There’s never a good time or reason to ignore fire safety rules, wherever you are. Ensuring your home and everybody inside it is safe is of the highest concern, so sticking to some core principles regarding fire is essential.
What are the best fire tips to remember? We’ve compiled a few reminders you should consider every time you assemble a fire.
How to Operate Your Home Heating Appliances Safely
Children should never be near the combustion chamber because the area is hazardous. Only responsible adults should handle any fire equipment and be near the fire. As long as the children are at a safe distance from the flames, it’s an excellent opportunity to educate them on safety matters concerning fire, like the hazards involved and why caution should always be adhered to.
If you possess a wood-burning stove, never use coal in this appliance; the furnace wasn’t designed to operate using coal because the temperatures coal can reach are much hotter than wood, and there is no ash pan on a wood burner. Therefore, you can only use wood in this type of appliance.
Before building your fire, you must check that your carbon monoxide monitor and smoke alarms are working correctly. Safety measures like these are there to protect people inside the home, so all indoor fires should only be assembled once these devices have been checked.
Multi-fuel stoves and wood burners are fantastic appliances that make indoor fires possible for people without a fireplace built into their homes. When installed by a professional, the stoves will extract pollutants from your home through the vent integrated into your home’s wall. You should only ever build and install this appliance yourself if you have experience with this type of task; it’s essential for everybody’s safety that the appliance is connected as it should be and works correctly.
Fuel Storage Tips
To avoid bugs invading your home and soft furnishings, don’t store your wooden logs next to a fireplace or living space. Unfortunately, there’s a chance that bugs live in the logs and can escape into your living room. Instead, keep the kiln-dried firewood in a garden shed if you have one; this will keep the logs free of moisture by sheltering them in an airy space that avoids storing them indoors.
Coal, on the other hand, is easier to store, but there may be dirt from the bag after it has been opened. Therefore, it’s probably best to store these in a garage if possible so you don’t ruin your home flooring. Wherever you store your coal and logs, make sure they are a reasonable distance away from anything flammable or that could ignite them.
We suggest you opt for kiln-dried logs so you don’t need to take up space seasoning the wood, and they can be used immediately. Reducing the amount of smoke your fire produces is best achieved with smokeless coal, protecting the lungs of everybody inside and lowering environmental emissions.