Fireplaces are a lovely way to keep warm this winter: providing a cozy and romantic atmosphere while providing inexpensive heat to keep your whole family warm. With winter officially arriving in Hammond, LA this year, now is an ideal time to use your fireplace. Before the season proceeds much further, however, it pays to get the fireplace examined by a trained technician to ensure that it’s functioning as it should. Why? Because doing otherwise might be more dangerous than you think.
Professional Heating & Air Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Fireplace Maintenance’
Get Your Fireplace Checked Out
Monday, December 19th, 20163 Common Problems with Your Fireplace
Monday, September 28th, 2015Your fireplace likely hasn’t seen much use this summer, as our hot, humid weather in Hammond, LA has left people far more interested in air conditioning than heating. But fall is officially here and with cooler weather comes the need to open up those chimney flues and warm your home with a nice cozy fire. However, all those months sitting unused may have created problems with your fireplace or made existing ones more difficult. Before you use your fireplace this fall, it pays to schedule a maintenance session with a trained technician to look for some of the common problems.
3 Ways to Prepare Your Home for Fall
Monday, September 14th, 2015Hammond, LA is a warm city, and even though Labor Day has come and gone, high temperatures are still bound to linger for a few more weeks. But fall will be here before you know it, which means that now is an ideal time to start looking at your heating system. The more preparation you can do before the mercury drops, the fewer problems you’ll have when you need your heater to respond. Here are 3 ways to prepare your home for fall, which could save you a great deal in winter heating costs.
What Problems Can Fireplace Maintenance Address?
Monday, February 17th, 2014Few enhancements to your home are more inviting than a fireplace near the middle of your living space. A fireplace isn’t only a cozy addition to your lifestyle; it can also serve as an effective secondary heat source to help your main heating system.
Fireplaces are no more dangerous than a furnace or boiler—provided they receive routine maintenance once a year from experts in fireplace repair. You may have heard that fireplaces only need maintenance every five years, but this is false. Problems can start developing in a fireplace after only a year without a check-up, so make sure to schedule maintenance annually. Contact the fireplace experts at A–Professional Heating and Air Conditioning to get started, or call for any heating repair service in Kenner, LA you need.
Here are a few issues you can avoid with your fireplace through regular maintenance:
- Smoke or exhaust entering your home: The most immediate danger a fireplace in need of maintenance can pose is from poor ventilation, leading to smoke flowing out into your house. There are different causes for bad ventilation (broken damper, animal nests), but a maintenance check can catch almost all of them.
- Fire hazards: It’s the worst-case-scenario for a fireplace… the fire getting out of the hearth and into places where it shouldn’t be. Cracks inside the chimney liner can permit heat to escape through to other areas of your home, making it possible for fires to break out on upper floors or on your roof. Cracks in the firebox are also potential hazards. Maintenance will look for all possible places where a fire might get out of the fireplace.
- Creosote build-up: The No. 1 problem that can afflict a wood-burning fireplace is the development of creosote. Creosote is a shiny black substance that starts to appear on the fireplace bricks and in the chimney. It is unburned wood energy, often resulting from poor insulation, and is highly combustible, making it a major danger. Checking for creosote is an important part of maintenance, and technicians will be able to tell you if you need chimney sweeping to eliminate a possibly hazardous build-up.
Because fireplaces are seen as durable, almost invincible, homeowners often put off necessary maintenance. Don’t make this mistake: treat your fireplace as you would any heating system for your home and schedule an annual maintenance visit. A–Professional Heating and Air Conditioning offers trained fireplace technicians to make sure you receive the important heating repair services in Kenner, LA you need to keep enjoying the pleasures of a warm hearth.