If you burn wood for heat, it’s important to use properly dried and seasoned wood to get the best efficiency from your fireplace. This is not just important for helping you burn less wood for more heat, it is also key to keeping creosote buildup in your chimney low. Keeping your firewood dry and ready to burn is all in how you store it. Your wood should have a moisture content of 20% or less.
Chimney Sweeping and Fireplaces: An Abbreviated History
Like any technology, the fireplace has evolved over time and, in turn, so has fireplace maintenance and cleaning. For example, the certifications the staff at Mountain Hearth & Patio holds from the CSIA and NFI were developed to promote standardization and professionalism in our industry and EPA-Certified appliances have been around since 1990 and were created to limit emissions from wood-burning appliances
Is Your Chimney Leaking?
Most people don’t know that there are many parts to a chimney system that can allow water in. These weak points are different depending on if it’s a masonry chimney or factory-built chimney. Most parts of the chimney degrade with time, UV rays from sunlight, hail damage, and the freezing and thawing of typical Colorado weather. There are usually several suspected weak points when there are signs of water intrusion; but it can be challenging identifying exactly where the water is coming in from. Often, where the signs of water damage appear is not indicative of the leak’s actual location.
