Are your fireplace doors are builder grade, or came with your prefabricated fireplace? If so, they likely provide you with little benefit beyond blocking some chill from the chimney. Lower grade models of fireplace doors are made from cheap glass and it breaks easily. They have to be left open when the fireplace is in use to avoid shattering.
However, your fireplace doors don’t have to be a relatively useless accessory. When you upgrade your fireplace doors to tempered or ceramic glass doors, you suddenly have a beautiful, useful hearth accessory. One that can increase the heating power of your fireplace, lower your home utility bills, and help keep your fireplace safer. With heavy duty fireplace doors, you can decide whether to burn your fire with the doors opened or closed.
Get more heat from your fireplace.
It’s no secret that an open-hearth fireplace isn’t an effective home-heating appliance. It’s estimated that between 80 and 90 percent of the heat generated by a fire in an open-hearth fireplace goes right up the chimney. Tempered or ceramic glass doors can help to change that. When you burn a fire with the fireplace doors closed, the glass absorbs the heat of the fire. Additionally, it radiates out to the rest of your living space, dispersing the heat much more efficiently. In fact, it’s estimated that glass doors can as much as triple the amount of heat being returned to your home from your fireplace!
Lower your heating and cooling bills.
Another major problem posed by open-hearth fireplaces? Heat loss during winter months. When the fireplace isn’t in use, the chimney can be like having a window open to the outside. The warm air is flowing freely up and out of your home. While inexpensive, flimsy glass doors do little to stop this. However, a set of heavier, upgraded glass doors can help keep the heat in your home on chilly winter days.
Make your fireplace safer.
Open, roaring flames are beautiful. Consequently, wood fires can crack, spark and shift. Downdrafts can send a sudden burst of air down the chimney and through the fireplace. All of those things can send burning embers, or even larger bits of burning logs, back into your home. There, they can burn people sitting near the fireplace, singe furniture or flooring, or even spark a fire! Glass fireplace doors keep the fire safely in the fireplace.
Beautify your fireplace.
Outdated, cracked, or soot-stained glass doors can degrade the look of your fireplace. Â By upgrading your glass doors, you can give new life to your hearth and restore your fireplace to a beautiful focal point.
Are ready to upgrade the efficiency, safety, and look of your fireplace with a new set of fireplace doors? Stop by one of the three FireSide Hearth & Home showrooms. We have an array of beautiful glass doors on display, and we can help you choose glass doors to fit your fireplace!
