Chimney Cleaning and Maintenance

In winter, fireplace is a place that may really be your and your family's favorite place. There is nothing more comforting than sitting by the fireplace in a cold winter day. A chimney is a tube like hollow structure that serves to safely draw the smoke and gases out of your home. Chimneys are mostly situated above the burning chamber in factories, kitchen of houses, ships and furnaces to vent the smoke or hot flue gases out in the open atmosphere. These are usually vertical and are situated high above the roof of home or building to release the pollutants at higher attitude. It helps to ease down the influence of pollutants on surroundings. In the early ages, Romans used chimneys for their bakeries, but the real chimney with a factory exhaustion purpose was found in England as early as 1185 AD. At that time the chimneys were mostly built from bricks as you see in cartoons. But nowadays chimneys are built with steel lining inside the flue with different structures of chimney caps at the top of the flue. The height of smokestack depends on the kind of place it is working for. For factories, chimneys are usually built very high above the roof to lower down the effects of chemical smokes and pollutants. This is very important because some of these gases like carbon monoxide are very dangerous for those living nearby or the workers of the factory emitting such gases. You need to clean and maintain your chimney correctly for your and your family's safety. If the chimney is not cleaned properly the deposits inside the flue will form a thick lining and a major fire is likely to occur. Cleaning and Maintenance of a Chimney Here are some chimney cleaning and maintenance tips which can be helpful for you guideshub: The right time to clean a chimney is at the start and end of winters. You need to closely monitor your chimney for any leakage or breakage in the flue. Liner insulation will make your job easier so it is advisable to insulate the flue before winter starts. A chimney seems to be a nice place for birds and squirrels to make nests inside the flue, that's why it is good to place an appropriate size chimney cap on the smokestack. The cap prevents rain, animals and dirt from getting inside the pipe. Make sure you use high quality burning woods for better ventilation.