mr.pete

Every winter cold air enters our living room from our chimney especially during strong wind gusts. I traced it down to poor build quality of the chimney dampers installed by the builder. When in the closed position cold air still comes down the chimney flue – very frustrating. We typically have mild winters however the last few weeks have been below freezing.

Fires in the words of Man vs Wild’s Bear Grylls, “offers a psychological boost” ☺ In the winter it is nice to sit in front of a fire, however I do not like the clean up of the ashes and the fact that ash sometimes tends to escape the fireplace and land on furniture. Also as fires burn cold air is sucked into the fireplace and into the house from under doors and other openings, effectively making the experience less efficient as you lose heat.

I always keep telling myself that I should get one of those glass fireplace doors however I am not sure how much efficiency they add to burning a wood fire. I have read in a few places that besides adding to the look of the fireplace they prevent cold air from coming in, present ash from spreading into the house, prevent cold air from seeping into the house as fires burn, and some of the more modern fireplace glass doors use some sort of reflective radiant technology to increase the heat intensity of the fire spread into the room.

Now if only there was a self-cleaning fireplace all my issues would be addressed.