Are you constantly worried about creosote buildup, carbon monoxide poisoning, and house fires? Well, if you know the basics in the combustion process, you wouldn’t have to.
Maximizing the heating potential of your fireplace or heating system can save you energy dollars as well as keep your whole household safe.
A chimney’s job is to exhaust combustion gases from your home. However, when a chimney gets excessively dirty or clogged (by any number of things—debris and animal nests are common culprits), when your chimney damper is closed, or a part of your chimney is broken that prevents carbon monoxide and other combustion byproducts from venting, then you and your family may become at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. When carbon monoxide can’t access the outside of your home through your chimney it will “backdraft” into your home.
Carbon monoxide can put you and your family in harm’s way. Be sure to have your chimneys inspected and swept to avoid such accidents.
In high levels, carbon monoxide can become deadly within a matter of minutes, while low-level does can sicken people with flu-like symptoms. (Unlike the flu, carbon monoxide poisoning won’t cause a fever or glandular swelling.) Carbon monoxide poisoning is even sometimes mistaken as seasonal depression. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, [link to ] over 200 Americans die each year and 10,000 injuries are diagnosed—all from carbon monoxide poisoning related to venting problems with their heating systems.
The best way to prevent chimney-related carbon monoxide poisoning is to have your chimney inspected and swept annually. This is a recommendation shared by the Chimney Safety Institute of America, as well as most all other national fire safety organizations. A professional chimney cleaning can have many other benefits as well, including providing you with a safer, more efficient heating appliance that’s less likely to smoke in your home and create unpleasant odors. Beyond prevention, installing a carbon monoxide detector inside your home will be able to alert you to the presence of the deadly gas inside your home. Those of us at Basic Chimney Sweep & Repair are happy to inspect and clean your chimney so you can rest easy knowing you and your family are safe.
Only a professional will be able to truly determine—via an inspection and/or cleaning —whether or not your chimney is allowing CO to vent into your home. Although many causes of chimney-related carbon monoxide poisoning are tucked away from view, there are sometimes visible signs that something may be amiss with your chimney, including:
If you’ve noticed any of these issues with your heating appliance, call us right away to schedule an inspection.
The trickiest part about this sometimes-deadly gas is that it can be very hard to detect, as it is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. This is why the call it “the silent killer.” Unfortunately, when our bodies are given the choice between carbon monoxide and oxygen, our blood protein hemoglobin will choose carbon monoxide over oxygen, replacing oxygen in our blood stream with carbon monoxide. Too much carbon monoxide in the blood will kill us.
Below are some of the physical symptoms that accompany low-level carbon monoxide poisoning. These are especially important to pay attention to during the colder months when you’re using your heating appliance:
It is important to note that CO poisoning symptoms manifest differently for each person.
Did you know that your clothes dryer can also cause carbon monoxide to leak into the home? The best way to prevent this problem is to have your dryer vent professionally inspected and cleaned. This is a service we at Basic Chimney Sweep & Repair are happy to provide to our customers. A dryer vent cleaning will also help your clothes to dry quicker, which will cost you less energy dollars and may even prevent a dryer fire, as lint tends to get clogged in dryer ducts, especially when your dryer is located in the center of your home and the duct has to travel a long distance to vent outdoors.
Contact us today to schedule an inspection of your chimney and/or your dryer duct. Keep your family safe and put your mind at ease, all while helping your appliances run more efficiently.
Properly maintained dryer vents are as crucial to home safety as properly maintained chimneys. When to clean them also depends on a myriad of variables such as amount of use, what is going through them, and other house-specific circumstances. The best advice anyone can offer is to consult a professional about the frequency of safety cleanings given your individual situation.
Important Variables
That said, variables of critical importance are:
The last is why spring always brings a reminder from venting professionals to include dryer vents in your seasonal house cleaning. Considerably more bedding is typically put in dryers, along with sweaters being packed away until fall. That means more lint is going into the vent, if it is functioning properly to begin with, and that lint is dangerous.
