Even though winter is a season like any other; most homeowners find themselves unprepared when the season starts. Their heating systems including furnaces and boilers are often left un-serviced and thus ill prepared for the winter. Even for those who get these things right, there is another aspect of heating and air conditioning that they often forget: the chimney. A clean chimney is not only essential for health, but also for the safety of you and your family.
Clean Chimneys Prevent Fires
On a cold winter night, nothing is aesthetically pleasing than wood fires. They play a key role in your heating strategy. Just like with any heating and air conditioning system, safety must always come first. In ensuring safety at the fireplace, the cleanliness of your chimney especially the removal of any obstructions is significantly important in the protection of the quality of your indoor air as well as lessening the chances of fires.
The chimney helps in allowing smoke and a number of other dangerous gases to exit safely from your home. However, not all gases make it out of the chimney; others condense on the chimney’s inner walls forming a residue known as creosote hence the need for regular cleaning.
Prevention of Gas Backflow into Your Home
When the tarry substance known as creosote begins to gunk up the chimney, two possible consequences may arise. The first one, the chimney becomes restricted and less efficient in allowing gases and smoke to flow through out of the chimney. This means some of them will flow back into your indoor space. This can severely affect your family’s health. Secondly, the creosote buildup can go up in flames when your chimney gets too hot or a spark gets sucked up. The National Fire Protection Association has it on record that close to 15,330 creosote fires occur each year causing an average of 4 deaths and about $34 million in damages.
There are a number of factors that cause the buildup of creosote in the chimney. One of them is burning of wood which hasn’t been seasoned as per the recommended standards. Also, a chimney that is unusually cooler can result into a buildup. Homes that have a limited supply of air oftentimes suffer creosote buildup because the insufficient air cannot force the smoke out of the chimney as fast as it builds up. Chimney cleaning is the solution to all this.
Keep Your Family Safe and Warm
Don’t take your HVAC equipment for granted because it helps keep your family comfortable all through the year especially during winter and summer. Ensure you don’t drop your guard in matters pertaining to the safety of the HVAC equipment and your home. Get accredited HVAC specialist to help you in cleaning your chimney and any other HVAC work you want undertaken.
