Santa's Friend Chimney Service Blog

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!

The History of Chimney Sweeps

We tend to forget that the history of chimney sweeps is fairly short, extending back only to the middle of the seventeenth century. Unlike “short histories” in travel brochures for London that pre-date Christ, a presentation of one is in fact possible for its chimney sweeps. Apprenticed to master sweeps after the city’s Great Fire in 1666, young boys in London were the world’s first professional sweeps for modern chimneys.

From Smoke Vents to Modern Chimneys

Master sweeps have probably been around for another five centuries, even if only cleaning the chimneys of the very rich. Chimneys appeared early in the 13^th Century, but they were big enough for anyone to get into. Better than unvented open fires at the centers of houses, they were still essentially vents for smoke. Only the wealthy would have called in chimney sweeps to routinely tackle the creosote buildup on the inside of the chimney.

All of that changed with London’s Great Fire, because suddenly chimneys were required to be so small that only small boys could climb into them. Then fairly commonplace in middle class homes, chimneys were now required to create an updraft in order to lessen creosote accumulation. That meant much smaller chimneys than before; combined with urban density, their increasing popularity additionally meant joining chimney components at sharp angles.

Not a Good Fit

Those two things combined to make it impossible for master sweeps to do the jobs at which they claimed to excel. Orphans and street kids were abundant, and they had the small bodies and poor circumstances that made them perfect targets for apprenticeship. In no position to make demands about safety, wages, or working conditions, these young boys were the Olivers of chimney sweeping.

Completely unprotected and largely unnoticed until 1778, child chimney sweeps daily took on the difficult and dangerous job of these professionals. It took another century to get children out of chimneys and begin to license professional chimney sweeps. Romanticized in film and literature, the job that professional chimney sweeps do has been dangerous throughout its “short” history.

Common Tools of Fire Safety

A smoke detector designed to detect both smoke and carbon monoxide is far and away the most important tool of fire safety. Anyone who has forgotten to open a damper and then walked into another room knows that these sensitive alarms detect smoke long before our noses do. Odorless invisible carbon monoxide is even more dangerous, and it can build up in poorly performing flues that fail to vent smoke properly.

A single-use fire extinguisher kept near but away from likely sources of fire is another common sense fire safety tool. A common mistake is putting the extinguisher too close to the fireplace or stove, forcing homeowners to reach through dancing flames for it. An extinguisher should be handy but beyond the likely range of a possible fire, and everyone in the home should know how to use it.

Fire Safety Tools Should Be Household Words

A bucket of sand and a shovel are never a bad idea for a fireplace hearth and can be attractive decorative items as well. If sand is a problem, that is no reason to toss out the bucket; an empty one helps in cleaning the fireplace by giving a place for the ashes, also improving fire safety.

A fireplace screen belongs among common tools of fireplace safety as well, and for more than one reason. A decorative screen prevents sparks from flying out of the fireplace to set fire to a newspaper or carpeting. It also prevents children from coming dangerously close to the fire, hypnotized by curling flames and glowing embers.

Heads, It’s The Phone Book…

To round out the top five fire safety tools, we are torn between a fire retardant surround for fireplaces and a phone book. The first is definitely a good idea, but the second can put you in touch with a chimney sweep. Having your chimney professionally swept is absolutely critical to fireplace safety, so we are going with the phone book, but keep them away from the fire!

Why Chimney Repair Should NOT Be A DIY Project

Let’s make this easy:

• It has to happen on a roof.
• There is a lot to take in at the same time while you’re up there!
• It calls for a specialist’s knowledge.

Those are probably the top three reasons that chimney repair should NOT be a DIY project, so they are worth a closer look.

Up On The Roof

Any house that has a chimney is likely to have a slanted roof to let snow fall off it. A roof would not present the world’s safest surface to work on if it were sitting on the ground; it basically invites you to twist an ankle. To make matters worse, that uneven surface is probably at least ten feet off the ground. This is not exactly a safe situation, especially considering that heavy materials and tools will also have to be carried up the ladder.

