Santa's Friend Chimney Service Blog

Protecting Your Home from Creosote Build-Up

At this time of year, when fireplace use is finally slowing and coming to a halt, creosote buildup raises two issues. First, whatever creosote is inside your flue, contact with moisture is going to make the fumes it produces much worse. Secondly, simply shutting those smells out of your house by closing the damper does not solve the greater issue.

Image courtesy of Dennis Lamb, Owner, The Mad Hatter Chimney Service in Indianapolis, IN.

Build-Up Stinks

Generally speaking, when you can smell something inside your house, it is time to really do something about it! For many of us, the solution is to throw the smelly item away or clean up the mess. However, a smelly chimney is just a bit more involved.

Many of us like to be able to use the chimney as the vent it is. That means a damper left open and a cap on top which naturally improves the chimney’s draft and keeps water out. Neither one is safely possible with creosote buildup greater than ¼” of SOOT or 1/8^” of later stage creosote.

…And It’s Bad For Your Chimney’s ‘Skin’

Every chimney cap will do a lot to keep wind gusts that cause downdrafts out of your chimney. It makes no sense at all, however, to cap a flue that contains unacceptable amounts of creosote. The longer that creosote stays in your flue, the more damage it does, which is the second type of harm you need to prevent.

Not only does creosote emit toxic fumes, unnecessarily exposing you to harmful carbon monoxide, but it is corrosive. Furthermore, the greater its accumulation, the more difficult it is to remove and the more dangerous it becomes. Protecting your home from creosote build-up means not allowing it to accumulate to any significant amount. When buildup is noticed, it is time to call a CSIA certified chimney sweep to take care of this problem.

What Is the Best Season for Your Annual Chimney Inspection?

The language used in authoritative recommendations of annual chimney inspections contributes to the debate regarding this. “Before every heating season” and “before use” lead many to conclude that annual inspections should be done in fall. “Before further use of the fireplace” might or might not have caused fewer leaps to the same conclusions.

The point really is that the chimney was inspected and then time passed. What was true about it before is no longer necessarily true. No one can know that it is still in good condition. Accordingly, somewhere between last-and-first regular uses – which often are responses to seasonal weather changes – the chimney needs to be inspected.  Which season is the best for that obviously varies with chimneys and circumstance.

There can be good reasons for inspections in any season. The important thing is that home owners not introduce fire to systems of uncertain condition. There are two quick points in that connection which together say, “Home-Buyer Beware!” A home inspector only inspects what he can see and lack of use does not stop time.

All of this becomes especially salient when chimneys have no caps and crowns are improperly constructed. It is extremely difficult, therefore, to pronounce one season better than another for your annual chimney inspection. We can tell you that when problems are detected in spring, there is time to correct them before fall.

We can also tell you that CSIA certified chimney sweeps are conscientious year round, so there is no real problem with fall inspections. That, however, assumes that a certified sweep found everything to be in great condition last fall and there was no change in use. These professionals can work around your choice of season. The important thing is for you to schedule annual inspections.

Water and Your Masonry Chimney

There are two important things to think about in connection with water and masonry chimneys: crowns and caps. The first function to keep water out of the chase and away from the chimney. The second are designed to prevent it from entering the flue, but “full coverage” caps protect the entire crown.

A Wash?

The crown is the highest masonry component of your chimney. Above it are only the flue liner top (typically clay) and its cap (typically metal). It closes the chase around the flue liner and overhangs the rest of the chimney to direct water away from it. Sometimes called a “chimney wash”, it more than pays for its construction and maintenance with its prevention of much more costly damage.

If a crown fails to do its job and the problem is not corrected, the scale tips increasingly toward expensive repairs. Once water gets into the chimney, it freezes and thaws, constantly expanding little cracks into bigger ones. Moisture reacts with creosote and releases smelly gases, and odorless toxic ones have more chance of slipping through cracked liners to remain indoors.

Water begins its slow and steady destruction of your masonry chimney, rusting metals and rotting woods. Neglected long enough, the whole chimney can collapse if its worst enemy is let in on the roof. A crown in good repair and a strong chimney cap are anything but a wash when it comes to safety measures.

King of the Hill, Top of the Heap

Chimney caps are equally important because they do the same thing for the protruding flue liner. The fact that caps are missing from so many chimneys is baffling, although lightweight ones can be taken by wind and animals. Either lots of homeowners are ignoring the good advice of certified chimney sweeps or there are lots of critters on their really windy roofs! That, of course, also calls for chimney caps.

