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Valley Chimney Celebrates National Chimney Safety Week

Chimney CapNational Chimney Safety Week is coming up (September 30 – October 6), and the Valley Chimney Sweep & Restoration team is celebrating!

Every year, throughout the last week of September, the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) celebrates the week all chimney sweeps look forward to. Over 22,000 chimney fires occur in the United States every year costing over 125 million dollars of property damages. The goal of National Chimney Safety Week is to reduce the number of unwanted chimney fires by educating chimney experts, home inspectors, other safety specialists and more importantly homeowners about the latest trends in fire safety and prevention.

In honor of National Chimney Safety Week 2019, we’ve put together a list of chimney fire facts, as well as prevention tips for chimney fires below. You can put our best methods and practices to work and ensure your safety while lighting a fire in your home.

Chimney Fire Signs

Indications of a chimney fire have been described as loud cracking and popping noise, a lot of dense smoke and intense hot smell. Chimney fires can burn explosively, they can be noisy and dramatic enough to be seen by neighbors and people passing by. Flames or dense smoke can be seen shooting from the top of the chimney as well. Your chimney and the flue adds architectural interest to your home, but its’ real function is to carry dangerous flue gases from your fireplace, wood stove or furnace safely out of your home. Dirty chimneys can cause chimney fires, which can damage structures, destroy homes and injure or even kill people. The majority of chimney fires also go undetected, because they don’t get enough air or have fuel to be dramatic or visible, the temperatures can get very high and cause damage to the chimney structure. To learn more about the effects of chimney fires, check out our blog here.

Chimney Fire Prevention Tips 

It’s important to practice good measures when using your chimney and fireplace. The Valley Chimney experts recommend only using seasoned wood in a fire, as unseasoned wood is wet and can lead to more creosote buildup. Never burn anything other than seasoned firewood, don’t burn cardboard, trash, dryer lint, plastic and wrapping paper. Another key prevention tip you should keep in mind is to keep your fireplace clean, and never start a fire on top of a bed of ash or coals leftover from a previous fire. Of course, the most recommended and BEST prevention tips are to install a smoke alarm and/or carbon monoxide detector in your home and have the chimney inspected and cleaned on a regular basis by a CSIA-certified professional chimney sweep.

The Valley Chimney Sweep & Restoration team cannot stress the importance of chimney fire prevention enough! The only true way to prevent chimney fires is to hire a professional chimney sweep like Valley Chimney Sweep & Restoration to perform an inspection and cleaning. This shouldn’t be done yourself, this type of work should be left up to the professionals, who know what they’re doing. A certified chimney sweep regularly tests their understanding of the complexities of chimney, fireplace and venting systems.

Contact Valley Chimney Sweep & Restoration to schedule your chimney inspection and cleaning to keep your family safe and enjoy fall and winter fires safely!

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