Proper ventilation is essential for any home. Whether it’s air being drawn in through your soffits, into the attic, and out through the roof vents or outlets for appliances like a dryer or fireplace, keeping fresh, clean air is important for the health of the home and the homeowners alike.

Unfortunately, though, ventilation comes with tradeoffs. Ventilation means holes in your home, and holes in your home mean any number of unwelcome guests could creep through. From small or medium-sized animals to crawling, flying, and stinging insects, the last thing homeowners want is for outside wildlife to get inside the house.

The solution to keeping wildlife out comes in the form of exclusion products. And while there are plenty of great brands on the market, at HY-C, we manufacture HY-GUARD EXCLUSION: a line-up of wildlife control products engineered to keep critters out of your home while still allowing that all-important air circulation to take place.

But what kinds of products are in the line? How do they work? And what are they made of? In this guide, we’ll answer those questions (and more) to help familiarize you with what wildlife control products are and what they do. By the time you’re done, you’ll know exactly what kind of pests to keep out and how you can stop them from getting into your home.

What Kind of Wildlife Control Products Does HY-GUARD EXCLUSION Make?

HY-GUARD EXCLUSION products have multiple purposes and keep out all kinds of critters, but each product falls into one of three distinct categories:

1. Exclusion caps
2. Exclusion screens
3. Exclusion guards

Exclusion Caps

Exclusion caps are made exclusively to sit atop chimneys. There are two varieties of exclusion caps: chimney caps, and chimney guards. Chimney caps feature both a solid, metal top that keeps snow and rain out of your fireplace and mesh sides that still allow smoke and gasses to vent out as logs burn.

Exclusion guards are basically the same, but instead of a solid, metal top, they feature a mesh top (and mesh sides). These guards are typically used in areas with low precipitation that require spark arresting, a process in which the tight mesh “catches” sparks to prevent them from floating away into dry vegetation, potentially causing wildfires.

Both chimney caps and chimney guards come with mesh patterns that are tight enough to keep out local animals (and, if the mesh is tight enough, bees and wasps). These caps are often bolted on, preventing animals from ripping them off and making a home in your chimney.

Exclusion Screens

Exclusion screens are pretty straightforward: they come as a flat “sheet” with a solid, metal frame and a diamond mesh body. These screens go anywhere on your home that have a sizable opening — typically on a soffit or over an opening in the house’s foundation.

Like exclusion caps, exclusion screens are bolted into place, so curious animals won’t be able to rip them off and get inside. Depending on the tightness of the mesh, these screens can keep out decently sized insects, too.

Exclusion Guards

Finally, HY-GUARD EXCLUSION’s lineup also features a few different exclusion guards. These guards exist to cover vents from products that need to put out some kind of exhaust — products like dryers, fireplaces, or wood burning furnaces or stoves.

Exclusion guards are also bolted onto the house. They may be made from either plastic or metal. While metal is obviously stronger, even plastic guards are capable of withstanding the prying claws of a critter. A tight-meshed guards can keep out small critters or large insects.

Where on Your House do HY-GUARD EXCLUSION Products Go?

HY-GUARD EXCLUSION products quite literally cover everything from a home’s roof to its foundation. Whether the opening in the home exists for ventilation purposes or to service the exhaust needs of an appliance, there’s a cap, screen, or guard to cover it.

Chimneys

Starting at the highest point on the home, exclusion caps and guards are bolted onto chimney flues to keep animals out. While there are technically no chimney caps or guards under the HY-GUARD EXCLUSION name, other HY-C brands (like Shelter and Draft King) make chimney products engineered for wildlife control.

Roof Vents

Staying near the top of the house, HY-GUARD EXCLUSION manufactures an entire line of roof vent guards. The vents themselves allow air to circulate through a home’s attic while the guard keeps birds or dexterous mammals from getting into the attic and building their nests.

These roof vent guards are designed with swooping angles to look architecturally pleasing. They also come with pre-cut holes to accommodate screws that go directly into the roof’s shingles so the vent guard stays securely in place.

Soffits

Plenty of critters (especially raccoons) love to make their homes in soffits. Many soffits come with a layer of hardware cloth built in, but most animals have no trouble ripping off this flimsy mesh and climbing through to set up camp. HY-GUARD EXCLUSION’s soffit vent covers are made from galvanized steel, which is significantly harder for animals to gnaw or claw through.

Dryer Vents

The majority of vents that appear on the side of the house are dryer vents, and animals can get into them quite easily. HY-GUARD EXCLUSION’s dryer vent covers come either with diamond mesh or code-compliant, vertical bars to keep local animals out of your dryer vent hose.

Foundations

It’s important for an attic to breathe, and it’s important for a basement to breathe, too. To prevent stale air from gathering at the base of a home, some houses come equipped with foundation vents to promote circulation.

These areas are very vulnerable to bugs and critters, and HY-GUARD EXCLUSION’s foundation vent guards keep these intrusions out while still allowing airflow into the basement.

What Kinds of Wildlife do HY-GUARD EXCLUSION Products Exclude?

HY-GUARD EXCLUSION’s caps, screens, and guards are designed to keep out a large range of animals and insects based on the biodiversity of your local environment. The vast majority of the products are made with stainless steel mesh, and the size of each product’s mesh helps to determine what kind of animals or insects it will exclude from your home.

⅝” Mesh

The widest HY-GUARD EXCLUSION mesh option, ⅝” mesh will keep out larger intrusive animals. Some of the most commonly excluded are:

• Raccoons
• Opossums
• Squirrels
• Skunks
• Beavers
• Birds

It should be noted that bats and mice are not on this list. While ⅝” diamond mesh should keep mice and bats out of your house in theory, in practice, animals are sometimes determined to squeeze through tight spaces. At the end of the day, it is theoretically possible for a bat or a mouse to get through ⅝” diamond mesh.

⅜” Mesh

The next-tightest mesh option, ⅜” mesh represents the threshold at which mice and bats can no longer get in (but insects still can). This mesh size is commonly designed to keep out:

• Mice
• Bats
• Raccoons
• Opossums
• Squirrels
• Skunks
• Beavers
• Birds

¼” Mesh

Finally, at just 0.25” in length, this mesh size is engineered to exclude all the critters listed above (and other similarly sized animals) plus medium to large-sized insects. Some of the most common insects kept out by ¼” mesh include:

• Bees
• Wasps
• Yellow jackets
• Stink bugs

Keep in mind that while ¼” mesh does keep out some bigger invasive insects, smaller ones (like ants) can still make their way through the cracks.

Are HY-GUARD EXCLUSION Products Right for You?

Before now, you may not have even known about some of the spaces on your home that were vulnerable to insects and animals. After reading this, you may feel compelled to take a peek at your dryer vent, or to glance up at your soffit to see if it has any vents.

Depending on what you find, you may decide you want some exclusion screens or guards. After all, wildlife control products are designed to be preventative, keeping a bat colony out of your attic or a stink bug infestation out of your basement before it can even begin.

If you decide you want to keep animals and insects out of your house with wildlife control products, your next step should be to contact a wildlife control professional — they’re qualified and licensed to install products like HY-GUARD EXCLUSION.

