Wood Burning Fireplace Maintenance Tips

Wood Burning Fireplace Maintenance Tips

For cozy and immensely satisfying ambience, you can’t beat a real wood burning fireplace. While it may have imitators that boast greater efficiency and convenience, a wood burning fireplace creates a charm that can’t be emulated by artificial means. For the thousands of homeowners who prefer a wood burning fireplace, the fireplace is often the focal point for the entire interior of the home.

Yet there is work to be done to keep your wood burning fireplace at peak efficiency and safety.

How to Clean and Maintain Your Wood Burning Fireplace

The best tip to learn on how to clean a wood burning fireplace is simply to do it. As with any task, the more often you perform it, the easier it is. It’s also safer, less messy and less time consuming when performed on a regular basis. The more often you have fires, and the larger the fires, the more soot and ash are produced, underscoring the “clean often” rule.

How to Clean the Inside of a Wood Burning Fireplace

• Make certain the fire is out. Don’t assume it’s totally out until you’ve stirred the ashes and uncovered all leftover bits of wood. Wood fires can smolder for days if the air and fuel are in the right combination.
• Prepare a gallon of cleaning solution of water and detergent (preferably commercially marketed detergent specifically formulated for fireplaces).
• Remove as much dry material as you can with a fireplace broom and shovel, and tap the walls of the insert or masonry to loosen any pockets of creosote build-up. If your vacuum is rated for ash removal, use it to pick up the finer particles.
• Scrub the inside of the fireplace with a bristle brush and a generous application of cleaning solution. If the masonry is badly encrusted with soot, use a pumice stone dipped in the cleaning solution. If soot stains persist, a cleaner containing trisodium phosphate can be applied.

How to Clean Glass Fireplace Doors

• Use a standard glass cleaner and paper towels for the glass doors, but do not rub vigorously. Ash can be fairly gritty and pressing too hard can scuff some types of glass.

Wood Burning Fireplace Maintenance

• If you clean your fireplace regularly, you’re already providing the most important function in fireplace maintenance. Keeping soot, ashes and creosote under control not only makes your fireplace work better, it makes it safer. Don’t neglect or trivialize this function.
• In addition to the regular cleaning of the fire area, you should regularly inspect/clean/repair the chimney and flue. Some of the most devastating house fires on record have occurred due to the igniting of creosote build-up inside chimneys and flues.
• Cleaning the chimney is most often a job best left for professionals. They will work from the roof (sometimes wearing 19th century chimney sweep outfits and top hats, just for appearances), checking the chimney cap, the roof flashing and the exposed masonry as well as deep-cleaning the flue with brushes on long poles. They will thoroughly clean your chimney and will leave no mess behind – well worth the investment.
• You also can purchase creosote-burning logs that contain chemicals that attack creosote, softening it for easy removal. But by no means does a creosote log adequately replace the work of a professional chimney sweep. Creosote burning logs should be used as a stopgap measure at best.
• To reduce the build-up of creosote, burn only seasoned (well-dried) wood. This might not always be possible, but try to stack your wood pile so that the oldest wood gets used first.

Other Safety Precautions

• Keep combustible materials well away from the fireplace.
• Install and maintain smoke and carbon monoxide detectors near (but not too near) the fireplace.
• Never leave a fire unattended.
• Make sure andirons are in place at all times, even when the fire seems to be out.

• What can I use to clean the inside of my fireplace?

  You can use a specially-formulated cleaner to clean the inside of your fireplace, applying it with a bristle brush. Quick Brite Fireplace Cleaner is one of many products that are suitable for this job.

• How often should a wood burning fireplace be cleaned?

  A wood burning fireplace should be cleaned at least once a month, more often if you have had more fires than usual, and more often if you’ve been burning unseasoned (green) wood.

• How do you clean soot off the inside of a fireplace?

  You clean soot off the inside of a fireplace with fireplace cleaner and a bristle brush, if the build-up is not extreme. If it is extreme, or resists removal, you can use a creosote cleaner like Rutland Creosote Remover or other similar products.