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Everything For The Home, Issue #001 -- Stop Heating Dollars From Going Up The Chimney January 13, 2009 |
| Hi, This is the introductory issue of Everything For The Home, the newsletter that keeps you in touch with the latest information about products for your home, courtesy of www.HomeStyleChoices.com. If you're new to this newsletter, welcome!
What's In This Newsletter Preventing Your Heating Dollars From Going Up The Chimney Product Focus - LED Lighting for Backsplash Drama What's New At HomeStyleChoices.com
Save Cash By Preventing Your Heating Dollars From Going Up The Chimney A lot of homes have traditional masonry fireplaces, the kind that burn wood and give you that warm cozy feeling on cold winter days. They're the same units that also pickpocket some of your hard earned cash by letting your home's heat escape up the chimney. My home was built with several of these 'wolves in sheep's clothing'. The worst culprit happened to be my basement fireplace. Being below ground level combined with the fact that cold air sinks made this fireplace particularly prone to cold drafts. Regardless of the glass door enclosure, the cold still found its way inside and our finished basement felt more like a meat locker than a family gathering space. That is until we invested in a gas fireplace insert. If you're not familiar with gas fireplace inserts, they're a self-contained gas fireplace that is "inserted" into an existing masonry fireplace opening. The unit is closed off to the inside of the house so there's no air exchange that occurs (read as: no room heat loss and no cold drafts). The fireplace gets its air for combustion from a fresh-air duct that's installed in the existing fireplace flue. It draws air in from the top of your chimney and gets rid of the exhaust up a separate duct (but through the same chimney flue). For fuel the fireplace uses natural gas that's plumbed directly to the unit. The result is no more cold air drafting from a leaky fireplace and much better efficiency since the gas fireplace insert continues to emanate warmth for a while, even after the fire is extinguished. And because the fireplace insert is closed off to the room, none of heat from my traditional gas furnace gets sucked up the chimney. Oh, and there's one additional plus for me: just a click of the remote turns the fire on and off. No more muss and fuss with hauling wood into the basement. In my home it's made what was once a no-man's land in the winter into a room frequented by our whole family, particularly the kids. And that's ok with Mom and Dad, particularly when a little respite from 3 boys is needed. If you still want to keep your existing wood-burning fireplace but want to minimize the loss of warm air up the chimney through a leaky damper, there's a solution for that too. It's called the Chimney Balloon. The Chimney Balloon (or chimney pillow as it's also called) is a small inflatable balloon that fits inside your chimney flue. You install it from the fireplace opening, inflate the balloon and it seals the chimney, preventing warm air from escaping and cold air from coming in. To remember that it's there before you light the next fire, the Chimney Balloon comes with a red reminder card that you can place inside your fireplace or any other good spot that'll serve as a reminder. Even if you do happen to light a fire with the balloon in place, the folks at Chimney Balloon state that it'll burn away, allowing the smoke and heat to properly vent up the chimney. So now you don't have any excuse to let your hard-earned furnace heat go up the chimney. Installing a gas fireplace insert or a Chimney Balloon will keep your home warmer and more snug. Product In-Focus: LED Lighting for Backsplash Drama Looking to add a little drama to your kitchen? How about a backlit kitchen backsplash? As an alternative to the more traditional tile or stainless steel backsplash, the eluma aluminum frame LED panels from Element Designs provide a dramatically different approach to the concept of the kitchen backsplash. According the manufacturer, Eluma is a "lighting solution" but in plain english, it's a glass panel, framed in brushed stainless steel or anodized aluminum, with integral LED lighting. ("LED" stands for "light emitting diode", a small electrical device that emanates light when an electric current is passed through it). The result is a pretty cool lighted panel that can be used as shelving in cabinets or as a backsplash panel. The panels are made in custom sizes with tempered glass. There are also several options for LED colors as well as different choices for glass insert options. These inserts include patterns like etched lines at specific intervals or even an etched logo. Soft under-cabinet lighting is pretty good at setting a mood but just picture what a softly lit backsplash panel could do for your kitchen. You can find out more about eluma panels and other products by Element Designs at their website.
What's New At HomeStyleChoices.com
December's activity at the website was actually characterized as an "update" time. You can find updated information about several types of countertops including new and updated offerings by the manufacturers. Updated and revised pages included: You can also read about staying warm for the holidays (I know, the holidays are over, but the info still applies) at the blog page.
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