Keep the ventilation spots we mentioned in mind — spaces like chimney openings, roof vents, soffit openings, dryer vents, and foundation vents. Ask a professional which of these are present on your home, and ask them to find the appropriate screens and guards to cover up these vulnerabilities.

After the installation is complete, you’ll be left with peace of mind and a clean, well-ventilated home that’s set up to minimize pest invasion and maximize comfort.

The installation of a wood burning furnace is typically a pretty involved process. It can involve hiring a sheet metal fabricator, an HVAC professional, an electrician, and maybe even a mover to get the furnace to its desired location. And if you’re like most buyers, the thought of a self-installation won’t even cross your mind — many people simply defer to the professionals.

If you’re DIY-inclined, though, and you end up buying one of HY-C’s Fire Chief FC1000E furnaces, you’re in luck: we designed it to be about as self-install-friendly as a wood burning furnace can be. So if you’re interested in installing your FC1000E without professional help, you’re in the right place.

By the time you’re done with this guide, you’ll understand the 9 steps of the Fire Chief FC1000E’s installation process, and you’ll be ready to hook your new wood burning furnace up all on your own — no professional assistance required.

9 Steps of the Fire Chief FC1000E’s Installation Process

Step 1: Place the furnace as close to the chimney as possible

The first step sounds easy: put the furnace where it needs to go. It’s tougher than it sounds, though, as wood burning furnaces are heavy; the FC1000E weighs over 400 pounds, and most wood burning furnaces are installed in basements. Maneuvering the furnace into your house and into place is a delicate process, so do it carefully and thoughtfully (preferably with a dolly).

Installing the chimney flue is critical to ensuring efficient wood burning performance. Note that the connecting pipe from the furnace to the chimney may not have a horizontal run greater than five feet to function properly, so place your furnace accordingly.

It’s also crucial to abide by the FC1000E’s suggested clearance-to-combustibles ranges — the distances from which the furnace must be kept from any flammable materials (like drywall, wood, cardboard boxes, etc.). These distances are as follows:

• Front of the furnace: 48”
• Rear of the furnace: 12”
• Sides of the furnace: 6”

Before moving on to step 2, if you would like to set your furnace on a furnace stand, now’s the time to do it.

Step 2: Attach the distribution blower

The distribution blower is the big, motorized fan that pushes warm air created by the fire in the firebox throughout the rest of your home. Attaching the FC1000E’s distribution blower is fairly straightforward: the furnace comes with angle brackets, nuts, bolts, and mounting screws.

Just attach the angle brackets to either side of the distribution blower with the nuts and bolts, and then secure the distribution blower to the base of the furnace with the mounting screws.

Step 3: Assemble and attach the filter box

An air filter helps to protect the distribution blower and circulate clean air throughout your home. In order to add an air filter, you have to assemble the filter box. The box consists of four panels — a bottom panel, a top panel, and two side panels. Each panel comes with pre-drilled holes and sheet metal screws for easy assembly.

Put the filter box together and attach it to the furnace around the distribution blower. After you’re finished installing your furnace, slide an air filter into the filter box. Do note that the FC1000E does not come with an air filter.

Step 4: Install the draft blower

While the distribution blower is the fan that blows hot air from the furnace into the rest of the home, the draft blower is a smaller fan that blows air directly onto the fire to keep it burning longer and hotter. Installing the draft blower on an FC1000E furnace involves 3 steps.

1. Attach the draft blower

The first step is to use the included hardware to mount the draft blower itself onto the front of the furnace (near the ash pan door).

2. Mount the electrical control center

Next, attach the electrical control center to the filter box. Two important components will connect to the electrical control center: a wall thermostat (to help regulate how much heat your furnace puts out), and the distribution blower.

The wall thermostat must be connected with 28-gauge thermostat wire (more on that in a bit). The distribution blower, on the other hand, features “plug and play” electrical components that plug into the control center similarly to a wall outlet.

3. Attach the fan limit control

Finally, attach the fan limit control just to the left of the flue exit. The fan limit control is the mechanism that tells the distribution blower when to turn on and off. It does so by detecting the temperature in the plenum — the open area in the top of the furnace just beneath the two ductwork attachment points.

With these three components installed, the draft blower installation process is complete.

Step 5: Install a thermostat

Connecting your FC1000E furnace to a thermostat allows the distribution blower and draft blower to know when to turn on and off to deliver (or stop delivering) heat. We recommend installing a new, separate thermostat (included with your FC1000E furnace) next to your current household thermostat.

A lot of this step should already be done for you: if you have a gas or electric furnace in your home, it should be connected to your current thermostat. We recommend running 28-gauge thermostat wire along the same path as the wiring to your existing home thermostat.

From there, just mount your new, Fire-Chief-specific thermostat on the wall next to your existing thermostat, and connect the 28-gauge wire to the new thermostat and your furnace (the connecting points on the furnace are located on the electrical control center from step 4.2).

Step 6: Connect your furnace to a chimney

When connecting your furnace to a chimney, you have two options:

1. Connect the furnace to an already-existing chimney
2. Build a new chimney and connect your furnace to it

Connecting to an existing chimney is common in older houses that have (or previously had) a coal or wood burning stove. Whatever the case, if you’re connecting to an existing chimney, be sure to have it inspected to ensure it’s in proper working order. It’s also very important not to connect your Fire Chief furnace to a chimney that’s already servicing another appliance.

Each homeowner’s chimney connection process will be unique. But whether you’re installing a new chimney or connecting to an existing chimney, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• We encourage lining the chimney with a 6” stainless steel chimney liner (this may be required by law in some areas)
• The pipe connecting the furnace to the chimney should be a minimum of 24-gauge black stove pipe
• If you need to install any pipe horizontally, remember that there should be 2” of rise for every 12” of horizontal run

Finally, NEVER use galvanized pipe to connect your wood furnace to your chimney. Doing so will result in the generation of deadly, poisonous gas. Galvanized pipes should be used for air ducting only.

Step 7: Connect your furnace to your ductwork

Next, it’s time to connect your furnace to your HVAC system. Like the chimney connection, each ductwork connection project will be unique. It’s important to note, though, that the two starter collars at the top of the furnace are eight inches in diameter, which necessitates 8” ducts.

You should never use more than a 45-degree elbow when connecting ducts; this will cause the heat not to be distributed correctly. The distribution air should be connected to the ducts at an angle, and should be directed downstream to ensure proper airflow as well.

Step 8: Connect the cold air return

Your furnace’s main function is to distribute heat into your home. Perhaps equally important, though, is to allow air to flow through the filter and into the back of the furnace to keep it functioning properly.

To provide this return air, the simplest option is to promote proper circulation to the area which houses your furnace — usually a basement. There are three good ways to ensure proper air circulation:

1. Simply leaving the door to your basement open
2. Installing louvers in the basement door
3. Installing vent registers in the basement’s return air ducts

If you decide to install vent registers in the basement’s return air ducts, be sure to keep them closed in the summer to allow your air conditioning system to function properly.

If you still have your electric or gas furnace attached to your HVAC system, another option for supplying return air to your Fire Chief furnace is to connect it to the same, already-installed return air system of your existing furnace.

