subject: Fireplace Tips for Winter [print this page] Fireplace Tips for Winter Fireplace Tips for Winter
For those of us lucky to have a fireplace it can be a great pleasure in the winter to have the hearth crackling as you sit cosy and warm, away from the snow and ice outside.
And burning logs can be a cheap and eco-friendly way to heat a room too. While they produce smoke, well-seasoned logs that have been stored properly in a log store will burn very slowly, maximising heat and producing very little smoke.
You can also burn recycled waste paper and other burnable material on an open fire, although this is best done with the use of a log maker which will compact the newspaper, card or other waste material into compact logs that will burn slower and produce a lot less smoke than simply throwing waste into the hearth.
Fireplaces, however, also have their disadvantages. Not only do they have to be regularly cleaned, ensuring the soot doesn't build up and the smoke has a clear escape through the flue they can also be a source of draughts when the fire isn't lit.
Once the fire is out, the flue of a chimney acts as a passageway for all the heat in a room to escape into the ether. And whether the fireplace is regular used or not, it means any radiators turned on in the room are operating to warm the atmosphere as well as the room.
Many flues can be sealed, but often they never make perfect seals and it is a dirty job and not practical if the fireplace does get used occasionally.
There is, however, a simple and easy way to prevent your chimney from acting as an escape route for all that heat that you have paid for in you fuel bills a chimney balloon.
As the name suggests these devices resemble a balloon, but the tough material, which is rugged and designed to act as a thermal barrier, allows it to be stuffed up the flue, where it'll hold itself and block any heat trying to escape.
Chimney balloons are a cheap and simple device for preventing draughts from the chimney and are ideal for both people that use an open fire, and those that don't.
