With the holidays here there will be lots of merry making and opportunities for families and friends to gather near. If part of your holiday plans include roasting chestnuts on an open fire, make sure you’ve got things set up for a healthy fireplace burn.
See below for notes from an article by Puget Sound Clean Air Agency:
Fa la la la la: Some holiday hearth tips
Nothing is cozier than a warm, toasty fire when family and friends gather for the holidays. Here are a few tips to make sure you get the most heat from your fire, protect your family’s health and avoid burning when it’s prohibited.
- Check for burn bans before lighting a fire. Burn ban status is always indicated in the upper-right corner of our home page ”“ www.pscleanair.org. Better yet, click here to sign up for e-mail notification of burn bans and other air quality news.
- Don’t burn holiday wrapping paper or any other garbage in your fireplace or wood stove. Manufactured logs and dry, seasoned wood are the only things that can be burned legally, with the exception of a small amount of paper to start your fire.
- Consider using manufactured logs, such as Duraflame, instead of cut wood. They last for several hours and burn up to 70 percent cleaner than firewood.
- Check your chimney to make sure you aren’t generating excess smoke. After the first few minutes of starting or reloading a fire, you should see only heat waves. Smoke indicates unburned fuel and wasted money. It’s also illegal to smoke out your neighbors.
- Fireplaces are not good sources of heat. If you have an open fireplace or an old wood stove, consider upgrading to a natural gas stove or insert or a more efficient wood or pellet stove. It’s a great gift, and many local utilities offer rebates and other incentives. We’ve compiled a list to make it easy for you to find out if you can land some deals.
