Fireplace Care: Love Your Stove

A stylish fireplace, just like a statement tile or a window, can often be one of the very best additions you can ever add to your home. That’s why, taking quality and great care of this beautiful asset is important, and with great care – comes great function.

Here at Real Flame, we’re passionate about fireplaces, and specialise in an extensive range of wood burning stoves in London. As with the rest of our beautifully designed fires, our wood burning stoves are a traditional piece that can are sure to enhance any decor, providing a timeless yet on-trend palette for years to come. So, we thought it best to advise you lovely lot as to how to get the most from your stove. Here’s our short guide to giving your fire a little TLC and keep it looking and burning as well as the day you bought it. Enjoy.

Use The Right Wood

If you have a multi-fuel stove and you choose to use wood, we can’t express how important it is to use the right wood. Using the right wood will ensure your fire is used and runs as efficiently as possible.

When burning wood, you don’t want to be wasting heat energy burning off water. Green wood is approximately 50% water, meaning that it is not suitable to burn until it has fully dried out.

There are only 2 ways to get the most suitable wood to burn on your stove, including:

• Purchase and dry out your own green wood.
• Purchase fire wood from a professional wood burning stove specialist.

Drying out your own wood is often the most cost-effective way of fuelling your fire, however you’ll need sufficient space to dry your logs out properly. Often, drying out wood properly can take between 6 – 12 months depending on the season. Wood is ready to be burned when it contains less than 20% water, however if you are unsure – use a wood moisture test meter beforehand to check!

Purchasing firewood can be a more convenient option, however it is often far more costly. If you are going to get your firewood this way, it is crucial that you find a good supplier. Accreditation schemes can help you to determine particular things about a supplier, such as if the wood is of good quality and how dry the supplier claims it to be. These being all important factors when purchasing firewood from a supplier.

Consider The Types Of Air

When it comes to your fuelling your stove, the two types of air that affect the quality of your flame are factors that you will also need to consider, primary and secondary air.

Primary air feeds the bed of the fire, while secondary air feeds the flame. It is often important to be able to control and manage these types of air, and can be achieved by doing the following:

• Never close the secondary air vent completely –  this will create a build-up of soot and tar, which will make your stove incredibly dirty.
• Don’t leave the stove door open – leaving the stove door open will allow warm air in the room to escape out of the chimney, wasting heat energy. Whilst in use, the stove door should only be opened when starting the fire or adding more logs.
• Small, hot fires are the best way to heat a room – when controlling the fire, remember that a small, fast-burning fire will heat a room far more quickly and efficiently than a larger, slower-burning fire.

Keep it Clean!

In order to maintain your stove to its full potential, you should aim to carry out small maintenance tasks regularly. Not only will keeping your stove clean and well cared for extend its lifetime, but will prevent soot and ash from dirtying your home.

It’s important to clean your stove in the right way, so here are a few quick and easy-to-do maintenance tasks for you:

• Regularly remove ashes – removing ash will help to boost the efficiency of your stove, and keep it running healthily.
• Clean internal surfaces – this can be done using a wire brush or a scraper to remove any dirt, ash or soot.
• Clean the glass – cleaning the glass will not only help keep on-top of unwanted and hard-to-remove soot, dirt and tar stains, but will keep your stove looking spotless and beautiful.
• Inspect your stove regularly for any damages – if you spot something unusual, it may be a sign of damage, so be sure to contact a stove specialist as soon as possible.

We hope you enjoyed our short guide to loving your wood burning stove, and hope that it helps you to get the most out of your lovely fireplace! After all, the fireplace is the heart of the home. For more information on any of our services, or wish to speak to one of our friendly and helpful team – please do not hesitate to contact us on 020 7731 5025 today!