Tips for cleaning and maintaining your fireplace and chimney during the winter

Despite serving as a good and reliable source of warmth, fireplaces and chimneys have been found to be very dangerous when not used or maintained properly. Fortunately, you can make lighting fires during colder weather much safer with a good cleaning and regular maintenance. If you are unsure how to go about that, here are a few tips to get you started:

Clean out the ash regularly
Ash buildup is an issue you need to pay closer attention to in winter. As the buildup gets worse, your fires burn out faster. Fireplace experts recommend keeping the level of ash buildup in your fireplace at a maximum of 1 inch if you want to maintain stronger fires that burn for longer. You can either choose to throw the ash away in a safe container or, you can use it to make garden compost.

Pay attention to debris build up on the roof
While debris on the roof is likely to build up more during warmer months, that doesn’t mean it can be ignored during winter. Most debris that ends up on your roof is accompanied by pines and leaves that, if not attended to immediately, can be dangerous, especially if they fall inside your chimney. The best solution for this problem is to buy a chimney cap to cover the top of your chimney. As for cleaning your roof, I strongly advise you to seek out a local cleaning company with trained staff instead of doing the job yourself.

Invest in good quality smoke alarms
Smoke alarms are important devices every household with a chimney and fireplace should invest in. The last thing you want is a fire to break out and not know what is going on until it is too late. For beginners, I recommend adding smoke alarms outside and inside every bedroom around the house.

Hire a chimney sweeping company
As you near the end of winter, you will need to deep clean your chimney and fireplace. While you can do the job yourself, hiring a good domestic cleaning company here in London can save you a lot of time and money. In addition to this, many of the London based cleaning services are well trained to keep chimneys clean and might even offer discounted roof cleaning services.