Your family-owned chimney company in Timber Springs

A fireplace is not a place to get rid of things. Whatever piles up after a move, a remodel or the holidays in Timber Springs, an Orange County community, most of it should stay out of the fire. Burn Wise, EPA's wood-burning guidance, lists materials that can release toxic or harmful chemicals when burned and may damage the appliance.

The list includes household trash, cardboard, plastics, foam and the colored ink on magazines, boxes and wrappers. It also names coated, painted and pressure-treated wood, ocean driftwood, plywood, particle board, any wood with glue on or in it, and wet, rotted, diseased or moldy wood. Offcuts from a remodel, old fence boards and packing material all fall somewhere on that list.

The same guidance says to start fires with newspaper, dry kindling or natural fire starters, never with gasoline, kerosene or charcoal starter, and to burn only dry, split, well-seasoned wood. Gas fireplaces are a different case entirely. Their manuals say to burn nothing in them but the gas they were built for, not paper and not wood.

Burning the wrong material leaves its mark on the chimney. Heavy smoke, sticky or tar-like deposits, a smell that lingers in the room and damage inside the firebox are all reasons to have the fireplace checked before the next fire. We inspect the firebox, damper and flue, clean out deposits where they have built up and tell you what your fireplace is built to burn.

Timber Springs homeowners get our local, family-owned team, a free inspection, upfront pricing, and 10% off whatever they book within 72 hours after that inspection.