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Fireplace Cleaning |
Fireplace cleaning must be accepted as one of the responsibilities of owning a fireplace. A chore all too often forgotten and can be a dangerous practice if it is a real fireplace.
Often you will hear of fires that are because of the fireplace. People sometimes think it was because of a stray spark, but in most cases it is because the fireplace as not been cleaned regularily or properly. The more fireplaces are used means a build of creosote and soot. These are your major culprits of chimney fires.
How often you clean your fireplace will depend on the amount of use it gets. Here are some guidelines to help your through your cleaning procedure.
Part 1:
Making sure that the fireplace is completely cool; remove all the large debris from the floor of the fireplace. It will be a messy job so you may want to wear latex or garden gloves for this work. Put the big pieces in a garbage bag, then vacuum up the small bits. Ideally you will want to use perhaps the commercial vacuum or an old one in this case. There will be a lot of soot and you do not want it to clog up your good vacuum. Soot has a tendency to clog filters very quickly.
Part 2:
Now its time for some scrubbing. Mix one cup of household bleach into one gallon of water as hot as you can comfortably stand it. Put a drop cloth or newspapers on the floor of the fireplace and then with a scrub brush proceed to wash the soot and creosote off the interior of the fireplace.
Part 3:
Once you are finished with the interior scrubbing discard the drop cloth or papers and proceed to scrub the floor of the fireplace.
Part 4:
Now you will want to clean the accessories and this is a little easier as you can take them outside and scrub them with the same bleach solution.
Part 5:
If you have glass, doors you may want to clean them first with warm soapy water and paper towels. Then rinse well, and follow with a good glass cleaner polishing the glass as you dry.
Part 6:
Finally clean the outside of the fireplace with the appropriate cleaners applicable to the type of finish that you have.
A type of cleaning that you have just completed is more of a maintenance type fireplace cleaning. Periodically you will want to get professional chimney cleaners in. They are able to clean must further up the chimney as they have special equipment for this. They will also advise you if they note any internal chimney repairs that are needed. In addition, they will tell you how often your chimney should be cleaned.
On the market now are some log cleaners that burn just like a fire log but are designed to clean the creosote. If these are available in your area, you could check them out and see if they would be appropriate for your fireplace cleaning regime.
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