Fireplaces are a fantastic feature to make a home cosier and more inviting. They add a great accent to any house, but there are safety risks. So, what are the safest fireplaces?
Electric fireplaces are considered the safest for inside a home. For families with pets or young children especially, electric fireplaces are safest as they have no open flame. Gas and wood-burning models have many safety concerns, but there are precautions that can be taken to reduce safety risks.
An electric fireplace is a great safe option but may not always achieve quite the effect you are looking for. There are a few factors to consider before choosing your fireplace, so read on to find out more.
What the safest fireplaces are
The overall safest kind of fireplace is an electric fireplace. This is because this type of fireplace doesn’t have an open flame. The chances of being able to burn yourself or have parts of your home catch fire are greatly reduced with an electric fireplace. An electric fireplace is also considered the safest fireplace if you have pets or children running around the house.
Our pets can be super cheeky and might risk their safety by walking near fireplaces. With an electric fireplace, the chances of your pets accidentally catching fire are reduced greatly. They might get a small and quick burn by walking around the fireplace, but they won’t end up in flames. Plus, they will quickly learn not to walk on the hot surface.
The electric fireplace is safest for children because there is little risk of them being burnt by the flames. You will need to be sure to stop them from touching potentially hot parts of the fireplace. But a lot of modern electric fireplaces have been designed to lower the temperature of the surrounding surfaces. Just be sure to know what parts of the fireplace will get warm to touch to keep your kids extra safe.
With this being said, modern gas and wood-burning fires are still good. Contemporary models have been designed with many more safety features that make them much safer fireplaces than they ever have been before. But these fireplaces do still involve a more open flame, which is why an electric fireplace is considered a safer fireplace. But it’s always good to have a fire fighting pump on standby, just in case!
What makes a fireplace safe?
Often, the number one factor people consider when choosing a fireplace is how safe it is for children and pets. An open, roaring fire always involves the hazard of potentially falling into it or disturbing it and spreading the fire outside the fireplace.
Electric fires don’t have this problem since the flame is completely tethered to the mechanism of the fireplace. They work by heating interior coils with electricity and giving the appearance of a flame.
They also don’t require any venting, since no smoke is produced. This does make them a bit safer, too, as fumes from gas and wood-burning fires can spread to your home.
So, combined an enclosed flame, with good ventilation, reduced smoke, and a fire that can be instantly turned off; there you have a safe fireplace!
The other safety bonus of an electric fireplace? They aren’t hot to touch! Apart from the front of the heater, the main surfaces of and around an electric fireplace won’t burn you.
The tricky part can be performing maintenance on electric fireplaces because they are more complicated than other fireplaces. So, be sure to always wear personal protective equipment when completing any fireplace maintenance to keep yourself safe.
What are the dangers of a fireplace?
The main and most immediate danger of most fireplaces is the open flame. Gas and wood-burning fires usually aren’t covered by panels such as glass panels, and not all are housed in fireboxes. While these fireplaces can be pleasing to the eye, they pose a big danger of being burnt by the flames. You also need to be extra careful when putting wood in the fireplaces without causing embers to fly out and land on carpets and furniture. These fireplaces aren’t recommended for households with children.
The other big concerns are fumes and contaminants spreading to the rest of the house. For proper fires, you’ll need to be sure that there is sufficient ventilation to carry the smoke out of the house. Without this ventilation, there is a danger of long-term health issues occurring from fireplaces. It’s good to air out your house after using an open fireplace to help prevent consumption of contaminants and smoke from the fire.
Can you get carbon monoxide poisoning from a fireplace?
It is possible to get carbon monoxide poisoning from a fireplace. But there are precautionary steps you can take to reduce this risk. Gas fireplaces are the biggest concern for this health risk, so it’s important to protect yourself if this is the fireplace you want to use.
The best thing to do is get a carbon monoxide detector and don’t sit right in front of the fireplace. If you ever notice symptoms such as headaches, nausea, or dizziness when the fire is lit, put it out straight away. Then don’t use your fireplace again until you get it checked out by a professional.
What is the healthiest fireplace?
Electric fires are considered the healthiest and safest fireplaces. From our own health point of view, they produce no toxic by-products, and there is no risk of fireplace contaminants seeping out. They don’t create actual fire, so the health risks associated with smoke and fires aren’t present when using electric fireplaces.
Gas and wood-burning fires do carry more health risks. But safety standards in manufacturing are requiring more efforts to reduce health risks from these fireplaces. This means that modern designs should stop you from being at any considerable risk with a new fireplace.
At the end of the day, you can reduce the health risks from a fireplace by taking safe and precautionary actions. If you know what you’re doing and learn about fireplace safety and maintenance, you can have a safe fireplace.
Are fireplaces with glass safe?
Glass fireplaces are safe. The glass used for these types of fireplaces is heat resistant and tempered. This means that it can handle high temperatures without the risk of breaking. Tempered glass is generally resistant to temperatures up to 260⁰C.
For fireplaces with a hotter flame than that, glass-ceramic material is used for a glass fireplace. The formulation gives it tensile strength to resist breaking under the pressure from the flame.
Glass is used in the safety door of fireplaces to allow you to watch the fire. The designs have been tested to make sure that whatever glass is put into your fireplace and fireplace door can handle the heat from the fire. These tests all revolve around safety. While we can’t say that the glass doors of fireplaces won’t be hot to touch, we can say that they won’t explode from the heat. You will be protected against the fire sparks. But you should be careful when opening a fireplace glass door and fixing your fire because you are more at risk of injury and being burnt. The good news is that once that door is closed, you can rest assured that you’re safe because of the quality of the glass in fireplace doors.
If you are wanting a glass fireplace for your house, it is always recommended to approach a professional for the installation. These fireplaces shouldn’t be something that you do yourself. By getting a professional, you can rest assured that your glass fireplace is created with safety at the forefront of the design.
How to tell if a wood stove is leaking
It’s important to always make sure a wood stove is airtight to prevent contaminants from leaking out. The best way to check your wood stove isn’t leaking is by sealing the vents. Then wait and see how long it takes the fire to go out.
If the wood stove is not airtight, then, even with the vents closed, air will be able to get in and feed the fire. If the stove is airtight, the fire will go out in a couple of minutes, being starved of oxygen.
Most commonly, a wood stove leak tends to be in the door gasket. Use a rolled-up bit of newspaper and light the end on fire. Then move it around inside the stove. If smoke is sucked up into a particular spot, this is where your leak is.
Once you have identified a leak, you should contact a wood stove maintenance and repair shop to fix it up. This is the best way to get your whole wood stove checked out while doing a proper repair.
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