As a new homeowner, you find yourself overwhelmed with all of your newfound maintenance tasks and responsibilities. Some tasks are obvious and necessary, like roof maintenance and lawn care. However, some may be accidentally overlooked and/or neglected because they are easily ignored or just unpleasant to perform. Maintaining and caring for your chimney can be one such task that is inadvertently overlooked and forgotten. After all, you only really think about using your fireplace or chimney when the weather turns cold, and do not concern yourself with it for the rest of the year. This, unfortunately is a mistake. To understand why chimney maintenance and care is so important, you need to learn the effects chimney problems can have on your and your home. 

A Damaged Chimney Can Affect Your Energy Consumption

First and foremost, if your chimney is damaged or not sealed properly you could be wasting a great deal of energy in your home. In the winter, a damaged chimney could allow cold air to seep into your home, making your heating system work harder than necessary to keep your home at comfortable and acceptable temperature. 

In the summer, the opposite is true. A faulty chimney can allow radiant heat from outside to infiltrate your home, and can actually suck the cool air out of your home, making it uncomfortably warm inside. So, hire a chimney sweep like Early Times Home Solutions to inspect your chimney at least once a year to inspect your chimney for damage and missing sealant. If the problem is detected early, you can save yourself a great deal in extra energy costs. 

A Dirty Chimney Can Clog Up

When winter rolls around and you and your family are ready to curl up around a nice, warm fire in the fireplace, the last thing you want is a clogged fireplace. Soot and dirt can build up along the sides of your chimney. 

Once that buildup is thick enough, it can block up your chimney entirely. So, if this has occurred and you light a fire in your fireplace, you could find your home filled with black, dirty smoke. This is not only uncomfortable and dangerous for your health, but also will stain and damage your home and furniture. 

Wildlife Can Take Up Residence In Your Chimney

If you do not regularly inspect and clean your chimney, it could become host to a variety of wildlife, particularly birds and their nests. While this may seem like a harmless occurrence, the birds could actually get into your home through the chimney. This could wreak havoc on your home. Or, if you do not realize that the wildlife has taken up residence in your chimney, you may unwittingly kill the animals in the chimney by lighting a fire in the chimney. 

So make sure to clean and inspect your chimney regularly, and even more importantly in this scenario, close the flue whenever your chimney is not in use. This will help to keep it free of wildlife. 

As you can see, neglecting care and maintenance of your chimney could be damaging to your home and health in a variety of ways. So, make sure that you make chimney care a part of your regular home maintenance routine. 

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