How should I shut down and protect a fireplace in a second home that sits vacant for months?
In Waynesville, plan for a harder shutdown than lower WNC gets: at nearly 2,650 feet you run 10 to 15 degrees colder with a heating season about three weeks longer, so a vacant house freezes deeper and stays cold later into spring. Seal and clean the fireplace thoroughly, and check whether yours is on propane before you close the tank up.
Elevation drives the close-up
Waynesville's altitude is the thing to design your shutdown around. A house left empty here sits cold and damp far longer than one down in the Asheville basin, and Hazelwood's older, drafty open fireplaces are the worst offenders — an open flue turns into a cold-air chimney that pulls the chill straight into the rooms. Block and seal the damper, drop in a chimney balloon, and cap the top so the long shoulder seasons don't fill an unused flue with weather and the birds and squirrels that nest in idle chimneys around here.
Mixed fuel and the Lake Junaluska cottages
Haywood County is mixed-fuel country, so before you leave, confirm whether your fireplace is on a natural-gas line or a propane tank. Propane means coordinating shutoff with your supplier and knowing the appliance is set for LP — the right orifices and pressures — so it restarts clean instead of sooting. A wood fireplace or stove, common in the Lake Junaluska cottages and older Frog Level homes, needs every bit of ash cleaned out first, since ash holds moisture and rusts grates and dampers in a cold, humid, closed-up house.
Open the house before the cold snap
We're 35 minutes west of Emma Road, and we'd rather check a Waynesville hearth in September than take the no-heat call in October. A pre-season inspection clears the vent, confirms the damper and cap, and checks the pilot and connections before you're depending on the fire — critical at an elevation where the heating season starts early and runs long. We pull any Haywood County permit if reopening turns up real work. Call (828) 545-0525.
Fireplace help in Waynesville
We install and service fireplaces throughout Waynesville and the rest of Haywood County — just 35 minutes west from our Asheville-area showroom.
Related questions
- Does a fireplace I never use still need to be inspected?
- Should I turn off the pilot light on my gas fireplace in the summer?
- How do I keep birds and animals from nesting in my fireplace vent or chimney?
- How do I keep dust and debris out of my fireplace during the months it is not used?
- Should I use a chimney balloon or flue plug to seal the chimney during the off-season?