Why I love my wood burning fireplace

As soon as I walk in to the house on a cold evening the first thing I do is check to see that we have enough good seasoned wood stored near our woodbunring fireplace along with kindling and matches to light it. I make a regular habit of checking our air vent is clear and we have the chimney swept every year to ensure there is no build up of tar or soot in the flue system.

It only takes a minute to form a V with two logs and load in firelighters and kindling in the centre and put a match to it. Having checked the flue baffle is in the open position I then walk away with the crackling of the think wood announcing the start of a warm fire for the rest of the evening. My advice is try not to sit and watch a fire start. It’s like watching paint dry and will feel like an age. With good wood in a well maintained log burning fireplace the fire will take. If you watch it you may be tempted to fiddle with it and end up having to start over. By the time I’ve made a decent cup of tea the fires is ready for some more attention when I will make a small adjustment to the position of the two logs to ensure they have the opportunity to take and pick out some more smaller logs to lay over the fire as it starts to take.

Once the fire in your log burning fireplace is well set don’t forget to make use of a fire guard if you leave the room for any reason.

A specialist in the UK in the field of open fires who will be happy to assist you in creating a fire for your log burning fireplace is Camelot Real fires. Search Google to find them.

To know more about log burning fireplace and wood burning fireplace visit to website.

Why are fireplace grates either cheap or expensive?

With the popularity of stoves the market for fireplace grates has changed dramatically. Today there are a huge range of mass produced and cheap fireplace grates produced in China available – but they typically only offer grates of a relatively small size. Larger grates tend to have to be made to order or purchased second hand.

Second hand fireplace grates are often sold very cheap on-line – mainly because the owner has probably replaces the fire so its in the way and they are heavy and cumbersome to ship so can only really be sold locally. In addition they don’t offer any really efficient heating options. Such fireplace grates may also have suffered from heat distortion or deterioration if they are old as a result of heat - especially if the previous users burned coal.

If you are considering using a fireplace grate ensure you also use a fireback or over time (10-20 years) the brick or stone at the rear of the fireplace will break up and disintegrate requiring repair. These are sometimes integral to the fireplace grate but the more traditional designs have separate fireback.

If you need a larger fireplace grate the other option is to have one made for you. Blacksmiths can do this but also some specialists will create a fireplace grate for you including dog irons and fireback. Ths issues here is having items made to order will be quite expensive. Unfortunately there isn’t much in between in the market in the UK at present.

One final point in relation to fireplace grates is the difference between burning wood or coal. If you burn wood in a grate with a slotted base you will get less heat and go through a lot more wood than you need to. Wood fires should be burnt on a solid surface with some capacity to hold some ash. This will prevent the red hot embers falling through the grate and going cold before they are fully burnt. The result is more heat, less ash and less wood burnt.

One such specialist in the UK in the field of open fires will be happy to assist you in creating a fireplace is Camelot Real fires. Search Google to find them.

To know more about fireplace grates and fireplace grate visit to website.