How often should a wood stove be professionally serviced?
Fairview is as wood-heat as our map gets, so the honest answer is more than once a year for most homes here. On these large wooded lots, creosote buildup is the leading cause of chimney fires when nobody sweeps in fall — a stove that heats the house all winter can need a mid-season sweep on top of the annual one. Book the main service late summer.
Creosote is how the fires start
Out on Fairview's wooded Cane Creek and Garren Creek properties, wood is the natural heat and stoves run hard — which is exactly the setup where creosote becomes dangerous. Every burn leaves a little tar in the flue; skip the fall sweep and a season's worth glazes the chimney into fuel waiting for a stray spark. A stove that's your main heat can lay down a sweepable layer by midwinter, so we tell full-time burners to plan on two visits — the thorough late-summer service and a mid-season flue check — rather than gambling the yearly date will hold.
Wet wood and long fires make it worse
Two Fairview habits speed the buildup: burning wood that hasn't fully seasoned, and damping the stove down for long overnight burns. Both make the fire smolder, and a smoldering fire creosotes fastest. Our service tackles the stove side of that too — a door gasket that seals for a hot, clean burn, sound firebrick and baffle, and any catalytic combustor kept in tune — so more of your wood becomes heat and less becomes flue tar. If you're heating on a full cord a week, tell us; that's a two-sweep winter. Call (828) 545-0525.
Fifteen minutes east, all winter
Fairview is a quick 15 minutes east of our Asheville showroom, so a mid-season sweep on a hard-working stove is no ordeal. And if an old stove or a propane-country cabin's firebox is finally spent, we permit and install the replacement through Buncombe County ourselves.
Fireplace help in Fairview
We install and service fireplaces throughout Fairview and the rest of Buncombe County — just 15 minutes east from our Asheville-area showroom.
Related questions
- How often should a wood stove chimney be swept?
- What routine maintenance does a wood-burning fireplace need each year?
- When should the firebrick in a wood stove be replaced?
- How do I know when wood stove door gaskets need replacing?
- How do I clean and maintain a catalytic combustor, and when does it need replacement?