Does Your Home Have a Wood Toilet? Here are 4 Reasons Not to Flush It!

Does Your Home Have a Wood Toilet? Here are 4 Reasons Not to Flush It!

I bet you didn’t know your home has a wood toilet. Uh-huh…Yes, it does!

Your wood toilet may not look like the stylish throne pictured above, but the wood toilet you have is actually worse! There is a pejorative name for fireplaces in the energy conservation world. They are called a “wood toilet”. The reason is, you are flushing wood up your chimney, and also watching your energy dollars swirl out with it.

What are you talking about? I love my fireplace!

It is true that according to the NAHB survey as of 2018, 44% of single family houses have at least one open fireplace in them. That is down from a peak of 58% in 2002. Unlike a literal wood toilet, a fireplace is generally a desirable amenity. Some homeowners don’t use their fireplace, and don’t care to use their fireplace. However, some homeowners burn in them every chance they get. I must admit, there is something about a crackling hearth…but is it worth it?

The hard truth about fireplaces, and why are energy conservation people name-calling?

Let me give you some facts about fireplace, reported by the EPA in their Burn Wise campaign.

  • There are roughly 17.5 million fireplaces in the US.
  • They account for 4,000 residential fires every year.
  • Confined fires (like fireplaces) account for 87% of residential building heating fires.
  • Smoke from fireplaces contain a mixture of harmful gases and small particles that can cause severe bronchitis, aggravate heart and lung disease, and may increase the likelihood of respiratory illnesses.
  • Research estimates 70 percent of smoke from chimneys can actually reenter your home, and your neighbor’s home. (Pierson et al 1989)
Below are the hard facts about what fireplace use does to energy consumption in your home

home air leakage pie chart

Fireplaces waste more than they give back. This is what the US Department of Energy has to say about fireplaces.

  • Fireplaces should not be considered heating devices.
  • Traditional fireplaces draw in as much as 300 cubic feet per minute of heated room air for combustion, then send it straight up the chimney.
  • Even when dormant, fireplaces account for 14% of home air leakage.
  • Energy.gov Energy Saver program recommends to seal your flue when not in use, and use an inflatable Chimney Balloon or wool Flueblocker.

Are wood toilets super trendy and stylish, and coming back in vogue

150 years ago, home owners all over the globe used fireplaces to heat their homes. They used wood toilets (that were called outhouses) to do their business. They used horses to ride to work or to town. But now we have central heat, and indoor plumbing, and commuter cars and public transit. For nostalgia or old-time-sake feel free to go on a horsey ride, or poop in a smelly old shack, or even warm yourself by the hearth. But don’t fool yourself with your fireplace. This is not little House on the Prairie anymore, so lets be a little smarter with our homes, health, and energy dollar.

6 Important DIY Steps to Keep Wasps and Flies Out of Your Home

6 Important DIY Steps to Keep Wasps and Flies Out of Your Home

Want to know how to keep wasps and flies out of your home?

 

We have 6 easy DIY steps that can help you keep wasps and flies out of your home, and stop other even more destructive bugs from infesting your home this summer.

 

My son loves bugs, he always has. Ant hills, spider webs, beetle burrows… He finds them all fascinating. However the rest of the family is not a fan, so I keep a pretty strict regimen of preventative measures to keep wasps and flies and termites and all kinds of creepy critters outside the boundaries of our house.

Here are some measures that keep wasps and flies out of our home:

 

  •  Wash fruit with vinegar water and keep it in the fridge. Fruit comes from all over the globe, and tends to have insect eggs and spores on it. I won’t bother you with the gory details, but you should really wash your fruit in water with a cup of vinegar. If you need to ripen some fruit, keep it in the shade on the back porch, not inside.
  •  Check and repair the loose and full open hidden openings to your house. Your dryer vent and fireplace damper are examples of loose openings. They close, but not tightly. You may wonder how to keep wasps from building nests in the chimney. Don’t rely on your fireplace damper to close your chimney tight enough to keep bugs or bats out. Install a wool Flueblocker or Chimney Balloon to seal it off super tightly. Clean the lint off flapper on the outside and make sure the hinge is working, so the flapper closes tightly when the dryer is off.Often a home builder will cut a hole in the wall of the home for a pipe or wires to come through, but they leave extra space around the hole. Use foam and caulk to close all of those penetrations in the homes envelope to keep wasps and flies out of your home as well as crawling bugs.
  •  Check the weatherstripping around your doors and put your porch lights on motion sensors. Weatherstripping keeps out the bugs, but it takes a beating over time as the door is used. It is very easy to replace weatherstripping with self-adhesive strips.Porch lights draw in flying and crawling bugs at night, and when you go through your door the mosquitoes and other bugs like a to hitch a ride into the house. Putting your lights on motion sensors limits the time your light it on, and keeps wasps and flies out of your home.