Should you decide to go this route, a word of caution: be sure your existing furnace does not pull your Fire Chief’s heated air into the return air ducts. To prevent this, simply install a damper to the distribution air duct of your existing furnace.

Step 9: Start your first fire

After the electrical components are installed, the chimney is connected, the distribution air ducts are set up, and you’ve ensured your Fire Chief is receiving adequate return air, the installation process is complete! All that’s left to do is plug the furnace into an electrical outlet and start your first fire.

A quick note — if you notice a moderate amount of smoke coming off of your furnace during your first few fires, don’t worry! This smoke is coming from the oils used during the manufacturing process in our factory. The issue should dissipate on its own relatively quickly.

What if You Have Trouble Installing Your Fire Chief FC1000E?

While this guide should give you everything you need to get your furnace installed properly, we know that every installation is unique. Should you run into any problems, reach out to our customer service team. We’ll be more than happy to help you with any issues you may experience during installation.

If you’re a pest control professional, you know that de-webbing — the removal of spider webs from a client’s home — is an important part of the job. You may not put much thought into your cobweb duster, though; in fact, it’s possible that you’ve been using the same company-assigned spider web removal brush for years at a time without even realizing that there are different options available.

One such option is SpinAway, a drill-powered extendable brush that HY-C manufactures. SpinAway is good for all kinds of cleaning jobs, and, as we’ve used it and tested it ourselves, we’ve been particularly impressed with its de-webbing capabilities.

But is it the right tool to add to your pest control toolkit?

In this article, we’ll compare SpinAway to the classic, tried-and-true cobweb duster. After you’re done reading, you’ll know the pros and cons of each kind of de-webbing tool, and you’ll be ready to decide whether you want to keep using your traditional brush or if you’re the right kind of person to give SpinAway a try.

SpinAway: 3 Cobweb Removal Pros

1. Automated Spinning Brush Head

When removing spider webs from a home, pest control professionals are taught to rotate their brush to sweep cobwebs away effectively and efficiently. With traditional brushes, this is a labor-intensive process. But SpinAway is designed to do the job for you.

SpinAway is made with a drill bit built into the end of its handle. All you have to do is attach the bit to a drill, extend the brush head to the appropriate length, and pull the drill’s trigger. The brush head will spin, utilizing centripetal force to sweep cobwebs from gutters, downspouts, and eaves — no arm or wrist twisting required.

2. Pain-Free De-Webbing

Pest control professionals know that as the day wears on, cobweb dusting can take its toll. Pushing and spinning that brush head back and forth across multiple houses for hours at a time is demanding on back and arm muscles.

SpinAway takes the torque out of your muscles and transfers it into the drill. All an operator has to do is hold the brush head in place and maintain proper posture. The rotation from the drill provides the cleaning force, giving your muscles a reprieve.

3. Faster Cobweb Removal

Cleaning spider webs from a house with a cobweb duster is a lot like mopping a floor: you have to push back and forth, ensuring you sweep up every web from every surface. De-webbing this way necessitates some overlap in the sections you’re scrubbing, which can add to the time it takes to get the job done.

With SpinAway, there’s no need for the “mop method” of de-webbing; just touch the brush head to the surface of the house, pull the drill’s trigger, and walk a straight line from one corner of the house to the next. The rotating head will catch the webs from all the cracks and crevices of the home with little to no need to go over the same surface twice.

SpinAway: 3 Cobweb Removal Cons

1. Requires a Cordless Drill

One of SpinAway’s biggest strengths as a de-webbing tool may also be its biggest weakness to some: to use it to its potential, you’ll need a battery-powered drill. This can mean additional upfront costs ($40 to $100 or more for a drill and $30 to $50 or more for batteries), and if the batteries die or the drill breaks, it goes back to being just like any old cobweb duster.

The saving grace here is that most pest control professionals already have a cordless drill for removing downspouts, drilling holes to add and bait, etc. Even if you do already carry a drill with you on the job, be sure to note that SpinAway is very demanding on the life of your batteries, and it may be necessary to purchase a few extras. Also, keeping all those batteries fully charged will be its own battle.

2. Shorter than Traditional Cobweb Dusters

Classic extendable de-webbing tools clock in at anywhere from 12 to 20 feet long — plenty long enough to remove cobwebs from the exterior of just about any home. SpinAway, on the other hand, extends only to 5 feet in length, falling well short of even average-length cobweb dusters.

If you’re a pest control professional who works mostly on single-story buildings, SpinAway’s length shouldn’t be a problem. In terms of total reach (i.e., the length of the tool itself plus the amount of distance an average user can reach), SpinAway is good for about 10 feet. If you’re de-webbing two-story houses or other taller structures, though, the extra length of a traditional cobweb duster may be better for you.

3. Price

SpinAway retails for about $60. Other comparable cobweb dusters typically cost somewhere from $30 to $45, and that’s without even factoring in the cost for a drill and batteries, which can easily add at least another $50.

Is SpinAway the Right Web Removal Tool for You?

Before now, you may not have given much thought to your cobweb duster. Now that you’re aware of SpinAway and its de-webbing capabilities, you may be wondering whether or not it’s the right tool for you.

If you’re looking to keep a low budget, you don’t already have a cordless drill, or you need to de-web two-story houses on a frequent basis, SpinAway may not be the right cobweb duster for you.

But if you have some money to spare, you already have a drill and some batteries, or especially if other de-webbing tools have been causing you pain in your back, hips, or arms, you may want to give SpinAway a try. It’s light, it’s quick, and its rotating brush head does a lot of the heavy lifting for you, keeping you fresh for the next job.

After years of use and abuse from roaring fires, your fireplace grate may be a little worse for wear, especially if it was a middle-of-the-road model. Maybe it’s time for a new one. But a fireplace grate is something you don’t (and shouldn’t have to!) buy very often. So the question is, “How much should I pay for a new grate?”

HY-C manufactures several styles of fireplace grates. Just one of our brands, Liberty Foundry Co., has a few distinct varieties available. In this guide, we’re going to break down the cost of each of our Liberty Foundry Co. fireplace grates. We’ll explain the factors that determine the cost of our grates and, even if you don’t think a Liberty Foundry Co. grate is the right choice for you, you’ll be able to use this pricing guide as a measuring stick against other popular brands on the market.

The Two Big Factors That Determine the Cost of a Fireplace Grate

There are a few things that determine the cost of a fireplace grate. With so many grates on the market — some of which may cost as little as $50 and others as much as $300 or more — it’s natural to wonder why there’s such a big price gap.

And while the factors that determine the cost of a fireplace grate are relatively complex, for the purpose of this guide, we’re going to focus on two of the biggest: grate material and grate size.

1. Grate Material

There are two common fireplace grate materials: cast iron and steel. Steel is the more expensive option of the two, as it’s stronger, has a higher melting point, and takes more time and energy to shape and mold.

As an example, our Sampson G500-20 cast iron grate measures 18” x 15” x 7.5” and costs around $100. Our similarly-sized Steel Bar Grates G200-18 is made of steel, measures a comparable 18” x 15” x 7.5”, and costs around $125.

2. Grate Size

The second major factor that affects the price of a fireplace grate is its size. It’s a pretty simple concept: bigger grates require more material to make, so they cost more than smaller grates made from the same material.

