The addition of a wood burning stove in any room in your home adds not only warmth, but a centerpiece for family and friends to gather around. When you are looking for the highest quality wood stoves, turn to Napoleon. Napoleon wood stoves come in a variety of styles ranging from contemporary to traditional, allowing you to find the right stove to match with the existing décor in your home. Each wood stove is designed to act as a beautiful focal point in your home.

Why Choose Napoleon Wood Stoves for Your Home?

When you choose Napoleon wood stoves, you are choosing a wood stove manufacturer with over thirty years of experience producing wood stoves, fireplaces, inserts and more. All Napoleon products are built according to the highest industry standards. You can find Napoleon wood stoves and other hearth products from Copperfield Chimney Supply .

Traditional wood stoves are often made of cast iron or steel which provided the ability to not only heat the home on cold days, but also provided a flat cooking surface to prepare meals on without having to also use the cooking stove. Modern cast iron and steel Napoleon wood stoves are available which are specifically designed for both cooking and heating purposes. You can shop for Napoloen products online at Copperfield Chimney Supply which offers quality hearth products for the home.

Seniors over the age of 65 are three times more likely to be injured or lose their life in a home fire than younger people. Home fires are more likely to occur during the winter, when various heating methods are being used. Wood stoves create a pleasant atmosphere , heat the home well, and are commonly seen in senior’s homes, but they can present risks. If you have family, such as elderly parents, who are vulnerable and use a wood stove, there are some precautions you can take to help keep them safe and give yourself some peace of mind.

Regular maintenance and cleaning

Regularly maintaining and cleaning wood stoves can help to keep older relatives safe. Ideally, this should be done by a professional who can also inspect the flue for any problems, and make sure that everything is working as it should. Creosote can build up in the wood stove and chimney, and will need cleaning thoroughly . This should be done at the end of each winter, or whenever your loved ones are done using their wood stove for the year, and at least once during the winter while it’s being regularly used. You may need to arrange regular maintenance for seniors in case they forget or are unaware that it needs doing.

Prioritize safety

Safety should always come before anything else when warming the home. In some circumstances, the risks that a wood stove presents outweigh the benefits, and opting for alternative heating solutions can be a better option. For example, a senior with dementia may leave their wood stove unattended or play with it out of confusion, or they may have a physical illness, like arthritis, that makes it difficult for them to manage a wood stove. If they live with someone else who can take responsibility for the wood stove then it’s not as big of a problem, but for seniors living at home alone it’s important for their loved ones to assess the risks and how safely their wood stove can be used. Assistive technology can give you peace of mind if your loved one lives alone, as they can call for help easily if something goes wrong while they're using the stove.

Precautions family can take to protect seniors

There are plenty of things loved ones can do to reduce the risk of a fire or injuries from a wood stove. Placing it on a fire-resistant base will reduce the chance of hardwood or carpeted floors becoming hot and catching fire. Ensuring any wood used for burning is dry and well-seasoned, which usually takes about two years, helps to minimize the amount of creosote and tar that builds up in the wood stove and chimney, as well as reducing the amount of smoke produced. Logs should be kept away from the wood stove, as stacking them next to it can increase the chance of a fire. Seniors may benefit from having a fireguard in place to reduce the risk of them falling into the fire or the temptation to go near it. This can be particularly helpful if someone else in the home is responsible for the wood stove and there’s no need for seniors to touch it at all.

Seniors can safely use and enjoy their wood stove to warm their homes, but loved ones can take some precautions and follow basic safety tips to reduce any risks and give themselves peace of mind throughout the winter.

If you have a wood burning fireplace in your home and want to gain the heating benefit from the fireplace you can install a fireplace insert. Fireplace inserts are made of different metals, including cast iron and most feature a glass front to enjoy the ambiance from the fire. This sealed system acts as a combustion chamber to greatly increase the efficiency.

CSST Bonding by Tony Leggett

Most of us in the hearth industry work with appliances that need gas lines of sort run. Whether it is iron piping, copper, or corrugated stainless steel tubing, our sales are affected by the cost and simplicity of these gas runs. Corrugated stainless steel tubing (CSST), also known by many as the yellow flexible pipe, has been around for a while and has become very popular among mechanical contractors. It's simplicity and code compliance, with no concealed unions like copper, has made it a popular alternative to copper.

Many are unaware of the fact that there are some discrepancies in National Codes for this type of a gas run. In fact, CSST manufacturers already require that their gas lines be electrically bonded via 6-AWG bonding wire to the building's electrical bond. National Fuel Gas Code and the International Fuel Gas Code also require bonding in the same manner. However, the National Electrical Code allows the use of the equipment bonding conductor on the gas appliance (the third ground wire from a gas-fired appliance) to serve as the bonding wire. At this point, compliance has been relegated to the inspector's opinion, thus leaving many mechanical contractors without a black and white answer on how to bond these runs.

The purpose of bonding these lines is not unfounded. According to UL, there is over $1 billion dollars in structural damage due to lightening strikes in the US annually. Lightning strikes the United States about 25 million times per year with each strike able to carry over 100 million volts. Although there really is no way to completely safeguard a structure from a direct hit, CSST is vulnerable to damage from even a nearby strike. Since most CSST's yellow PVC coating does not insulate well enough to prevent an electrical arc to a nearby combustible and a subsequent hole in the gas line from the arc, the bonding is an attempt to neutralize the problem.

Fortunately, to proactively eliminate the need for the 6-AWG bonding wire and labor cost, some CSST manufacturers have developed a conductive jacket that eliminates the manufacturer's requirement for a bonding wire and labor. Due to the above mentioned variances, it is imperative to ask your local building officials how they enforce the codes on CSST. Since it has become such a major part of our hearth sales, we must also be aware of any impending gas run price hikes, so we can respond proactively.