping.

• Add insulation – Adding insulation to your attic will not only cut down on your heating bill, it will also add comfort to your home during the winter. Heat rises, which means that if your attic is not properly insulated, your home's heat will rise right through the ceiling, and your system will have to work even harder to provide comfort.

• Inspect the fireplace – Have a professional contractor come to inspect the fireplace and chimney to make sure that there are no cracks or leaks in the gas lines that lead to it. You’ll also want to make sure that any leaves that gathered around the chimney during the fall season are cleared away.

Follow these suggestions in order to improve your home energy efficiency before winter arrives. Contact Air Assurance for the highest-quality customer service in Broken Arrow.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Image courtesy of Shutterstock