Inspections, cleaning could help lower risk of fireplace fires
MINNEAPOLIS — Now that Christmas trees are coming down, the risk of another living room fire is going up.
Mary Cashman knows about that risk. She recently bought a home in south Minneapolis with her husband and one year old son.
"The house was built in 1948, and we bought the house in June of this last year," Cashman said.
As the season changed, she noticed the state of her fireplace needed to change, too. "We would like to have a fire, be in the living room, be cozy so now is the time to have it cleaned," she said.
That's why she called Nick's Chimney. Chandler Arredondo is on the team and said "You can burn your house down, and then you are left with trying to pick up the pieces of that situation."
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Cashman actually lost her childhood home in Elk River to a fireplace fire. This team is helping make sure that doesn't happen again by cleaning out a fine black powder called creosote.
Arredondo says it's not the ashes on the ground, "Creosote is the byproduct of the flame and that builds up on the walls of the smoke chamber and the flu, and that can cause chimney fires."
He says cleanings may only be needed every few years but inspections are needed yearly "just to make sure that it's safe to use."
In between professional cleanings, Arredondo recommends regularly cleaning out the ashes on the bottom and always using a metal bucket.
According to state data, there were 170 chimney fires in Minnesota last year.
