Fireplaces are beautiful and useful spaces for burning wood in your home. We can lounge by these warm fires for comfort, relaxation, roasting s’mores, and a romantic backdrop. However, there are some ways we should never use our fireplaces. First of all, it is not a trash compactor. Burning miscellaneous fuel sources or tossing random junk into the fire can be damaging to your fireplace or chimney and can even be dangerous to everyone in your household. While a chimney sweep in Roswell, GA, can clean a messy chimney, but a good cleaning can’t protect your home if you’re burning the wrong things in your fireplace. Read on for 3 examples of things you should never, ever burn in your fireplace:
1. Cardboard
Many people attempt to eliminate the mess that soot and ashes create by placing cardboard on the floor of their fireplace or using it as a temporary screen. Unfortunately, this just contributes to the mess, as cardboard will also burn, releasing harmful fumes in the process. Flakes of burning cardboard can also float into the air and leave the fireplace if you do not have a screen in place, potentially causing a fire in the surrounding room.
2. Wood from Your Yard
Firewood is not simply sticks or logs from your yard. Proper firewood is actually “seasoned”, or dried out to remove excess moisture and prevent smoking. While it might seem rustic and charming to collect your own wood and create a campfire inside your home–especially in an environment like Roswell with lush greenery–unseasoned wood will create excess smoke, polluting the air inside your home and making a mess of your chimney.
3. Trash
You would be surprised how frequently people view an open flame as a convenient trash receptacle. While fire can certainly eliminate nearly everything, that is not the purpose of an indoor fireplace. Some trash can even be dangerous when burned. For example:
- Plastics create hazardous fumes when burned.
- Items like old rags that have come in contact with hazardous chemicals can be explosive.
- Items with heavy dyes can stain your fireplace.
- Burning discarded food can attract pests.
These are just a few examples of items that would be harmful to your fireplace, chimney, and even your home if you were to burn them. For best results, only use your fireplace for its intended purpose and burn what it is built to burn. That being said, even a controlled fire with seasoned wood can be a bit messy. Thankfully, you can always hire a chimney sweep in Roswell, GA, to make it look good-as-new.