Santa's Friend Chimney Service Blog

Is It Time to Replace Your Firebox Refractory Panels?

If you have a prefabricated (also known as a factory-made) fireplace, your firebox is surrounded by refractory panels on its sides and bottom. Although a prefab firebox is mostly constructed from metal, these panels are made to withstand high temperatures and add strength and durability to your firebox. A crucial component of the factory-made firebox, refractory panels are built to last for years; however, due to the stress of exposure to repeated fires during a cold, long winter, these panels eventually begin to wear out. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service strongly recommends replacing your firebox panels when they start to show signs of wear, such as cracks or breaks in the panels. Burning fires in a prefab firebox with damaged refractory panels can be dangerous, so replacing these panels at the first signs of wear is important to the safety of your family and your home. We would like to answer some questions about firebox panel replacement to inform you of why it is necessary to perform this maintenance task.

Why are cracks and chips in firebox refractory panels so dangerous?

Firstly, toxic gases like carbon monoxide can leak through these breaks and cracks and enter your home. Since carbon monoxide is odorless and tasteless, it can be impossible to detect a leak without a carbon monoxide detector alarm installed in the home. Prolonged exposure to this gas can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning, which can cause organ damage and even death. Secondly, cracks in your firebox refractory panels can be a fire hazard. Cracks allow heat and debris to become close enough to the combustible materials around your fireplace to ignite a fire that could possibly destroy your home.

What causes the cracks and breaks in firebox refractory panels?

Numerous things can contribute to the wear and tear of your firebox refractory panels. Exposure to repeated fires and their high temperatures is the typical cause of the cracking and breaking of firebox panels. However, user error can also lead to damaged refractory panels. Always be careful when loading your firebox with firewood. If you just toss a log onto the fire, chances are you will eventually cause the panels to crack. A heavy object hitting the extremely hot refractory panels over and over can be very damaging. Your fireplace grates can also play a role in the cracking of your firebox refractory panels as some grates scrape the back wall and cause spots in the panels. These spots become weaker over time and will begin to crack.

How do I know if my firebox refractory panels need to be replaced?

According to the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), most prefab fireplace manufacturers require replacing the firebox refractory panels when a nickel, on end, can fit into a crack in the panel or when the surface of the firebox panel has abraded more than ¼” from its original surface. The CSIA also recommends you have a professional like our chimney technicians replace the firebox panels for you as it is very important that you have the correctly-sized panels installed.

Have more questions about firebox refractory panel replacement? Contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service today, especially if you have noticed cracks in your firebox panels.

Common Masonry Repairs for Your Chimney

Whether you have an old, historical home or a modern house with a masonry chimney, you will most likely need to have masonry restoration work done at some point. The most common cause of masonry repair is water damage as water can leak into masonry joints and wear them down, causing deterioration. Other causes of masonry repair are weathering, earthquake damage, poor workmanship, and negligence. If you need masonry repair work done, it is important to find a company experienced in the different types of masonry restoration, like Santa’s Friend Chimney Service. Our masons know how to do each type of this repair work, and we would like to tell you more about the most common masonry repairs.

Tuck Pointing

One of the most common types of masonry restoration, tuck pointing is the process of removing damaged and deteriorating mortar in masonry joints, and then restoring those joints with new materials. A painstaking process, tuck pointing is made even more complicated when an older house is involved. Today’s mortar materials differ greatly in terms of hardness and permeability when compared to the bricks and mortars of years’ past. Experienced masons like the ones at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service know to think about the original materials when dealing with an older home because if they used modern materials, the chimney structure will be unsound as the new and old materials will not work together properly. Our technicians make sure the repairs are invisible and strong enough to last for years.

Chimney Crown Restoration

Since your chimney crown sits atop your chimney to protect it from the elements and animals, it is completely exposed to rain and snow, which causes water erosion damage. The sun causes more damage from the constant heat exposure. After years of these types of damage, your chimney crown starts to crack and spalling begins to occur. When this happens, repair is a top priority because you do not want water leaking into your chimney and penetrating into your masonry joints, which can cause even more problems. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service has experience working with chimney crown restoration, and we can recommend a couple of different approaches, depending on the condition of your crown. If you have minimal damage, our technicians can apply a crown coat repair, a flexible sealant which covers the entire crown, that will seal all cracks and create a waterproof barrier. If the damage is more expensive, we will most likely have to construct a new chimney crown for you; however, with our years of experience, we can build a crown to last a lifetime as well as coat the new crown with a waterproof sealant to protect it from rain and snow.

For more information about the different types of masonry repairs we provide, contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service. Our expert staff is happy to answer any questions you may have.

Why Are Open Fireplaces So Inefficient?