All in all, it is just a bad idea to attempt an already difficult, unfamiliar job in an environment that presents dangers. Attention has to be paid to a great many things, starting with identifying what caused the chimney to need repair. Fixing it without understanding fully what caused it to decay is asking to reconsider this DIY decision further down the line.

A chimney professional will start there, finding the faulty flashing or cracked mortar that started the problem and addressing that as part of his chimney repair. It does not do much good to repair only the chimney if something other than time is to blame for its deterioration. Furthermore, if the chimney is crumbling, the flue liner needs to be checked as well, as it could be dented or warped.

In the final analysis, chimney repair simply involves too much specialized awareness to be taken on by do-it-yourselfers. That awareness starts with the danger of working on a roof and extends to knowledge of waterproofing agents. With a poorly done job resulting in greater expense down the line, DIY chimney repair just is not worth the risks.

What Causes Smokey Fireplaces?

Most of us have fireplaces because we love the ambiance they create in our homes. If there were ever anything to spoil that moment, it would be smoke coming back into the home. There are varieties of reasons you may experience smoke coming back into the home when the fireplace is in use. Here are some of the major causes:

• Smoke During Storms and Windy Days – in many cases, this is merely because there is no chimney cap in place or the chimney cap is damaged. The wind is not blocked and is now able to come back down into the flue and does not allow proper ventilation.
• Smokes Only When Starting a Fire – there are quite a few things that can cause this to happen. A window may be cracked, appliances may be running (such as the dryer or an exhaust fan that will draw air down the flue using its own exhaust), or it may just be the cold air outside that forces the warm air back down inside the chimney.
• Closed Damper – surprisingly, this happens far more often that you would think. Either people become confused which position is open and which is closed or they simply forget to open the damper altogether.
• Dirty Chimney – did you have the chimney inspected before the season started? If not, there may be debris of possibly a bird’s nest or dead animal stuck in the chimney.
• Additions to the Home – this can happen quite frequently, especially for DIYers. They add an addition to the home over the summer and never account for the draft of the fireplace. The added construction may cause an obstruction or the current flue is simply not capable of handling the new load.

In addition to the causes mentioned above, sometimes smoke is caused by factors outside of the home. For instance, you may have a tree in the yard that has gradually grown over the top of the chimney. This could prevent airflow and may need to be trimmed. If you are truly baffled, call in a professional to evaluate the situation and offer their expertise to solve the problem.

Do a Chimney Inspection After a Heavy Storm

Buying a home with a working fireplace is the dream of many homeowners. However, what most of them do not realize is that there is quite a bit that can go wrong with a chimney. This is not to deter anyone from buying a home with a chimney, just to warn them that chimney’s do require regular maintenance and inspections, especially after a heavy storm.

Chimneys look simple, but they have a rather complex makeup. Any one of the working parts being damaged could create a backflow of smoke into the home or possibly lead to structural integrity problems. As most know, a chimney should be inspected every year before the winter season hits, but it should also be checked after a major storm to ensure it is still in good working condition.

When heavy storms hit, high winds usually mean the structure of the chimney can be damaged. These storms also mean debris could fly around and get into the chimney. This could cause some type of blockage, preventing the flue from performing its natural duty as an airway for the smoke to escape.

If a chimney cap was in place, it may have been ripped off during the storm. If this happens, local wildlife may have chosen to use your chimney as a safe haven while the storm passed. Another danger is excessive water getting into the chimney, causing cracks and possibly mold and mildew buildup. This will be obvious with a bad smell emanating from the fireplace area.

Most homeowners simply assume that if the chimney looks okay at first glance, it probably weathered the storm okay. Unfortunately, many of them only realize the damage caused by the storm when they try to start a fire and end up with a room full of smoke. If your home is in an area where recent storms have caused damage, take the safe route and schedule a professional chimney inspection before using the chimney again.