One of the favorite parts of my new home is the big fireplace that is in the living room. There is also a fireplace in our master bedroom. There is nothing better than curling up in front of the fire with a good book. Especially when the snow is falling down outside and there’s nowhere else you need to be. Ah, I love it. My only problem is that I don’t have a good source for firewood and I’ve had so many fires this winter that I’m already out running low. This is my first time living in a house with a fireplace so there were a lot of things I needed to learn when I moved in. The first and foremost was how to operate the fireplace flue. Without knowing that, I wasn’t going to be enjoying my fireplace very much.
The flue is one of those things that is out of sight and therefore, mostly out of mind. However, it plays a very crucial role in allowing you to enjoy having fires in your fireplace. Technically, the flue is the pipe built into the inside of your chimney that carries the smoke and gases from your fire, up and out of your house.
Lesson number one:
You need to learn how to operate your flue. That means how to open and close it. Nothing ruins a romantic night in front of the fire faster than a closed flue. If your flue is closed, smoke cannot escape up the chimney, but it needs to go somewhere and it’s going to pour right out of your fireplace and into your house. This can be very annoying at the minimum, it can cause smoke damage if not remedied quickly enough.
Most fireplaces have some kind of mechanical mechanism that allows you to manually open and close the flue. I have two fireplaces and they have different mechanisms. One has a knob on the outside of the fireplace that you turn to open and close it and the other one has a metal rod inside the fireplace that you must maneuver to open and close it. Your fireplace may have one of these options or it may have something different. Either way, it is important to learn how to operate it.
Now that you know HOW to operate it, you must remember to check the flue every time you are going to have a fire. You’ll want to keep it closed for the most part when you are not having a fire, but it’s absolutely critical that it the fireplace flue is open when you are having a fire. If you happen to leave it open when you are not having a fire, there are a couple of things that can happen. First, all of that air that you are paying to heat with your furnace is rushing into your fireplace and up the flue and right outside. Just imagine little dollar bills being sucked up your chimney and gone forever. Another good reason to keep it closed, besides retaining heat, is to keep things from coming down the flue and into your house. Things like bugs, mice, even birds and bats have been known to come down the flue and into people’s houses. Even if it’s not cold out and you aren’t worried about losing heat, it’s a good idea to keep it closed.
Now that you’re keeping your flue closed, it’s important to remember to open it each and every time before you have a fire. You might also want to check that nothing is blocking it even when it’s open. Once you have it open and are sure that the flue is not blocked, go ahead and enjoy your fire. It’s important to remember not to close the flue until you are absolutely sure that your fire is completely out. Sometimes it might be best to wait until the next morning to make sure that all the embers and coals are dead. Then you can close your fireplace flue until your next fire.