Home Maintenance tips

Improve Your Fireplace’s Efficiency

Naturally, people use their fireplaces more during the winter months. There’s something special about cozying up around a crackling fire on a cold winter day, or gathering around a fireplace during the holidays.

However, did you know many fireplaces are extremely inefficientand can skyrocket your heating bill? A roaring fire can exhaust as much as 24,000 cubic feet of air per hour to the outside, which must be replaced by cold air coming into the house from the outside. Your heating system must warm up this air, which is then exhausted through your chimney.

The fact is the fireplace that was designed to warm your house is actually doing the opposite and probably costing you hundreds of dollars in energy costs. However, don’t sweat it. Following are some tips to help make your fireplace more energy efficient:

* If you never use your fireplace, plug and seal the chimney flue.
    * Keep the fireplace damper closed unless you’re actually using the fireplace. Claims have been made that keeping the damper open is like keeping a small window wide-open during the winter.
* When you use the fireplace, reduce heat loss by opening dampers in the bottom of the firebox, if it has them, or open the nearest window about 1 inch, and close doors leading into the room.
* Lower the thermostat setting to between 50°F and 55°F.
* Install tempered glass doors and a heat-air exchange system that blows warmed air back into the room.
* Check the seal on the flue damper and make it as snug as possible.
* Add caulking around the fireplace hearth.
* Use grates made of C-shaped metal tubes to draw cool room air into the fireplace and circulate warm air back into the room.
* Replace the fireplace throat damper with a top sealing damper — which are installed at the top of the chimney and act like a storm door.
* Add a fireback, which is basically a cast iron plate that is placed at the back of the fireplace. It protects the back wall from fire damage and improves the fireplace’s efficiency by absorbing the heat from the fire and radiating it back into the room.
* Install a fireplace heater, which pulls fresh air from the room, circulates it through a chamber that is heated by the fire, and blows it back into the room.