Our Franklin G Series consists of four cast iron grates, all with a similar, basket-style shape. The only difference between them is their dimensions. The Franklin G16 measures 15” x 9” by 5” and costs around $115, while the Franklin G27 measures 27” x 13” x 5.25” and costs upwards of $200. Bigger dimensions mean more material which means a higher cost.

Liberty Foundry Co. Fireplace Grates Pricing

Liberty Foundry Co. manufactures six lines of fireplace grates:

1. The Franklin G Series
2. The G800 Series
3. The G1000 Series
4. The G500 Sampson Series
5. The GT SAF-T-GRATE Series
6. The Steel Bar Grate Series

The price of each grate is determined (among other factors) by its size and the material from which it’s made. Please note that while the following price ranges are fairly accurate, prices may differ from retailer to retailer.

The Franklin G Series

These one-piece, flat-bottom, basket-style fireplace grates are made from cast iron and feature a pained black finish. The Franklin G Series is available in four sizes, and their price increases with size. The G17, G22, and G27 models are also available with a longer four-inch clearance height, which provides more room toward the bottom to accommodate log lighters.

The G800 Series

The G800 Series consists of three styles of grates: the G800-20, G800-24, and G800-27. All three basket-style grates are made of cast iron, and they come standard with a 4” leg clearance length. They feature a painted black finish and are available in three different sizes.

The G1000 Series

Made from heavy-duty cast iron, the G1000 Series consists of two curved, basket-style fireplace grates models. Both grates in the series come standard with a 2.5” leg clearance, but they’re also available with a 4” leg height to offer some more room to light the fire and scoop out ashes. The longer-legged models cost a bit more than the standard versions.

The G500 Sampson Series

The G500 Sampson Series is one of our most robust lines of fireplace grates. These cast iron grates feature a curved design, allowing logs to roll down the grate as they burn and for new, fresh logs to be added on top. They’re modular, too; if you need to elongate your grate, you can purchase an eight-inch-wide extension section and add it to any of the five models.

The GT SAF-T-GRATE Series

Our GT-SAF-T-GRATE Series puts the highest emphasis on safety of any of our grates. They’re very similar to the G500 Sampson series, only bulkier, ensuring embers stay on the grate and don’t fall out of your fireplace. All three models are made from cast iron and feature a self-feeding design to keep old logs rolling down and fresh logs coming in.

The Steel Bar Grate Series

As its name implies, our Steel Bar Grate Series is made of steel — the only line of Liberty Foundry Co. grates not to be made from cast iron. These bar-style grates feature an ember guard mesh, ensuring burning wood stays on the grate and in your fireplace. There are four sizes available in the series, each with a black, painted finish and 4.5” of leg clearance.

Should You Get a Liberty Foundry Co. Fireplace Grate?

That entirely depends. With prices from $100 to $250, our grates tend to be more expensive than other models on the market. One of the problems with those other models, though, is that as time goes on and you use your fireplace more and more, grates made from more budget-friendly materials tend to wear and warp. In some cases, the grate may even break into pieces.

While they’re certainly more of an investment up front, Liberty Foundry Co. grates feature durable metals perfect for those who use their fireplace often. If you only light two or three fires per year, a cheaper grate may be perfect for your circumstances.

The cost of a fireplace grate is probably a topic you rarely (if ever) think about. And when it comes time to buy a new one, you may be left feeling like you have no idea what you should pay.

Now that you have some decent insight into how much a high-quality grate will cost, shop around to see if you can find one with the features to fit your budget. And if you want to give a Liberty Foundry Co. grate a try, we’ll be happy to help you find a distributor.

Choosing the right wood burning furnace can seem like an overwhelming, logistically complex process. The purchase tends to involve dozens of variables and hundreds of questions, but the one we hear most often from our customers is, “How much will this cost?” After all, the cost of the furnace itself is half the battle; installing the furnace brings a whole slew of additional options (or hurdles) that affect its price.

At HY-C, our furnace-making operations take place in the same building as our office. From the price of raw materials to a furnace’s function and features, we know exactly what goes into building a wood burning furnace from the ground up. We do it every day.

This comprehensive guide will help you understand — from the price of the unit itself to its installation — how much a wood burning furnace may cost you. We’ll also outline the pertinent questions to ask your installer to help avoid cost-related surprises during a consultation.

How Materials Affect the Price of a Wood Burning Furnace

The price of a wood burning furnace essentially boils down to two distinct factors: the cost of the furnace itself, and the cost of the furnace’s installation. The cost of installation can vary widely, and we’ll touch on that in a bit. For starters, though, let’s talk about the attributes that determine the cost of the actual furnace.

At its core, a wood burning furnace is just a big steel box. The price of steel tends to be volatile; many factors — especially the COVID-19 pandemic — have caused wild fluctuations in the price of steel during the early 2020s. 

For example, at the beginning of 2016, a ton of rebar steel cost about $1,800. By October of 2021, the same amount of the same steel cost nearly $6,000. As you dive into the buying process, keep an eye on the price of steel, as its current rate could impact how much you pay for your furnace.

Some wood burning furnaces may use more steel in their construction than others. Furnaces with thicker steel fireboxes, solid cast iron doors and grates, and other high-quality components will demand higher prices. The upside of a higher price, though, is durability (especially if you operate and maintain the furnace according to the manufacturer’s recommendations).

How EPA Regulations Affect the Price of a Wood Burning Furnace

In 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency issued new performance standards for residential wood burning furnaces. In order to meet the new EPA requirements, furnaces became more complex than ever. The design of the furnaces, the location and size of their intake ports, the airflow throughout the furnaces, and the additional technology to control these (and other) factors can all potentially drive costs up.

Getting a wood burning furnace EPA-approved can add to their cost, too. On average, companies pay about $100,000 to get their wood burning furnace through the process from start to finish. This cost includes permits, fees, research and development, and any other odds and ends associated with the stringent review process.

Companies have no choice but to pass these costs onto consumers since, as of 2017, all new wood burning furnaces need to be EPA-approved. If a company sells 1,000 furnaces a year on average and spends $100,000 to get their furnace approved, they’ll have to add $100 onto the retail price of their furnace to recuperate some of that cost.

How Labor and Location Affect the Price of a Wood Burning Furnace

Once the raw materials are gathered, they need to be assembled into a finished, fully functional wood burning furnace for your home. Like any other product, the nuances of this process have an effect on the final price tag. Today, the United States, Canada, and China are the three most common manufacturers of EPA-certified wood burning furnaces.

Manufacturers in the United States and Canada utilize expensive, skilled labor to assemble their wood burning furnaces. The “Made in USA” sticker is a well-recognized stamp of quality; just be aware that it tends to come at a higher cost. Parts manufactured overseas tend to utilize less expensive labor and lower-quality materials to help keep their prices low. Bear in mind, too, that overseas cost savings may be offset by tariffs and additional freight costs.

After taking tariffs, transportation, steel, and labor into consideration, a furnace made in the USA or Canada costs (on average) about 30% more than a furnace made in China.

