• Have the stove fitted correctly..... Even if you have not had it installed according to the instructions on the installation page, it can still be done.

  • Believe it or not, if you burn just wood on a fire, the fine ash can be used on damp newspaper or kitchen towel to clean the stubborn marks off the glass of your stove. Make sure you don't use any of the hard ash, just the dust. The reaction of water and ash mixed produces a substance called lye, or potassium hydroxide. You'll not believe this but the very same solution is supplied in bottles and sold to us by the manufacturers of stoves as glass cleaner. Now is that a con or what? The word Potassium comes from,the word potash which is an alkaline material extracted in a pot from the ash of wood or leaves.

  • Empty ash regularly. Using an ash caddy or vacuum attachment will keep dust down.

  • Before refueling, brighten the fire by increasing air. Once refueled, allow it to continue to burn for a couple of minutes before turning down... this will help prevent firebox explosions, which occur when fresh fuel traps volatile gasses between it and a red fire bed. In extreme cases the glass of the stoves has been known to shatter.

  • BURN DRY FUEL... Anything with moisture will introduce steam into the flue system, and cause serious accumulation of soot and creosote.

  • When the stove is not used for long periods of time, make sure the door of the unit is left slightly open to allow a circulation of air throughout the flue, otherwise the condensation can cause damp, leading to structural damage and a problem relighting.

  • Don't store wood too close to a working stove. Wood has been known to dry out, fall against the side of the stove and ignite.

  • In the event of a chimney fire, make sure the door and air vents of the unit are closed, along with doors and windows to the room. The fire brigade should be called, as the tar-like deposit from wood that forms in the chimney can burn at extremely high temperatures and ultimately cause structural damage.

  • Your stove should be vented from the top when possible. Heat will naturally want to rise, and any bends in a flue will only slow down the velocity of the combustion gasses. Venting from the back of the stove should only be done as a last resort, and only using a T section. Any other kind of bend will cause a build up of fly ash and soot deposit, and reduce the cross section of flue allowing the gasses to escape.

  • IF  SOMEONE  ELSE  IS  FITTING  A  STOVE  OTHER  THAN  A CHIMNEY TECHNICIAN, remember that we need access into the flue to sweep. You may find it hard to believe, but we were recently called to sweep the flue serving a stove at the home of the manager of a prominent stove retailer in County Down. Because of the design of the stove we were not able to gain access to sweep the chimney through the stove. Their "installer" had not taken into account that an access door needed to be fitted to the flue pipe to enable the flue to be swept. This is also the case if the stove has a boiler incorporated in it. Venting a stove from the rear will mean we either have to have an access door somewhere else in the flue, or we will have to sweep from the roof down thus incurring additional charges.