4 Simple Tips For An Efficient Fireplace

By on March 12, 2021 in Home Design, Interior with 0 Comments

The fireplace usually in a living room has long been the favorite spot to gather in any home. A fireplace adds ambiance and warmth to a room. With all the benefits that having a fireplace can bring.  Not having an efficient fireplace can cause heating bills to soar, then the fireplace goes unused.

efficent fireplaces

 

Energy costs have been soaring.  An inefficient fireplace can be a huge part of pushing your heating costs up in your home.  When you have a fire burning, the fireplace will radiate warmth in its general vicinity, but it also creates a convection current that can actually pull conditioned air out of the room and up the chimney causing your furnace to work overtime.

When the fire is not burning, the fireplace has a damper that should block inside air from escaping and outside air from invading. The problem is that the damper is usually made of metal (this type of damper technology hasn’t changed in over 100 years!) with no seal, meaning that the damper is incredibly inefficient.  An inefficient fireplace will end up costing you hundreds of dollars in additional energy costs.

Having an efficient fireplace is actually easier than you think.  Just like anything with home renovation a little investment of time and money, you can turn that inefficient fireplace into a powerhouse heater that will reduce your energy bills and bring a little charm to your home.

building a fireplace

 

Here are four things that you can DIY to make your fireplace efficient and drastically reduce your heating costs:

The working parts of a fireplace

  • Top Sealing Dampers can replace the fireplace throat damper that is installed at the top of the chimney. The top sealing damper has a seal that acts like a storm door keeping the expensive conditioned air inside the house and the outside air – outside.

  This principle works year-round, whether you’re heating or cooling your house. You can purchase sealing dampers online and they can be easily installed by a handyman or DIY.

  • A fire-back is a cast iron plate that is placed at the back of the fireplace. Its purpose is to protect the back wall from fire damage and it usually features a design that adds to the home’s decor. The fire-back improves the efficiency of the fireplace by absorbing the heat from the fire and radiating the heat back into the room.

How a fireplace should be more efficient

  • A fireplace heater pulls fresh air from the room.  Heaters work by circulating air through a chamber that is heated by the fire.  Then blowing the heated air back into the room. These heaters are closed systems so no smoke from the fireplace is invading the home.

 Depending on the type of heater you purchase.  These heaters can make a significant difference to your home temperature, even heating a full room on its own. Installing fireplace glass doors to specific heater models can help to save on heating costs.

  • Fireplace glass doors will likely carry the largest investment, but you can reduce some of that cost by doing some of the work yourself.  Go online looking for the right glass doors, generally, they come with easy-to-install instructions.

The fireplace glass door creates a barrier between the living space and the chimney, thus reducing the area that your furnace will have to heat. This alone is a good reason to install these doors, but it’s not the only reason.

adding a fireplace

 

Make your fireplace efficient with the right type of doors

Fireplace glass doors offer another level of safety for the home by protecting children and pets from the fire. Adding screen mesh to a wood-burning fireplace with glass doors. Allows you to still have the doors open while the fire burns, protecting your home from sparks and embers.

If you’re handy, all of these suggestions are easy to accomplish. In addition, all of the products, while difficult to find locally, can easily be purchased online. If you’re concerned about high energy costs but still want to keep your fireplace.  Then it’s time to plug up the holes in your monthly energy budget by making your fireplace efficient.

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Handy Home Design is the premier Home Design website, giving you invaluable tips, tricks and information, for giving your home a handy make over.

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