Two Additional Features that Impact the Price of a Wood Burning Furnace

A wood burning furnace may just seem like a big, self-contained steel fireplace, but there’s much more to them than that. They come with a variety of bells and whistles that affect how much they cost, how conveniently they operate, and how cleanly they burn. Here are two common features of wood burning furnaces that have an effect on their pricing.

1. Firebox Material and Capacity

The firebox is the portion of the furnace that houses the burning wood. The material from which the firebox is made determines how well-insulated and durable it is, and most fireboxes are made either from firebrick or high-temperature insulation wrapped in stainless steel.

Firebrick absorbs heat, while insulated stainless steel keeps the heat contained in the firebox, ready to be transferred to the hot-air plenum. Both materials are durable and long-lasting, but not without their issues; firebrick can chip and crumble, while stainless steel might become dented over time.

The capacity of the furnace’s firebox is an important consideration, too. Measured in cubic feet, firebox capacity indicates how much wood a furnace can hold. Bigger fireboxes take more material, resulting in a higher price.

2. Blower System

As the fire burns in the furnace’s firebox, warm air needs to be pushed out in order to heat the house or building. The furnace does this by way of a distribution blower, a high-powered fan that forces warm air from the hot-air plenum above the firebox into the air ducts (and, subsequently, into each room of the home). The power of a distribution blower is measured in cubic feet per minute (CFM). The higher the blower’s CFM, the more warm air it can push out of the furnace.

Bigger distribution blowers tend to entail higher price points. A blower with 1,800 CFM has about 40% higher capacity than an 1,100 CFM blower and, as a result, effectively costs about 40% more.

How Much Does It Cost to Install a Wood Burning Furnace?

After you find the right furnace with the right features that meet your needs and budget, the final step is to install it in your home. We do not recommend attempting to install a wood furnace yourself. Instead, you should hire a professional to install your furnace. With that in mind, the question naturally follows: “How much does it cost to install a wood burning furnace?

Coming up with a definitive price is difficult; every home is unique, every furnace is different, and every installation professional charges different rates. As a helpful starting point, there are some good questions to ask, as their answers will determine the cost of your furnace’s installation. Keep these questions (and their answers) handy for your consultation with your installer of choice (and, if you don’t know the answers, be sure to ask your installation professional):

• Are you replacing an existing furnace or installing a new one?
• Do you have an existing HVAC system that your new furnace will be supplementing?
• Will you need to install additional ductwork for return air?
• Do you have an existing chimney or flue?
• Where will your thermostat be installed, and what additional obstacles does its installation entail?

Remember, installation prices may vary from region to region, installer to installer, or furnace to furnace. That said, we can offer an estimated range based on years of experience with furnace installations:

• The lowest-cost, best-case scenario is that of a home with existing ductwork and an existing chimney or flue. Installing a furnace in this situation may cost as little as $300 to $500.
• Furnaces without an integrated plenum require custom sheet metal work. These installations may cost between $300 and $800.
• If your furnace installation requires new ductwork or a new chimney, you could pay as much as $3,000 to $8,000.

Is a Wood Burning Furnace Right for You?

The purchase and installation of a wood burning furnace is clearly not an easy process. From the materials, the size of the firebox, the capacity of the distribution blower and more, there are a lot of complicated variables to consider.

By now, though, you should have a clear idea of which features to look out for, what affects the price of a furnace, and how much its installation will cost. To get an idea of how two furnaces compare and contrast with each other, it’s good to compare two popular models, like the HY-C Fire Chief FC1000E furnace and US Stove’s HB1520 furnace.

And even if you don’t buy either of those furnaces, you’ll still come away with a good understanding of the process of shopping for a wood burning furnace. That will put you well on your way to finding a whole-home wood burning heating solution.

You’ve almost certainly cleaned your dryer’s lint trap. But have you ever cleaned the vent hose? It’s a harder task, but it’s vital to perform — lint buildup in a dryer vent can lead to a fire in your laundry room that can quickly spread out of control.

Many people hire a professional cleaner, but DIY dryer vent cleaning is becoming a popular alternative. We should know — we own LintEater, the first retail dryer vent cleaning kit designed specifically for homeowners. And though we were the first, we’re not the only ones on the market anymore; plenty of other impressive dryer vent cleaning kits have hit the shelves since LintEater. But, with so many options available, which kit is right for you?

Let’s take a look at three rotary dryer vent cleaning kits: LintEater, Lint Wizard, and — far and away the most popular manufacturer on the market — Holikme. We’ll compare them along five different attributes:

1. Rod length
2. Rod material
3. Rod attachment style
4. Accessories
5. Price

By the time you’re done, you’ll understand the ins and outs of what makes a rotary dryer vent cleaning kit work. You’ll also have a sense of the similarities and differences between three of the top kits on the market so you can find the right kit for your cleaning needs.

What Is a Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning Kit?

Residential dryers have a vent hose attached that runs from the back of the dryer to the exterior of the home. Think of the dryer vent hose as the “exhaust pipe” of a dryer. Clothes can’t dry unless the moisture has some place to escape through, and that place is the dryer vent hose.

Over time, clothing lint inevitably gets sucked into the dryer vent hose and accumulates. The lint trap is supposed to help prevent this buildup, but lint traps can’t catch everything. Lint buildup in a dryer vent hose is very dangerous. Dryers get hot, and if lint gets near the dryer’s heating elements, that’s a house fire waiting to happen. In fact, there are nearly 16,000 dryer-related fires per year in the United States that result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

A rotary dryer vent cleaning kit is designed to help you clean the lint out of your dryer’s vent hose. These function primarily by way of three components:

1. Extension rods
2. A brush head
3. A drill (not sold with the kits)

To operate the kit, just attach as many extension rods as necessary to your drill (enough to reach through the entire length of your vent hose), connect the brush head to the extension rods, insert the rods and brush into your dryer vent, and power on your drill. The rotating brush head will scrape lint out of the dryer vent as you push it in and out.

Comparing the Top 3 Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning Kits

So, it’s clear that you should clean your dryer vent. Hiring a professional is always a viable option, but it also tends to be more expensive than if you were to do it yourself. And if you want to do it yourself, you need a dryer vent cleaning kit.

But which kit should you buy? One of the three top dryer vent cleaning kits on the market — LintEater, Lint Wizard, and Holikme — is a good place to start.

Let’s compare and contrast these three kits, taking a look at the length of their connector rods, the material of those rods, the method by which the rods attach to each other, the accessories included in each kit, and, finally, the price of each kit.

Rod Length

In the world of rotary dryer vent cleaning kits, a good rule of thumb is, “The longer the rod length, the better.” Shorter rods mean more connection points, and more connection points make the column of rods less stable as they spin. Longer rods are gentler on dryer vents, easier to operate, and offer superior cleaning results.

The Lint Wizard and Holikme kits offer 24” rods, while LintEater is the only dryer vent cleaning kit that offers 36” rods. And while the “Longer is better” rule of thumb is true, shorter extension rods are viable options for cleaning short, straight dryer vent hoses. So be sure to choose a kit with rods appropriate to the length of your dryer vent hose.

Rod Material

There are two materials that dryer vent cleaning kit rods are made from: plastic or nylon. Nylon is very flexible, which is advantageous — dryer vent hoses tend to twist and bend at all angles to extend from the dryer to the dryer exhaust vent. Flexible nylon rods have no trouble bending to follow the path of the dryer vent hose.