A Seasonal Reminder
We believe no home owner is unaware at this point that dryer vents are the source of many house fires. You would literally need to live under a rock to remain oblivious to the constant news reports and public service messages in this regard. We also believe that every homeowner has a lot going on in spring and forgetting to clean the dryer vent is completely understandable.
So we remind you now: If you do not have short straight dryer venting — unshared with other appliances — that you can access completely, call a pro. If you do not have an exterior cap on venting you know to be clean and in good condition, cap it.
If your venting does meet those requirements, please exercise care appropriate to the venting material. Flexible aluminum venting is more easily damaged, but even metal vents can sustain damage if cleaned improperly. Remember, too, that more baby animals are looking for a nice hiding place in spring, so do not leave your vents open to the great outdoors.
Because less square footage is available for appliances, washers and dryers in apartments and condominiums are often the small, stackable variety. Unfortunately, these are inefficient blowers to begin with and are usually connected to complicated venting systems. Lacking the force to expel heated air through these long vents making right-angle turns, these stacked appliances have no hope of performing efficiently.
Clear signs that there are blockages in the system are clothes that take excessively long to dry, moisture in the laundry closet, dryers that feel too hot, and lint screens that are always clean. Beyond the waste of energy required to run the dryer again and again in order to dry your clothes, the lint that is likely to account for the blockage is cause for concern. Highly flammable, lint that has built up in the elbows joining vent ducts is easily set on fire.
The bottom line is that, if you are living in an apartment or a condominium, your dryer vent needs to be checked and cleaned by a professional. This should be done on a regular basis and will include a check of the vent pipe inside the dryer as well. Since it is unlikely that it will be possible to re-route the vent ducts, it will be necessary for these to be properly cleaned.
That requires special brushes and equipment and the knowledge of how best to sweep out the lint that has accumulated in the vent ducts. This explains why the job is often done by professional chimney sweeps, whose history would suggest another environment altogether. The important thing is that someone whose training and skill are certified be scheduled to perform the cleaning.
Trained to clean vent ducts without damaging them, as often happens when homeowners try to tackle the job themselves, professionals leave you with clean vents and peace of mind. Especially where flexible aluminum ducting is present, the ability to clean it without causing small tears in it is essential. If the aluminum is torn, at least that section of the vent duct has to be replaced, which is far more expensive than a routine cleaning.
Did you know that clothes dryers are one of the leading causes of home fires? Did you know that one of the main culprits for these fires is simply that the vents are not properly cleaned? Here are some basic tips to help keep your home and family safe.
One household task that gets routinely forgotten is dryer vent cleaning. This can be a very dangerous situation, because the lint that collects in the dryer vent is extremely flammable. All it would take is a single spark for disaster to strike. It is important to remember, though, that this is not a job that can easily be done without the proper tools. Keep in mind, you’ll need to clean more than the ends of the vent. There will be plenty of lint in the middle portion of the vent pipe.
Besides the obvious fire hazard, a clogged dryer vent will run less efficiently. This causes your clothes to dry more slowly, and your utility bill to go up more rapidly. Also, the dryer itself is likely to have a shorter life because it has to work so much harder. You will find that your overall costs to clean your clothes goes up exponentially by failing to properly maintain your dryer vent system. Of course, money savings aren’t the only consideration regarding dryer duct cleaning.
Statistically, there are around 15,000 dryer vent fires every year. Besides a professional cleaning, be sure to clean out the lint trap after each use. Also, never leave the dryer running when you leave your home. You never know when you might have a problem. The worst part is this is a preventable disaster. With some simple maintenance, you can avoid dryer vent hazards. There aren’t many disasters that are this simple to prevent.
Be aware of the potential dangers you face with your dryer, furnace, chimney, and other home appliances that involve fire. Proper care and awareness will keep you and your family safe from completely preventable disasters. That makes the cost of a cleaning well worth the cost, because your family and your home are priceless.
