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5 Benefits to Adding a Glass Door to your Fireplace
If you have a traditional fireplace & chimney, have you considered the benefits of adding glass doors? Fireplaces are the focal point of any room for good reason, and adding doors typically adds to their aesthetic beauty. Check out the following five benefits of adding a glass door to your fireplace:
1) Enhanced Safety
Glass doors on a fireplace reduce hazards associated with burning logs in an open hearth. The doors serve as protective barriers that prevent embers and sparks from escaping the fireplace and injuring someone or causing a flammable object to catch fire. Some types of wood are more prone to shoot sparks and embers more than others. No matter what type of firewood you use, however, it is common for logs to shift as the fire begins to die down; and the burning logs can roll out of the fireplace. Glass doors prevent logs from escaping.
In addition to providing safety from physical harm and a dangerous fire, the glass doors can protect your belongings. Stray sparks and logs destroy carpeting and damage all types of flooring, from wood to linoleum and everything in between. Since sparks and cinders can float, any of your home furnishings that are near the fireplace can be better protected with glass doors installed on your fireplace.
If you have pets or small children, the glass doors help to protect them from the fire. However, the glass can get extremely hot. For very small children, it’s best to put up a protective screen in front of the fireplace, to ensure that they don’t touch the doors.
2) Lower Utility Costs
An open hearth fireplace and chimney can make heating and cooling costs skyrocket, since dampers don’t usually provide perfect seals that prevent air from escaping or entering a home. In fact, a fireplace has been compared to a window that’s left open in your house, allowing warm air to escape in winter and cool air to escape in summer. With glass doors, energy efficiency is tremendously improved, since they provide a much better seal.
3) Better Heating Efficiency
A traditional fireplace may be a thing of undeniable charm, but it does a poor job of providing a meaningful amount of heat to a room. Experts say that only about 10% of the firewood’s energy is converted to useful heat, in an open hearth fireplace. Glass doors can double the efficiency rate; some experts estimate that glass doors triple the heat that enters the home. Rather than being blocked or contained in the fireplace, the heat from the fire radiates into the room through the glass doors.
4) Keeps Smoke Out
Glass fireplace doors can reduce or eliminate the effects of sudden downdrafts from the chimney.
5) Style and Beauty
Glass doors for a fireplace come in many colors, styles, and shapes. No matter what type of décor you have, glass doors are available that can be a perfect match.
Another factor to consider is that the dirty ashes and blackened logs in a fireplace can create a messy look. Glass doors conceal a dirty firebox; and when the fireplace is lit, the fire commands the attention. Decorative fireplace glass doors can also help to enhance your room’s décor, with or without a fire behind them.
Contact our chimney professionals today for helping choosing glass doors or perhaps a fireplace insert, which does an even better job of improving fireplace efficiency.
Northeastern Chimney, Inc.
formerly Nayaug Chimney Services, LLC
37 Cody Street, West Hartford, CT 06110
Phone: 860-233-5770