Fire At The Bamboo Lagoon

As mentioned before, we had renters in the house for 5 years. Unfortunately, we have found out the hard way that not only did we not have good renters, we didn't have good property management either. So, I didn't feel comfortable using the fireplace until I had it professionally looked at. I finally had the chimney cleaned and inspected today and while I was out and about, I picked up a few Duralogs to burn.

Turns out that while we have glass doors on the fireplace, you really shouldn't keep them closed when burning a fire because they aren't made with fire tolerant glass. They give the impression of being "woodstove-like" but the chimney sweep said they could shatter from the heat if they were to be completely closed. There is a built in screen door though, that latches so that is kind of nice. They said the chimney looked good inside (no masonry though, just a metal pipe chimney), and was actually pretty clean. They vacuumed up all the ash. There are also cement blocks (not fire bricks) sitting in the bottom of the fireplace. They basically lift the grate up higher but they are not needed and could be removed if we wanted.

This fireplace doesn't have a blower on it, and the chimney itself actually butts out from the house which basically means the fireplace is for looks and produces very little heat for the house. Obviously, if we had no power, it is an option for keeping warm, but it is not an efficient option so I have no plans to burn wood in it regularly, but a nice little log once in a while is always fun.

There was a real wood log left in the fireplace by one of the renters so I put that on top of the Duralog and got a bit of cackle and good fire smell as well as a bit of a longer burn. It was nice and warm to sit in front of it too!