Proper fireplace safety is as important as providing a warm home for your family. You may have been extremely adept in using your fireplace since childhood, but a casual slip on fire safety rules can turn your home into a tinderbox and hurt everything and everybody you hold most dear.
Follow these fireplace safety rules for both wood burning and gas fireplaces:
The Do’s - Visit www.acdf-fireplace.com for more information.
- Make sure your fireplace fire is out before you go to sleep
- Light gas fireplaces as soon as gas is turned on for your fireplaces
- Get your fireplaces chimney inspected annually
- Gas fireplaces should have two controls for the flow of gas for greater safety
- Install a guard around your gas fireplace to protect children from getting burnt by the glass and metal doors surrounding the fire
- Decorations and flammables should be away from the fire of your fireplaces
- Top of your chimney for your fireplaces and roof should be steered clear of debris from overhanging branches
- Flue should be left open as long as the fire is smoldering in your fireplaces
- Damper in your fireplaces should be open before starting a fire for burning wood
- Read instructions before using artificial log for your fire place
- Children should be aware of the dangers of fire from fireplaces
- A chimney cap for your fireplaces prevents animals straying in to block the chimney
- Use a mesh screen for your fireplaces with your wood burning fire to prevent burning from flying sparks
- Use long matches to light fire for your fireplaces to avoid getting scorched
- Always keep your fireplace clean in preparation for the next fire
- You should stay alert for any leaks, smells or flames if your fireplaces burns gas
The Don’ts - Visit www.acdf-fireplace.com for more information.
- Do not burn trash or papers in your fireplace
- Do not use charcoal in your fireplace for, it increases the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning
- Do not use flammable liquids like lighter fluid or gasoline to start or increase a fire in your fireplace
- Do not let a wood burning fire in your fireplace go on without somebody to watch over it
- Do not mix artificial wood with the natural wood for your fireplaces
- Do not add artificial wood logs to the fire in the fireplace already burning with natural wood
- Do not break a synthetic log for a quick fire for your fireplaces
- Do not use more than one log at a time for your fireplaces because they burn incompletely, releasing lethal doses of carbon monoxide
- Do not build roaring fires in fireplaces that may ignite creosote in the chimney
- Do not close your fireplace damper with hot ashes still in the fireplace for, it may heat up again and release toxic carbon monoxide into the house
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