Plastic rods, while somewhat flexible, are a bit more rigid, and can break off and become stuck deep in the vent hose as a result. This could damage the vent hose, and the process of retrieving a broken extension rod can be frustrating.

Holikme kits and Lint Wizard kits come with plastic extension rods, while LintEater kits feature nylon rods. Despite their versatility, nylon rods do come with a glaring downside: they’re more expensive than their plastic counterparts (sometimes twice as expensive as kits with comparable lengths).

Rod Attachment Style

Dryer vent cleaning rods attach to each other in one of two ways: they can screw into each other, or they feature a spring-loaded, button-style locking mechanism. The button-style attachment (pictured above) is much more secure. It ensures the rods stay solidly locked in place during the cleaning process.

The threaded, screw-style method, on the other hand, is a bit more limiting. Because of the way the screw rods are threaded, you can only set your drill to spin clockwise. Counter-clockwise cleaning may cause the rods to become unscrewed from each other, resulting in wobbly rotation or even causing the rods to become disconnected from each other entirely, getting stuck in the dryer vent.

Holikme dryer vent cleaning kits are made only with screw-style extension rods. The Lint Wizard kits use only button-style extension rods. LintEater uses a mix of button and screw-style rods — the original LintEater and the LintEater extension kit use screw-style connections, and the LintEater Pro uses button-based connections.

Accessories

Dryer vent cleaning kits can come with a slew of accessories, some of which you may want, and some of which may just pad the price of the kit. Aside from the extension rods and the brush head, common accessories include:

• A narrow lint brush attachment for cleaning lint traps
• A vacuum adapter to vacuum out your dryer vent
• A claw-like blockage removal attachment to help extract large clumps of lint
• A lint-catching bag to attach to your home’s exterior vent to collect extracted lint

Holikme makes 14 different dryer vent cleaning kits, some of which come with just the bare-bones essentials while others come loaded with additional accessories.

LintEater and Lint Wizard kits come with vacuum adapters, lint trap brushes, and blockage removal tools. If you’re looking for a single, all-encompassing option, LintEater and Lint Wizard have you covered. Holikme, on the other hand, offers a great balance of accessory-heavy kits and cost-effective choices with just the essentials.

Pricing

The four features above (rod length, rod material, rod attachment style, and accessories) are the factors that determine the price of a dryer vent cleaning kit. Kits can cost as little as $17 to as much as $45, and their prices vary between the big three manufacturers.

Holikme is both the most cost-effective and most expensive manufacturer of dryer vent cleaning kits. They make their kits in 15-feet, 25-feet, 30-feet, 40-feet, and 50-feet options. You can buy their rod-and-brush-only kits from $17 to $36 (depending on the length you need), or you can buy a 30-feet, 40-feet, or 50-feet kit with additional accessories for $30 to $44 (again, depending on length).

Lint Wizard’s options are a bit more straightforward: they sell a small duct cleaning kit for $15 and a large duct cleaning kit for $27. These kits are a great middle-of-the-road option from a price perspective, and they both come with the same number of accessories.

LintEater offers both the original LintEater and the LintEater pro for $33 and $41, respectively. Both kits come with identical accessories. We also offer a smaller, more streamlined LintEater Junior with just two, 18-inch extension rods for $19, and the LintEater Pro Jr. (with button-style connection points) for around $21.

Which Dryer Vent Cleaning Kit Is Best for You?

So much of the answer depends on how your dryer is situated, how long its vent hose is, and how often you use the dryer. Your conditions may require a high-end, heavy-duty kit, or you may just need a bare-bones kit with few to little accessories.

The good news is that by now, you should have a great idea of which kit you need and what kind of features it should come with. After you decide, you’ll be ready to keep your dryer vent hose clean, lint-free, and safe from catching fire.

You probably don’t think much about your fireplace grate. After all, it’s just a metal rack that holds burning firewood. But when the old grate that’s been in your house since you bought it begins to deteriorate, or when you decide to have a fireplace installed in your home, you suddenly realize two things: firstly, you need a new fireplace grate, and secondly, you (probably) have no idea how much they cost.

The short answer is that a typical fireplace grate costs anywhere from $100 to $250. But why the three-figure discrepancy? What determines the price, and how much should you actually spend?

In this guide, we’ll clear up all the confusion and lean on our decades of fireplace grate manufacturing experience to explain what drives the cost of a grate up or down so you can make an educated buying decision.

Top 3 Fireplace Grate Cost Factors

1. Materials

Materials are at the heart of the variables that determine the cost of a fireplace grate. Premium metals like stainless steel and cast iron provide exceptional durability, corrosion resistance, and longevity. Stainless steel in particular is strong and resistant to rust, while cast iron offers excellent heat retention.

Mild steel and coated steel fireplace grates, on the other hand, are budget-friendly alternatives to higher-quality metal grates. Just keep in mind that these materials may lack longevity; mild steel tends to be susceptible to rust, while burning firewood may eventually remove the coat on a coated steel grate over time.

2. Metal Thickness

Along with the metal itself, its thickness (or gauge) plays a role in determining the cost of a fireplace grate. Grates made from thicker metal are sturdy and durable. They also stand up against warping under heavy loads and burn-through — the process where, over time, burning wood actually splits the metal of the fireplace grate in half, effectively ruining it.

There’s no question that grates made from thinner metal offer a lower upfront price tag — a potentially attractive option depending on your budget. The downside of thin fireplace grates, though, is that they’re less durable. They may experience warping, bending, or burn-through. If that’s the case, it may be time to buy a new grate a little sooner than you’d expected.

3. Customization and Standardization

Some customers may prefer for their fireplace grate to have a unique design or an intricate pattern. Some fireplaces may have non-standard dimensions that require a customized fireplace grate. In either case, these custom grates usually require additional resources, design expertise, and production flexibility from the manufacturer, resulting in a higher price tag.

It’s much easier (and more cost-effective) for a manufacturer to produce standard-sized fireplace grates. With fewer and more consistent sizes to make, manufacturers can streamline the production process and reduce cost, passing the savings on to consumers.

Why Are Some Company’s Fireplace Grates More Expensive?

As you shop around, you may find that some company’s grates cost more than others. That may seem confusing at first, but there are three big reasons for the discrepancies: the quality of the grates, the manufacturer’s reputation in the industry, and the features the grate comes with.

Premium Quality

Like any other product in any other industry, some manufacturers put more effort into the quality of their fireplace grates than others, and they demand a higher price for their grates as a result. Utilizing top-notch materials, applying meticulous craftsmanship, and creating grates with exceptional performance standards drives up the cost of those grates. These manufacturers may also invest in innovation and research & development for their fireplace grates, passing those costs onto their customers.

Brand Reputation

Sometimes, you pay a little more for the name. Established companies with a strong industry reputation command higher prices for their fireplace grates. Their history of reliability, customer satisfaction, and proven quality come with higher buyer confidence — and a higher asking price.