    Sprayer to keep wasps and flies out of your home

    Sprayer to keep wasps and flies out of your home

  •  Keep shrubs from touching the side of your house and spray a boundary around your home. Keep your shrubs and other vegetation trimmed so it does not come in contact with your outer walls of your home. This will limit crawling bugs from getting in the walls. At the base of the walls spray a boundary spray. I use Taurus SC mixed into a garden sprayer, but you can use ready to spray kits like Ortho Home defense.Spray a 4″ to 6″  boundary on the base of the exterior wall all the way around the house and around each bottom level window. Give special attention to downspouts and any pipe or wire penetrations in the home envelope. Just be sure to follow the directions on the pesticide label.
  •  Trees are routes of bug entry too. Each year while I am on my roof cleaning the solar panels and scooping out the gutters, I use my bug boundary spray up there too. I spray the our edge of the roof deck by the gutters, and around any vents that come through the roof. I also spray the crown of my fireplace chimney and around the cap. This helps to keep wasps and flies out of your home, since they love to follow cooking smells down the chimney.
  •  Lets talk termites. If you live in an area with termites (like I do in SC) then you need to take them seriously. They can get inside of any house, and you wont even see their entry point since they are subterranean. Every 7 years I do a termite trench with Dominion 2L all the way around my home. Termite trenching is when you dig a 6″ trench line at the base of your outside wall you saturate the dirt with termiticide and put it back in the trench.
Termite trenching effectively creates a bug-killing moat around you home. If you are not so keen on that much shoveling, you can hire a company to do this for you. They often offer an insurance for their work called a termite bond. If you decide to DIY it, as always be sure to follow the directions on the label.

It is hard to keep wasps and flies out of your home, as well as ants, termites, cockroaches, spiders, etc… but it is worth the effort.

 

Maintaining a home is tough work, especially if you are a DIY kind of person. You can always hire a company to do this work for you, but it is worth the knowledge of knowing how to DIY it if you need to keep wasps and flies out of your home.
4 Steps to Stop Bats and Birds from Entering Your Fireplace Chimney

4 Steps to Stop Bats and Birds from Entering Your Fireplace Chimney

How to stop bats and birds from entering your fireplace chimney

Have you ever spent your evening with all the doors and windows open as you try to coax a bat or bird out of your house? Then you know bats and birds are  common pests that can find their way into your home through the fireplace chimney. Birds and bats eat mosquitos and are great to see flitting around your yard, but they are lousy house guests. So lets see how do I keep bats from coming down my chimney?
Bats can carry diseases, so there are dangers of bats in chimney, and you can’t safely smoke out bats in chimney. You may be wondering how to tell if bats in chimney. Bats in chimney sound like a quiet squeaky bike wheel, and they make a scuffling and scratchy noise as they climb. Bat removal from chimney cost stat at $120 for the service call and it usually cost another $100 for the relocation of the animal. So it is best to keep them from entering and claiming your chimney for their home.
Birds can make a mess and damage your chimney and home. Birds can make obnoxious noise and bring in flammable nesting material that plugs the chimney. Also their droppings smell very bad. You cannot burn or smoke out birds either. But, if you have bats and birds in your chimney, there are a few things you can do to get rid of them and prevent them from coming back.

