A fireplace can provide enough heat to warm a small home or cottage and reduce heating bills. Here are a few practical tips for using your fireplace more effectively.

Your wood supply

Here, a cord of seasoned hardwood costs from $35 to $45. However, I’m proud to state that, in the six winters I’ve had a fireplace, I haven’t purchased one stick of firewood.

Friends and neighbors who have dead trees on their property keep my wood pile filled. Storm damage, especially in the spring, can crack limbs and bring down whole living trees. Start with a cord now if you’re out, but plan ahead. Look for road signs that read FREE FIRE WOOD U CUT. It’ll often be green stuff. Let it season, or dry out, for at least a full year. Split logs to allow moisture to escape faster.

What you burn

Wood from coniferous trees that contain sap, such as pine, fir, and spruce, should only be burned when seasoned. If they’re burned green, sap turns into creosote, a tar-like substance that coats the insides of chimneys, It can catch fire and burn indefinitely on its own. To prevent this, have your chimney cleaned before each heating season, and don’t burn any green pine tree branches.

Hard woods such as oak and ash burn hotter and longer than softer woods such as poplar. Green limbs smaller than an inch or so will still burn, but only on a hot hardwood fire. Use them like hamburger helper to stretch your supply of seasoned wood.

Save your kindling

Twigs and small branches can be had in abundance, but they also go fast. They’re the first kind of wood I run low on. When the ground is snow-covered, searching for twigs -- "twigging," I call it – can be a cold, wet task. Use only what you need to get a fire started. In a pinch, dry leaves can serve as kindling. Bag and save yours.

The air vent

Fireplaces with glass doors have an air vent that allows a fire to burn on outside air only, with the doors closed so warm air from inside can’t escape through the chimney. During routine fireplace cleaning, ash may accumulate in the vent. If you burn with the doors closed, clean the vent two or three times a month during the heating season. Make sure your glass fireplace doors are fitted with glass that can withstand high heat. Ordinary glass can quickly crack and spider-web if even a small portion of its surface gets too hot.