In the height of summer, none of us wants to think about more heat. But if you are one of the clever homeowners who once made the decision to install a wood heater and connect it to the overall house heating system you know, the key is not only installing a wood heater but to service it annually to ensure it works efficiently and safely.
Lighting a fire when the unit is not working properly means risking the safety of you and your family and since you don’t need to use the equipment right now, this time of year is best to service your wood heater and inspect your chimney to get everything ready for next winters season.
A lot of homeowners disregard the significant risk when it comes to chimney cleaning, thinking chimney sweeps were only in demand in the long gone past when houses were heated by fireplaces only. But even if nowadays fireplaces are more used to create cosiness rather than to heat up a whole home, avoiding a house fire is just as important.
A large number of fires start when creosote builds up on the interior of the chimney. Creosote is a highly flammable black tar-like substance that is caused by the combustion of gas that condenses on the inside of the flue or chimney. If green or wet wood and not properly air-dried wood is used to fuel the wood heater, this can increase the amount of creosote in your chimney as well as the natural lack of air. The build-up of the substance will restrict the airflow in the heater or fireplace and reduce its efficiency, as well as eventually block the flue and make it impossible to function.
One sign of a blocked flue is smoke coming into your room when opening the heater door. If the chimney or flue gets hot enough the creosote might catch alight causing a dangerous chimney fire. These fires start by loud cracking noises and a lot of heavy smoke. They can burn up to extremely high temperatures as 1100C and will weaken the chimney structure dangerously. Therefore, it is highly recommended to sweep your chimney once a year to avoid creosote build-up which is the number one cause of chimney fires.
Since cleaning a chimney can be a strenuous job and if you do not want to endanger your safety at the risk of working at great height, hiring a certified chimney sweep might be a better option. A sweep is less likely to be busy during the summer months and trained to check your heating system as a whole. The sweep will look for several kinds of deterioration in your chimney as well as birds’ nests and make it all safe on the inside to get your wood heater ready for toasty evenings.
Another professional you might want to give an early bird call will be the boiler service. Regardless of your type of boiler, it needs to be checked, cleaned and configured once a year to avoid any danger of monoxide poisoning.
A little less risky and easier to check by yourself is the dusting and bleeding of your radiators to avoid overconsumption. Over time air accumulates in the pipes making radiators less efficient. To avoid a noisy heater, bleeding should be done especially in summer as it will extend the life of your radiator and enables the heat to spread more efficiently during the cold season.
Every heater – from the tried and tested Esse range to the Quadra-Fire wood heaters which were specially designed for hard Australian winters – has slightly different characteristics and comes with instructions from the manufacturer to get the best performance. If you have followed the recommendations above and are still not satisfied with the performance of your wood heater, check back with your retailer to find out why you are not getting a good performance. A lot of times there is only a simple reason behind it.