Whether you actively use your fireplace during the colder seasons or you simply keep the appliance because you enjoy its aesthetics in your home, you may be ready to upgrade this important home feature. Here are ways you can upgrade your fireplace so the unit is both functional and attractive.

Remove Soot Stains

Soot stains build up around and behind your fireplace and chimney over time, giving your heating unit a dated, neglected appearance. Hire a chimney specialist to remove the soot stains from on and around your fireplace mantel and chimney to give your wood burner a beautiful — yet easy — upgrade.

When you host your own sparkling Independence Day gathering for loved ones and neighbors, you use and enjoy your new outdoor kitchen and fire pit the way you’ve always dreamed of doing. But as you plan the menu and decorations for your Fourth of July celebration, keep the safety of your guests in mind too. The following tips will help you plan for a safe and fun holiday.

Survey Your Party Grounds

You have an outdoor fireplace to enjoy when the weather is cool or you want to cook outside. You love your classic wood burner, but you wonder if a gas fireplace replacement is best for your outdoor entertainment needs.

For starters, wood burners give off an excessive amount of heat (depending on the type and quality of wood you burn), which makes it hard to control temperatures when a fire is lit. Secondly, wood burners leave a lot of soot and ash behind, which can make sitting around an outdoor fire undesirable.

The following are five reasons to consider upgrading your classic wood burner to a gas fireplace.

An outdoor built-in gas grill is a great addition to any residence. In the right location, it can be an entertainment center for family, friends, and guests.

An outdoor gas grill has many advantages for homeowners. It is easy to use and maintain, burns clean, and does not require an additional fuel source such as wood or charcoal.

To complete your built-in gas grill, you can get a grill with other components such as two countertops, a warming oven, auxiliary lighting, a rotisserie, and even a smoker. Here are the procedures to maintain a built-in outdoor gas grill.

Maintenance tasks and needed updates make owning a home seem difficult at times. From mowing the lawn and washing windows to repairing a leaky faucet, you can see how so many homeowners become overwhelmed.

Fortunately, certain updates can be physically, emotionally, and financially rewarding. The addition of an outdoor fireplace is one of these updates that homeowners should consider for their home, family, and finances.

Of course, everybody knows a fireplace will provide you with warmth on cool days or evenings, but there are other benefits to having one outdoors. With this guide and a professional’s help, you will understand a few real benefits of having an outdoor fireplace.

When you think of outdoor fireplaces and fire pits, you may think of the traditional style — heavy on stone and using wood for fuel. While those are certainly options for your outdoor entertainment area, new technology in fire features has allowed for a host of design possibilities. Below are different fireplace and fire pit designs that you can incorporate, depending on the style of your home.

1. Fireplace Wall

Also called a fire hearth, a fireplace wall is a useful structure. Designers incorporate seating into the design of the wall, usually on either side of the fire feature. You can even utilize a retaining wall to create a fire hearth. The wall could also curve around to provide more seating.

Many families realize how much daily time is spent on digital devices. This is why a lot of families have gone out of their way to spend some unplugged time together. This is purely family time, filled with various activities and with no phones, tablets, or computers allowed.

The atmosphere surrounding this family time can make a huge difference in the mood of everyone involved. One way to help increase the success of this family time is by introducing a key focal point into the room.

One of the more ideal options is a fireplace. A burning fireplace can provide a relaxing and ambient setting. The fireplace offers a great alternative to a screen and allows everyone to focus on each other rather than something else. When you make the fireplace the centerpiece, you can also choose relaxing family activities to associate with it.

Browse these various activities and see how an ambient fireplace can really make a difference.

Fire features can add functionality, beauty and resale value to your home’s outdoor living space. While most fire features intended for use outside can work for most backyards, choosing the ideal fire feature for your home may optimize the way that you, your family and your guests enjoy it.

In this blog, we compare three common outdoor fire feature options: fireplaces, fire pits and permanent grills.

When it comes to ensuring a cozy environment inside of your home, nothing blends ease and comfort quite as well as a gas fireplace. Compared to their wood burning kin, gas fireplaces are much easier to use, clean and maintain. However, just because these fireplaces are easy to use doesn’t mean that a gas fireplace won’t experience certain problems from time to time.

Unfortunately, many people fail to recognize the signs that something is going wrong with their gas fireplace. This can lead to more significant problems — problems that are both more expensive to have fixed and potentially more dangerous for you and your family.

If you would like to improve your gas fireplace troubleshooting skills, read on. This article will discuss three of the most frequently experienced problems.