Sitting in front of an open fireplace in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin noted, “The strongest heat from the fire, which is upwards, goes directly up the chimney and is lost.” And, honestly, Ben Franklin was right. An open, traditional fireplace is one of the most inefficient wood-burning heating appliances you can use to heat your home. In some cases, the lack of efficiency is so bad that an open fireplace can make your house colder. We at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service would like to tell you more about why the way open fireplaces work make them so inefficient.

Creating a draft is the most important mechanical function of an open fireplace.

Think about a hot air balloon. It rises because of a mass of hot air rises to its top and serves as its “motor.” This same concept goes on in a fireplace and chimney. The fireplace makes a column of heated gas inside the chimney. As that air goes up and exits out the chimney, more hot air from the fire is pulled after it. When this happens, a draft of smoke and hot gases up the chimney is generated. The draft also feeds necessary oxygen to the fire to keep it burning.

Knowing how heat moves can help you understand why an open fireplace can be so inefficient.

Heat moves by conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is when a hot object touches a cooler one, convection involves a movable substance, like hot air or liquid, circulating into cooler areas, and radiation is when warm electromagnetic waves, like sun rays, fire, and a heat lamp, carry heat to cooler objects to warm them by making their molecules move faster. A fireplace, of course, uses radiation to move heat. However, convection is also involved, and this is what makes an open fireplace so inefficient. Most of the heat created by a fire is in the form of hot gases. Convection pushes these gases out of the chimney and wastes them.

The draft also can lead to the inefficiency of an open fireplace.

The draft can actually draw more warm air from inside the house up the chimney, which makes the inside colder than it previously was. Experts estimate that open fireplaces can draw up to ten times as much air from the room than is needed to build the fire.

Open fireplaces can even have negative efficiency.

When more heat is lost by convection than is replaced by radiation, negative energy occurs. The colder the temperatures are outside, the colder the air is that gets sucked in by the fireplace. This means that the colder the outside air is, the less efficient your fireplace will be.

Have questions about what to do with an open fireplace? Contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service to find out how installing a wood-burning fireplace insert can solve your problems.

You Might Have a Chimney Blockage

While we all love a fire in the fireplace, no one wants a fire in his or her chimney. Unfortunately, according to the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), chimney fires are more common than you may think, and sometimes you do not even know they have occurred. Dirty chimneys are the most likely cause of all chimney fires, and usually the same blockages are the culprits in these possibly deadly accidents. The good news is chimney fires are completely preventable with proper maintenance care like regular chimney sweeping and inspections from CSIA-certified professionals like our chimney sweeps at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service. We would like to share with you what the common chimney blockages are, which can also help you prevent these things from entering your chimney in the first place.

Animals

Stray animals looking for a dry, warm place to call home may come across your chimney to set up house during the cold months of winter. From nesting birds to raccoons to squirrels, these animals not only block your chimney and lead to dangerous fires, but they can become stuck, die, and create horrible, putrid smells that will invade your home. For your own personal safety, we strongly recommend you call a professional animal removal service to remove any animals and nests from of your chimney.

Debris

During the course of the year, leaves, trash, tree foliage, and other settlement work their way down into your chimney and accumulate. While this may not sound like too big of a deal, all of this debris adds up and can cause blockages. This puts your chimney at risk for incomplete combustion and negative air pressure to happen, which can force smoke into your house. Settlement buildup will also cause cracks in your flue, and these cracks allow dangerous carbon monoxide to escape into your home.

Creosote

The most hazardous and common of the chimney blockages, creosote is the by-product of burning wood, and it develops naturally from the residue of smoke, gases, water vapor, hydrocarbon, unburned wood particles, and other assorted minerals as they leave the fireplace and go out the cooler upper chimney. Sticking to the inner walls of the chimney as deposits, creosote is brown or black in appearance and can be flaky, crusty, tar-like, sticky, gummy, shiny, or hardened — even all of the above. Extremely flammable and highly combustible, creosote can quickly build up, and if the internal flue temperature is high enough, you have a chimney fire waiting to happen that could possibly burn down your entire house. Even worse, certain conditions allow creosote to form large deposits more quickly. Conditions that accelerate creosote buildup include restricted air supply from closing the glass doors or not opening the damper wide enough and burning unseasoned wood because the smoke is so much cooler due to the energy being used to burn off the water trapped in the cells of the logs. You can also get a heavier amount of creosote buildup if you overload the firebox in a wood stove in an attempt to get a longer burn. A large fire also increases your risk of the creosote igniting a fire in your chimney.

To ensure your chimney is blockage-free and prevent a chimney fire, contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service today. A clean chimney is your best prevention against a chimney fire.