Always Have a Plan of Escape

Was it Colin Powell who pointed out the importance of knowing how you get out before you go in? Whether it’s called an “exit strategy” or an “escape plan”, it is critical to the survival of loved ones regardless of where the fight is. No different than being on a battlefield, facing fire, every family needs to plan and train for their own escape and leave the fight to pros.

Fight Fire with Smoke

Working smoke detectors properly placed can save both your family and your house if you have a good escape plan. It is a tiny fraction of children who cannot be awakened from deep sleep by traditional smoke alarms. Nonetheless, if your child is among them, you need to know, so check it out a few times.

Indeed, the more realistic the practice for an actual escape, the more likely it is to kick in when needed. The presence of that shrill beeping from smoke detectors needs to be familiar rather than something that causes panic. Children who do not wake to them need to be assigned to adults who reliably are, and the plan may have to be re-designed.

Time Is Of the Essence

When the alarms sound, getting the whole family out of the house within 5 minutes at most is the goal. Smoke detectors are extremely sensitive, so they are an essential early warning system.  With a good escape plan that has been well practiced, all family members can get safely out and take the pets with them.

It is important to think about family pets, because all too often they are the reason for someone going back into a burning house. This should never be done; get out and stay out, and let firefighters handle the rest. Plan in advance for all of your loved ones to safely escape from the house, and make the 9-1-1 call a part of the plan. If you need any help putting a plan together, please give us a call in Jackson, MS.

The Recent Time Change and Your Smoke Detectors

The recent time change for Daylight Savings was more than a reminder to set your clocks forward 1 hour. It was also a reminder that smoke detector batteries should be periodically changed. Advised to use our twice-yearly time changes to keep up with battery strength, homeowners tracking spring’s special occasions and tax return deadlines sometimes forget. Since it really is a good idea for home safety, we thought it worth bringing forward for new attention now that April Fool’s is past.

Why Bother Now?

Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors save lives, but not if their batteries are not good. In addition,  knowing their condition is not easy. If there is any uncertainty about a battery’s remaining life, it should not be in a smoke or gas detector. Remove it and put it in something less essential to safety, like an extra flashlight or a backup alarm clock.

Getting the last possible drop of juice out of every battery is not a great idea when the batteries are in life-saving alarms. All the statistics point to the costly dangers of undetected smoke and toxic gases, with high public awareness now of carbon monoxide in particular. Yet, those inexpensive batteries tend to be things about which we entrust too much confidence in both big-name and unknown brands.

Extend Lives Another Way

How many homeowners really check how many hours their batteries last or at what point their strength has diminished to unacceptable? More and more homeowners with a taste for short-term savings have switched to ‘house wine’ batteries, coming from who knows where. It is incredibly sad but true that spending a few more cents on each battery might save lives.

So, replace them sooner rather than later, and they can still be used in dozens of other common household items where if a battery dies it is literally not a matter of life and death. Children’s toys, gaming devices, phone bases, bike lights; there are any number of things that you can put used batteries into. Performing too important a function, your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors are not the place for them, so it really is time to change them.

Common Causes of Fire in Your Home

Understanding the common causes of home fires leaves every homeowner and apartment dweller better prepared to prevent them. In some cases, a schedule of routine inspections and cleanings by certified professionals can minimize the clearest dangers. In others, a correction of all-too-common bad habits is required to safeguard the home from unintended fire.

The most common five pieces of the home safety puzzle that are most likely to cause a problem are:

1. the chimney
2. the kitchen stove
3. the clothes dryer vent
4. grills and fire pits
5. kids and pets

Kids and Their Parents

Kids are not the only ones who play with fire, adults do it every time they light a fire beneath a dirty chimney. Grown-ups are careless too at times, firing up patio grills on windy days and walking away from stoves. They toss cigarette butts off balconies and build fires too big to be contained by the pit that is too near a low-hanging branch.

Either carelessness or neglect is almost always behind a fire and adults are usually the ones responsible. Nonetheless, children intentionally play with fire and they unintentionally come too close to it, putting themselves and the home at risk. Lighters, matches, flammable fluids and igniters need to be kept well out of reach, as do burning candles.

Carelessness in Common

The fire dangers posed by neglected chimneys and clothes dryer vents are fairly well known and can be substantially reduced with regular cleanings. Renters need to ask their landlords to clean their chimneys and vents, and homeowners need to talk to their sweeps. Regardless of whether it’s a homeowner’s own or someone else’s, carelessness is what is usually behind chimney and vent fires. Don’t let your home be the next preventable tragedy!