Keep Your Fireplace Safe This Season

If your home gets some serious decorative treatment during the holidays, go ahead and enjoy the festive season – but be mindful of how your fireplace might interact with all the activity around it.

Doodlebuggers Fireplace, Grill & Outdoor Store of Destin, FL, and Pensacola, FL, would like to share some useful tips for fireplace safety during the holiday season.

Fireplace screens

No matter what kind of fireplace you have, a handsome fireplace screen is a great component to help keep heat, flames and sparks away from everything beyond the fireplace. Screens come in a variety of sizes and styles, so it’ll be easy to bring home something that accents your home’s décor.

A quality fireplace screen also serves as a people-barrier, particularly for younger children and pets, who sometimes get a little rambunctious with the excitement of the holidays.

Invisible fireplace barrier

Along with adding a fireplace screen, it’s also a good idea to set an invisible barrier of three to five feet around your fireplace. The barrier means no people or things can go into the protected space without a reason (such as to tend the fire).

Things you want to keep away from the fire include:

• Christmas trees
• Stockings
• Wrapped presents and their contents
• Decorations that hang or stand
• Wrapping paper
• Furnishings
• Coats, hats, mittens, etc.
• Young children and pets

Teach the children

Regardless of the visible or invisible barriers you put up this holiday season, young children need to be taught the dangers of a fireplace and to always stay away from it. They need to understand that, as alluring as a roaring fireplace is, it’s not a toy; rather, it’s something that only adults should make contact with.

Watch your mantel

Fireplace mantels are wonderful shelves for all sorts of seasonal decorations. Just make sure none of the items you place on the mantel could easily fall off it and into or near the fire.

Be especially careful with Christmas cards, stockings and anything else made of paper, cloth or other light materials that could fall from the mantel.

6 fireplace safety tips

These tips are useful during the holidays and at all other times when your fireplace is operating.

1. Never leave young children or toddlers unattended in the room where a fire is burning.
2. Always extinguish the fire before leaving the house.
3. Keep your chimney clean by having it professionally swept. This will help to prevent chimney fires and smoke backups caused by obstructions in the flue.
4. Schedule annual chimney and fireplace inspections from a licensed technician.
5. Burn only dry firewood, which is less smoky and more combustible than damp, unseasoned wood.
6. Never burn Christmas trees, wrapping paper, gift containers, painted wood, clothing, plastics, Styrofoam, glass and anything else other than actual firewood.

Is it time to have your chimney serviced?

If it’s been more than a year since your chimney was last cleaned and inspected, give us a call before the holidays.

Doodlebuggers specializes in chimney sweeping, inspections and all types of chimney repair work.

Reach a chimney and fireplace expert today at 850-477-1151 in Pensacola, FL, or at 850-243-0154

in the Destin, FL, area. You can also get in touch with our handy contact form.