First Cold Night Checklist
Eight things to check before you light the first fire of the season. Ten minutes, a flashlight, no ladder. If two or more are true, the fireplace needs a sweep before it needs a match.
- Open the damper. Stiff, or rusted shut, means water has been coming down from above all summer.
- Look up with a flashlight. Shiny black glaze on the flue tile is third-stage creosote. It doesn't brush off. It burns.
- Check the firebox floor. Leaf litter, nesting material or mortar chips fell from somewhere. That somewhere is the problem.
- Smell it. A campfire or musty smell in the room with no fire going means moisture and creosote, not "fireplace."
- Go outside and look at the top. No cap, or a cap with a bent screen, means rain and animals have had the flue since spring.
- Look at the crown. Cracks in the concrete cap hold water. Water freezes and splits it wider.
- Gas logs: pull the set. Clogged burner ports and logs set back wrong soot the glass and the ceiling above the mantel.
- Check the date. If nobody swept it since last season and you burned more than a few fires, it's due.
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