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RE: HomeSafe FIRESIDE e-Newsletter #001
CONTENTS:
1. The Woodburning Season is Once Again Here
2. Important Fire Safety Tips...
3. Chimney Sweep History and Folklore
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THE WOODBURNING SEASON IS ONCE AGAIN HERE
You can almost hear the crackle of this years first fire. The smoke drifting lazily from each chimney and the smell of wood relaxing you as you remember days gone by.
The first fire is always looked upon by woodburners as the true beginning of the winter season, even if the calendar says different.
Hopefully last summer you collected a cord or two of quality hardwood to fuel your fireplace or woodstove (which is neatly stack off of the ground and covered from rain) and have had HomeSafe out to check you system.
Now your ready to light the first few pieces of wood. But wait - have you checked the basics?
First you always want to make sure the damper is open (don't laugh - it happens).
You may want to warm up your flue first by lighting a rolled up piece of newspaper and holding it up near the damper. Warming the flue helps get your draft going quickly.
Now stack some good dry wood with space between each piece, and place your kindling or fire-starter underneath the pile. (NO lighter fluids please!)
Light your kindling and let the fire begin. Keep the fire burning well, smoldering fires produce large amounts of creosote and emissions. Do not over fire your stove or let the flames reach up into your fireplace damper area.
Let your ashes cool before removing them or pushing them in the pit.
Soon you will be back in the swing of things and enjoying your fireplace or woodstove again.
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IMPORTANT FIRE SAFETY TIPS THAT COULD SAVE YOUR HOME OR LIFE
October traditionally ushers in the colder weather - and with the temperature dropping outside, the fireplaces and furnaces inside are being brought back to life.
So we have compiled a couple of important and oh-so-very-easy to do safety tips and ideas to make this winter a warm and safe one for all.
First and foremost - check those fire detectors to make sure they work. There is no better time than NOW to put fresh batteries in all of them.
Second, does your family have a fire escape plan? Do you practice it? If not PLEASE contact us - we have a great pamphlet produced by the National Fire Protection Assoc. which will help you set up your own.
Now on to the furnace. If you are on a program with the gas company or with an individual oil firm, have them do the yearly inspection of your appliance. You paid for it already. If you find any loose granular "dirt" or chunks of light colored "sand" spilling from the thimble where the metal pipe enters the chimney you will want to have HomeSafe come out and check your chimney.
Fireplaces and woodstoves should be checked yearly according to the Nat. Fire Prev. Assoc., and cleaned when needed. Accumulations of creosote burn at very high temperatures once ignited, and lead to hundreds of house fires a year. HomeSafe will check the chimneys of its customers for no charge during the summer months - so make sure to schedule that appointment now.
Be sure to burn only dry hardwood in your fireplace or woodstove. DO NOT burn trash, phone books, treated lumber or Styrofoam. Artificial logs will dirty your chimney much faster than regular wood. If you use artificial logs or if you burn daily, you may need your chimney cleaned twice a year.
Don't burn coal in your woodstove or fireplace unless it is specified in your owners manual.
Maintain safe clearances around your woodstove or fireplace. Combustible material should be kept at a safe distance.
Have you checked your fire suppressant lately - does it need charging? Does it need replacing? Is it missing?
Firestarters are a good idea to help light the fire, but never use lighter fluid, gasoline, or any other flammable liquid to start a fire.
If you do have a chimney fire, call 911 and get out of your house. A chimney fire is very dangerous, and can set the entire house ablaze.
Have a safe and enjoyable winter!
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CHIMNEY SWEEPING HISTORY AND FOLKLORE
Chimney sweeping is not a very well known nor well understood profession. Americans are generally unaware sweeps really exist. Most Americans who know of sweeps associate chimney sweeping with19th Century England and the most famous of all the sweeps - "Bert", Mary Poppins' friend who danced and sang on the rooftops of London.
But chimney sweeping in America is an important industry. There are literally millions of aging and delapidated chimneys across our country, and nobody knows those chimneys better then the people who service and repair them every day.
Lets start at the beginning - with the first sweeps...
17th Century London had a problem with houses catching fire and entire sections of town going up in flames. London's residents burned wood year round to cook and heat, and had several chimneys on every home.
No one had their chimneys cleaned - no one knew they should.
Soon they discovered the association between dirty chimneys and the proliferation of house fires, and so began the role of the chimney sweep.
In London they used small boys and girls to climb the insides of the chimneys and use their bodies and brushes to knock down the soot and creosote which fueled the chimney fires. They free-climbed up inside of the dangerous chimneys without the help of ladders or ropes, and spent much of their days in the cold darkness breathing the dust and fumes from the soot and creosote.
These climbing boys and girls were very poor, often wearing rags and eating scraps. They answered to a man called a Sweep Master, who work them hard and gave no rewards.
The Irish, on the other hand, had their own ideas of how a chimney should be cleaned. They would tie a goose by the legs and lower it down the chimney. As the bird flapped furiously with its large wings it would knock loose the soot and creosote from the chimney.This practice helped save children from the task, and popularized the saying "The blacker the bird the cleaner the flue!".
In early America the same problem of chimney fires existed and the early construction materials of mud and wood chimneys allowed the fires to spread even more quickly.
Sweeps were very hard to come by in Colonial America. Chimney sweeps had very low social standing in Europe and the settlers wanted a new start and do better for themselves so no one swept America's chimneys.
Eventually towns had to offer special contracts and monopolies for sweeps, or use slave children to do the necessary work.
In the early 20th Century, with the advent of oil and gas heating and cooking, the chimney sweeping profession fell by the waist side in America. People no longer used their fireplaces for cooking and heating, instead relying on imported fuels.
That all changed during the energy crisis of the 1970's. Americans looked to alternatives for heating their homes to help sever their reliance on foreign fuels. They turned back to our own naturally restorable resource of wood for fireplaces, woodstoves, and woodheaters.
With the resurgence of wood burning came the resurgence of chimney sweeping - except chimney sweeping had gone through many changes and has become a safe and profitable profession.
With the use of modern vacuums, equipment, safety devices and products, todays sweeps no longer expose themselves to the dangerous creosote. Powerful vacuums keep the home completely soot and dust free!
And as chimney sweeps cleaned America's chimneys, they began to see what poor shape many chimneys were in. This led to very modern repair and restoration techniques, space-age materials for relining older and unsafe chimneys, and the advent of a yearly service program to maintain and keep safe the chimneys of those customers who realize the importance of sweeping.
Todays gas burning appliances have specific venting requirements whichare rarely met upon installation and the chimney sweep industry hasonce again taken up the slack and developed high-tech relining materials to properly match todays high efficiency furnace with their outdated chimneys.
Chimney sweeps remain a relied upon member of the community in Americaand Europe. Unlike in America, yearly chimney cleaning and inspectionsare often required by European law. In America it is "buyer-beware",and the responsibility is left to the homeowner.
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Thank you for your time and interest - please let me know how I can make the FIRESIDE Newsletter even better. Mail all ideas and comments to FeN@homesafe.com.
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