Upgrade Your Fireplace Before The Cold Weather!

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If you check the weather this weekend, you notice that it's going to be getting colder, and what better way to stay warm then making a fire. But if your fireplace is out of date and not working, you can get a new one! Or you can call the Cleveland Contractors at Reilly Painting to help you install it.

Those relaxing open fires cost you in several ways. First, you have to buy firewood, which is not cheap today. Second, when a fire is burning, the radiant heat feels good in front of the fire, but warm air is being drawn from the rest of your house. This makes the furnace run longer. Third, when there is no fire, room air is still being lost up the chimney.

The first thing you must do is install high-quality glass doors over the front of the fireplace. These doors will control the amount of room air which is sucked up the chimney when a fire is burning. They will also help block some of the room air loss up the chimney when there is no fire.

High-quality fireplace doors are not cheap, but they are worth the expense. The best ones are relatively airtight when the doors are closed. By adjusting combustion air vents in the bottom of the glass door frame, you can control how much room air goes up the chimney. Keep in mind, the fire does need an adequate supply of combustion air for an efficient clean burn.

There are several designs of heat-circulating grates which greatly increase the heat output from a fireplace. Many efficient ones are designed to fit snugly under the bottom edge of the fireplace doors. An electric blower circulates room air through the grate and the air comes back out very hot.

Select a model with a blower that has several or variable speeds and an automatic on/off switch. This switch shuts off the blower when the fire burns down. If you really do like to use the fireplace with the doors open, tubular, heat-circulating grates are available to blow the heat directly out the front. Some models have no blower and rely on natural convection.

Stoll Fireplaces makes a unique heat exchanger which mounts at the top of the fireplace opening and it works with gas or wood-burning fireplaces.

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