Listed below are 4 steps to stop bats and birds from entering your fireplace chimney:

1. Seal up any entry points. The first step is to seal up any entry points that bats or birds could use to get into your chimney. This includes any cracks or holes in the seam between where the brick chimney meets the homes wood or vinyl exterior. Inspect the crown and the flashing of the chimney and see if there are cracks they are getting through.
2. Install a chimney cap with a screen. Some chimneys have not cap at all, some have a cover with no screen, some have a screen with no cap. The best cap is one that is galvanized or stainless steel, and has a cover and a screen. A cap like this will last a long time, and prevents bats and birds from getting in, while still allowing smoke to escape. You can get a cheaper powder coated or painted sheet steel chimney cap, but they rust our fast and won’t last long.
3. Use a Flueblocker of Chimney Balloon. If you don’t want to mess with a cap at the roof, Don’t rely on just your metal damper to keep out bats or birds. They can get through a metal damper without even slowing down. Metal dampers are loose and warped, so a bird or bat can slip right past a damper. You will need a tight seal from a Chimney Balloon or wool Flueblocker to stop a bat or bird.
bird in fireplace chimney flue

Bird in fireplace chimney flue

4. Call a professional. If you have a serious problem with bats or birds getting in repeatedly or nesting in your home, you may need to call a professional. A wildlife removal company will be able to safely and humanely remove the pests from your home, and troubleshoot the areas that may be letting them in. Sometimes the chimney is not the only location they gain entry.

Getting help stop bats and birds from entering your fireplace chimney

It is always beneficial to seek an expert to help stop bats and birds from entering your fireplace chimneyContact us today to get advice on how to stop bats and birds from entering your fireplace chimney. Or read more about removing bats from your Chimney on AboutFlames.com.
Majestic SR42A fireplace with a loose damper fit.

Majestic SR42A fireplace with a loose damper fit.

Q: Jason, I have a Majestic SR42A 42″ prefab wood-burning fireplace with gas logs.  The damper is 8″ round and opens/swivels in the middle of the circle.  The firebox is a trapezoid with approximate dimensions of 24 X 33 with the sides being 15″.

There is a front “panel” that seems to be angled inward making the 15″ sides taller at the top and smaller at the bottom. There seems to be sufficient room between the damper and the top of the fireplace opening (9″) for a larger Chimney balloon.  The front panel may also make a good “shelf” for the Chimney Balloon to rest on.
I’m wondering if the best bet is to go with a smaller Chimney Balloon and install it above the damper with the extender or get a bigger Chimney Balloon and install it under the damper, in the trapezoid firebox area.  My preference would be for easy installation and removal as we use our fireplace a lot in the winter.  I don’t mind if part of the Chimney Balloon or pole shows. – CA
A: Dear CA, You have a couple of choices in how to install your Chimney Balloon.
Option 1: If you plan on putting in the Chimney Balloon and leaving it (ie. not using this fireplace much) than I would suggest you get a 9×9 and put it above the damper with an HEK extender. This configuration will get your Chimney Balloon up and out of sight from the firebox area and it will give you a nice tight seal in the flue area.
Option 2: If you will use this gas log fireplace regularly and you are looking for the easiest place to install a Chimney Balloon to take it in and out. I would recommend you get a 36×15 Chimney Balloon and install it right in the firebox below the damper. When your damper is closed the handle will be up and out of the way and you have a nice trapezoidal spot there that is 9″ tall to put the Chimney Balloon in. The only downside is that you may be able to see the Chimney Balloon a little bit in the firebox. Also, you will want to be careful of the sharp edges on the damper handle bracket that I see in this picture that holds the damper up when it is closed. Those brackets can have a sharp edge on the tip of them so you may want to put a piece of tape over that spot so you can get maximum longevity out of your Chimney Balloon. Sharp spots like that can tend to wear out the Chimney Balloon early if you are installing and uninstalling regularly. – Jason
Afternote: This customer decided to purchase the 36×15 Chimney Balloon.

Gas Pilot Light and Chimney Balloon? Can you use both?

Gas Pilot Light and Chimney Balloon? Can you use both?

Q: Jason, Should I be concerned about using the Chimney Balloon to plug the flue if I have a gas fireplace and the pilot light is continuously on? The fireplace also has glass doors that seal about 90% of the fireplace. – CT

A: CT, A small pilot light will not burst the Chimney Balloon, but do keep in mind that when you seal your flue you are essentially eliminating the outside air source for your pilot light. So if the flame goes out the fuel smell will go into the house, and likewise all gases created by the pilot light burning are going into the home. It is our opinion that the gas source should be turned off along with the gas to the pilot so you have no backup of any kind into the home due to the energy saving tight seal of the Chimney Balloon. We realize this is an overly cautious statement to make, but our customers safety is foremost to us. – Jason