Day 305 of our Green Year: Closing Dampers

Months ago, we went around the house and closed out the vents in rooms that are not being used so that we could save energy by not having to heat up rooms. Well, today we are closing something else. It is the damper on our fireplace.

When you are having a fire, naturally you want to have a damper because that sends the smoke up the chimney and out. Closing the damper at that point would fill our room with smoke and it would not be a great experience.

However, when there is no fire in the fireplace, closing the damper is a very good idea. The reason is that you can lose a lot of heat out the chimney when there is no fire going. If you have the furnace running, then you are just wasting heat by sending it up the chimney and outside. In many ways, you might as well leave the door open all day.

So, at our house, we will be closing the damper from now on when the fireplace is not in use