Exclusive Features and Technology

Though they may seem humble and straightforward, there’s more to a fireplace grate than just a few pieces of metal. Some grates feature advanced airflow designs to keep flames from faltering. Some grates are designed with heat distribution systems, ensuring an efficient burn that pushes radiated heat where it’s supposed to go: into the home. Still other grates come equipped with unique safety mechanisms that prevent embers from spilling out of the firebox. These innovative features and technology are nice to have; just remember that they’ll drive up the price of the grate.

Why Are Some Company’s Fireplace Grates Less Expensive?

On the flip side of the cost coin, some companies do a stellar job producing more cost-effective fireplace grates. How do they pull it off? It boils down to three things: cost-effective manufacturing processes, simplicity in the design of their grates, and appealing to a more general market.

Cost-Efficient Manufacturing and Simplicity in Design

Some companies have their manufacturing processes down to a science. Optimizing production, minimizing overheads, and leveraging economies of scale allow for competitive pricing options and more savings for consumers.

There’s beauty in simplicity — and there’s also cost reductions. Producing fireplace grates with less complex designs that come in standard sizes results in a much more straightforward manufacturing process. You, as the homeowner, will pay less for these grates as a result.

Targeting a Mass Market

Not everyone needs a fancy fireplace grate with all the bells and whistles attached. In fact, most consumers will opt for a grate that prioritizes functionality over premium features. Manufacturers implement lower prices to target these budget-conscious consumers in order to attract a wider customer base — a win-win for the buyer and the seller.

How Much Should You Spend on Your Fireplace Grate?

If you didn’t think much about your fireplace grate before, do probably do now. The materials, the technology, the features, the quality — they’re what determine the cost of the grate, and they’re what you should look out for when you’re making your purchase. Make sure you go over your options with these ideas in mind to find one that fits your budget and your wood-burning needs.

Luckily, after you buy your grate, there’s not much left to do. A bit of simple assembly may be required, but from there, just set it in your fireplace, throw some logs in, and enjoy the crackling comfort. In the meantime, be sure your fireplace has the right chimney cap on top; it will go a long way toward keeping animals out of your chimney and fireplace gasses venting correctly.

Why are the two largest stove board manufacturers located just a few miles apart near St. Louis, Missouri? The story starts many years ago when there was only a single manufacturer of lightweight stove boards. After many ups and downs, that company went bankrupt.

Their top salesperson went to work for Imperial Manufacturing Group, and he built a huge stove board business through his established connections to retailers. But the original company’s equipment (heavy presses and molds & tooling) went up for auction, and HY-C bought that equipment. We subsequently launched what became the second-largest stove board operation in America.

Stove boards have always had a humble but critical role: they keep your house or cabin from burning down when loose embers fall out of your wood stove or fireplace. But despite how important they are, the casual observer may be a bit surprised by how much a stove board costs.

So we’re going to explain how steel and backing material determine the price of a stove board to give you a better sense of precisely what you’re getting for your hard-earned money. We’ll also outline the prices of one of our lines of stove boards to give you a sense of how much you can expect to spend.

How Steel Affects the Price of a Stove Board

It’s easy to question why a product made of such thin steel is so expensive. The answer goes all the way back to the steel mills which produce the basic, raw steel. Steel mills manufacture a range of steel sizes and shapes from thick, heavy sheets to very thin gauges of steel coils. Regardless of the result, steel mills charge for their steel by the pound.

A truckload of quarter-inch-thick steel has relatively few sheets, and those sheets are relatively easy to make. A truckload of high-grade, comparatively thin steel coils, on the other hand, is made with ten times as many square feet of steel as the quarter-inch-thick sheets. Here’s the factor that affects price: both truckloads weigh the same (i.e. their volume differs, but their mass does not). Manufacturers pay steel mills by weight rather than by square footage, so mills prefer to produce thicker grades of steel and avoid producing thinner grades.

Even still, our buyers have great relationships with the mills, and the mills are willing to create thinner grades of high-quality material at a much higher price per pound. The bottom line is that the steel that goes into a stove board “feels” more expensive than it should proportionally to other, heavier steel products that weigh more but cost less.

How Backing Material Affects the Price of a Stove Board

First and foremost, a stove board is a safety device for your home or cabin. And in order to earn the top industry-standard stove board safety rating, the key lies in the quality of the backing material of the stove board.

Both Imperial Manufacturing Group and HY-C use the same backing product: a mineral board produced by USG (formerly United States Gypsum Company) that will not burn under any conditions. The effectiveness of our stove boards is measured in terms of R-value.

R-value is the measurement of how well a material resists the flow of heat — the higher the rating, the more insulation the material provides. For reference, a four-inch-thick layer of brick has an R-value of 0.8. Our stove boards’ mineral backing material features an R-value of 1.56, reflecting its ability to protect surfaces from heat.

If you’ve ever tended to a fire in a fireplace, you know that as the wood burns, the fire can shift, and hot coals or embers may roll out onto a combustible floor or carpet. Our stove boards, made from a combination of steel and the mineral board backing material, shield carpet, flooring, and even walls both from loose embers and the sustained, intense heat coming off the bottom or back of a wood stove.

How Much Do HY-C’s Stove Boards Cost?

Two HY-C brands account for the bulk of our stove boards: Liberty Foundry Co. and Shelter. Before we dive into pricing, it’s important to note that stove boards fall into two categories: type 1 and type 2. Simply put, both types provide protection from embers, but type 2 stove boards provide additional heat protection (meaning that the floors or walls they cover won’t get nearly as hot as they would if they were covered with a type 1 stove board).

The Liberty Foundry Co. collection of EmberGuard stove boards all fall into the type 1 category, while Shelter stove boards may come in either type 1 or type 2. Our stove boards are all made from steel and the mineral backing material; the primary factor that determines price differences is the dimensions of the boards themselves. This table of type 2 Shelter stove boards should give you a general idea of how much you can expect to pay for a stove board based on its size (keep in mind that each board is 1 inch thick):

Stove board pricing varies from retailer to retailer (and from manufacturer to manufacturer), but this table should give you a general idea of what to expect. Each Shelter stove board comes in three distinct colors: black, wood grain, and gray slate. These colors are for aesthetic purposes only; they have no effect on the heat-resistant or fire-resistant performance of the board.

Which Stove Board Is Best for You?

If you have a wood furnace or stove, the risk of not having a stove board far outweighs the price of getting one. Even a small, loose ember that pops free can completely burn a house to the ground if it lands on a combustible surface.

Whether you utilize a lightweight stove board made by one of the big two stove board manufacturers or, alternatively, a heavy-duty tile/aggregate/cement stove board (which are highly expensive but also very attractive), by now you have all the information you need to choose the right one for you. All that’s left to do is find the perfect fireplace grate and your wood burning appliance will be set up for comfort, convenience, and safety.

Raccoons, squirrels, birds, bats — at some point or another, you may encounter any one of these critters in your chimney. Their presence can disturb your living space, cause costly damage to your chimney or fireplace, and at worst, curious or frightened wildlife may find its way into the rest of your home.

HY-C’s HY-Guard exclusion products have been protecting homes from nuisance wildlife for decades, and our chimney caps have been on top of flues for over 75 years. In the category of keeping animals out of chimneys, there’s nothing we haven’t seen.