What You Should Know About HeatShield Chimney Liner Restoration

Many of our customers in older homes with masonry chimneys have clay tile flue liners. Clay tiles have been used to line chimney flues since the beginning of the 20th century, and there are good reasons why. These tiles can withstand extremely high temperatures, and they hold up well against the corrosive byproducts of combustion that pass through the flue on their way out of the chimney. Once installed, clay liners will stay in good shape up to 50 years. However, when the clay tiles become cracked and chipped over time, it can be costly to repair them or to replace the liner as it is a very difficult and time-consuming task. When the HeatShield Chimney Repair and Resurfacing System was developed around 20 years ago in Europe, repairing and relining a clay tile liner became much easier and less costly. At Santa’s Friend Chimney Service, our technicians are experienced with using HeatShield, and our customers who have had their clay flue liners repaired or replaced with this product have all been very satisfied. We would like to tell you more about HeatShield and what it can do for your clay tile-lined chimney.

What exactly is HeatShield?

A specially formulated “Cerfractory” sealant material, HeatShield can restore the integrity of your chimney’s flue to vent out toxic gases from your home. Eliminating the dangers in your flue caused by cracks, gaps, and spalling, HeatShield will make your chimney as safe and as efficient as it originally was when first built. Depending on the condition of your clay tile liner, the Joint Repair system or the Resurfacing System will be used.

What does the Joint Repair system do?

If our chimney inspectors at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service only find defective mortar joints in your clay tile liner, we will use the Joint Repair system. First we will make a custom-made foam applicator blade to fit your chimney. Once this tool has been inserted into your chimney and positioned below each gap or void, we will then add the HeatShield Cerfractory Flue Sealant mixture. Each void and gap will be filled, and when we pull out the foam applicator blade, it will smooth the filled gaps and voids as it comes out of your chimney. Then we scan the repair with a special video camera to be sure the repairs have been done correctly.

What does the Resurfacing System do?

If your chimney liner has a cracked or spalled flue but is still sound, we will use the Resurfacing System. Again, we will make a custom-fit foam applicator plug that will be placed at the bottom of the flue and attached to a winch atop the chimney. We then prime and clean your old liner with a “tie coat” material, which is applied to the flue walls by pulling the plug upwards with the winch. After this coat dries, we then apply the HeatShield mixture with the foam plug in the same way we applied the primer. This method is called “slip casting” or “slip cast extrusion.” After this is applied, we will look at the scanned video to be sure your entire chimney is sealed and smoke-tight.

Have more questions about HeatShield? Contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service to talk to our staff to see if HeatShield is right for your clay tile chimney liner.

Why We Recommend Top-Mounted Dampers

According to the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), a damper is a “must item” for every fireplace. A damper is essential for an energy-efficient home as it keeps the heat in and the cold air out of your house, which also saves you money on heating bills. You can also use your damper to control the flow of heat and smoke up the chimney. Dampers are available in two different types: the throat damper and the top-mounted damper. Also known as the traditional fireplace damper, a throat damper is installed right above the firebox. However, this type of damper has many flaws and issues. At Santa’s Friend Chimney Service, we strongly recommend the top-mounted damper over the throat damper. We would like to share with you why we like top-mounted dampers and tell you about the benefits of these dampers.

With dual functions, a top-mounted damper is a “two for the price of one” chimney component.

One of the best benefits of a top-mounted damper is that it also serves as a chimney cap when the damper is closed, and, honestly, it actually gives you better protection than an ordinary chimney cap. Equipped with a silicone rubber gasket to seal in heat and air conditioning as a damper, a top-mounted damper also provides you with an air-tight seal to keep out water, debris, birds, squirrels, and raccoons — just as a chimney cap should. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service recommends installing a top-mounted damper to our customers who need to replace a damaged chimney cap. Some models of top-mounted dampers come with caps, so even when the damper is open, your chimney is still protected from debris and animals.

A top-mounted damper saves both energy and money.

Throat dampers just cannot completely seal as well as top-mounted dampers. You do not have to worry about cold air, ice, and snow entering the flue and chase to create a cold core in your chimney. A cold core tries to cool your home at the same time that your heating system is trying to warm it up, which causes you to waste fuel and money. Since a top-mounted damper sits on the top of your chimney, cold air never even has a chance to get anywhere inside your chimney because your entire flue is sealed air-tight with the silicone rubber gasket. Trust us when we say you will save money on both cooling and heating bills when you install a top-mounted damper.

A top-mounted damper is easy to open and close.

With some throat dampers, you have to practically stick your head up the fireplace to open and close the dampers. When you have a top-mounted damper, opening and closing the damper is simple and hassle-free. A cable from the damper drops down the chimney and connects to an easily-accessible handle that is mounted inside the firebox. Different models have different opening and closing methods, but Santa’s Friend Chimney Service guarantees you will find all easy to use.

Want to know more about why we love top-mounted dampers so much? Contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service to find out even more advantages to this type of damper.