In this guide, we’ll outline how a chimney works, which animals get into them, and how they manage to sneak in. We’ll also explain how a good chimney cap can go a long way towards keeping critters out of your chimney to help you keep your chimney — and your home — protected.

Parts of a Chimney

It’s important to visualize the components that make up your chimney so you can see both where critters get in and where they set up camp. A traditional fireplace is made up of several components, including the firebox, a damper, a smoke shelf, a smoke chamber, the masonry, and a flue. A standard chimney typically looks something like this:

The firebox is what you see when you look into a fireplace from inside your home. Lined with firebrick, it’s where you burn the wood in your fireplace. The damper is an adjustable steel or cast iron plate at the top of the firebox, and its job is to regulate airflow through the firebox, into the smoke chamber, and up through the chimney. Behind the damper sits the smoke shelf — a flat area at the base of the smoke chamber designed to prevent reverse airflow (i.e., backdrafts) into the firebox. The smoke shelf also helps to protect the firebox from water, debris, or wildlife that makes its way down the chimney.

Atop the smoke chamber, the flue is the exit from which smoke and hot gas escape the chimney. It’s supported by the masonry of the chimney and it extends upward through the building, through the roofline, and ends at some level above the shingles.

The flue is the most common entry point wildlife uses to get inside a chimney, either intentionally to create a nest or by accidentally falling in. Critters may also enter the actual chimney structure through flaws in the masonry, missing mortar joints, or other external damage. Smaller wildlife can get in through openings at the base of the chimney if the flashing is faulty. Decay and extensive weathering on older chimneys may offer still more points of entry for local fauna.

What Kind of Wildlife Gets into a Chimney?

Raccoons are infamous for using the chimney as a maternal den site; a female raccoon can easily climb up and down the inside of a flue. Normally, a mother raccoon births her babies (called “kits”) on the smoke shelf of a fireplace, so that should be the first place you check if you hear critters in your chimney.

Squirrels, bats, and birds can also get into the flue. Unlike raccoons, squirrels can’t climb back up the slick flue tile, and bats and birds have trouble navigating the narrow smoke chamber. Chimney swifts are a notable exception, though. These aptly named birds can fly vertically and have no issues making their home in a chimney. Swifts are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and require special permits for removal.

In some cases, small animals might be able to enter through the cracks and crevices in the masonry or flue tiles. These infestations — usually flying squirrels or bats — are sometimes hard to recognize, but typically easy to exclude with regular maintenance.

What Are the Signs of Wildlife in Your Chimney?

There are two sure signs of wildlife inside a chimney: noises and odors. Noises like scratching, clawing, or just general movement indicate that there may be an animal on top of the damper or the smoke shelf. If the damper was left open, the culprit will likely be staring you in the face from your firebox (or even running around your living room). Chirps or chittering are usually indicative of birds or raccoons.

Odor normally suggests raccoons as well, but most homeowners can pick up the scent of a long-term bird roost and the droppings that come with it. If the odor is particularly foul, the critter may not have survived its time in your chimney. In this case, your priority shifts from animal capture to carcass removal.

How to Inspect Your Chimney for Wildlife

Starting an inspection is easy enough; all you need is a flashlight to peek into the firebox to check for wildlife. Inspecting the smoke shelf is a little more difficult. Visual access to the shelf is difficult, so you’ll need both a light and a camera. From the roof, you can use a strong light source and look down the chimney flue for critters, or you can lower a camera down the flue and play the footage back later. It’s important to note that we do not recommend climbing onto your roof. Leave all roof-level inspections to a professional wildlife control operator.

As the flue is being inspected for wildlife and nesting material, be sure to inspect the chimney itself for any signs of damage, blockage, cracks, weathering, or creosote buildup. Repairing these problems will not only keep future wildlife from getting in, but will also ensure an efficient chimney that functions properly. To really keep wildlife out of your chimney, though, nothing beats a top-of-the-line chimney cap.

How a Chimney Cap Can Keep Wildlife out of Your Chimney

If you don’t have a chimney cap, getting one is an absolute necessity. First and foremost, they keep animals and debris from entering the chimney flue and creating blockages and fire hazards. They also prevent downdrafts and rainwater from getting into the chimney flue.

A chimney cap can also improve the chimney’s draft, helping it to vent smoke and gas more easily. Caps made from galvanized steel, stainless steel, or copper are popular choices because they are aesthetically pleasing, and because nuisance wildlife can’t gnaw through them or rip them off the flue.

It’s important to consider the mesh size of your chimney cap, too. ¾” mesh is common on most caps, but homes in some parts of Oregon and California require ⅝” mesh by law (to stop sparks from escaping and causing forest fires). Mesh size is a balancing act; the mesh needs to be small enough to prevent small animals from accessing the flue, but large enough to allow smoke and gas to escape to stop creosote from building up or ice from forming.

Keep Wildlife out of Your Chimney

The idea of an unwelcome animal making a home in your chimney is unsettling. By now, though, you understand how your chimney works, what kind of animals tend to get into it, how to check for those animals, and how to keep them from accessing your flue in the future.

The best thing to do now is to find the right chimney cap with the best functions and the right aesthetic for your home. Once it’s in place, you won’t have to worry about a family of raccoons living on your smoke shelf anymore.

In a world where natural gas home furnaces have become the norm, wood burning furnaces are a commonly overlooked option. They shouldn’t be, though, as they offer an environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and energy-independent way of heating your home (or supplementing your existing furnace).

If you’ve decided to declare your independence from your propane, heating oil, or gas company, the question remains: what is the right wood burning furnace for me?

In order to help answer that question, in this post we’re going to compare two highly regarded, tried-and-true furnaces: HY-C’s Fire Chief FC1000E and US Stove’s Hot Blast HB1520. We’ll consider each furnace’s heat dispersion capabilities, the build quality of each furnace, how easy each furnace is to install, and some important safety considerations to keep in mind. By the end of this guide, you should have a much stronger sense of what to look for in a wood burning furnace, and you’ll be ready to start considering pricing options.

Heat Dispersion Capabilities of Each Furnace

Above anything else, a furnace’s primary function is to deliver heat throughout your home. In wood burning furnaces, that heat is measured through British thermal units (BTUs) — the higher the BTUs, the more heat the furnace can provide. US Stove’s HB1520 is rated for 180,000 BTUs while Fire Chief’s FC1000E tops out at 143,5000 BTUs.

If you live in a frigid area that demands continuous performance from your furnace, the HB1520 might be the better choice for you. However, if the climate in which you live is a little more forgiving, the FC1000E is up to the task.

As wood burns in the furnace, the heat in the firebox needs to be pushed out into the home’s air ducts. Wood furnaces accomplish this by way of a distribution blower. The amount of air a distribution blower is able to push out is measured in cubic feet per minute (CFM). The HB1520 features two distribution blowers which put out 550 CFM each. The Fire Chief FC1000E has one distribution blower, and it’s capable of 1,800 CFM.

Wood Furnace Build Quality

The quality of your wood furnace is what will help determine its longevity. High build quality means less repairs and better overall, long-term performance. Wood burning furnaces are made primarily of steel, a strong, sturdy metal that holds up well long-term.

The Fire Chief FC1000E is made in the USA with domestically sourced steel. Its firebox (the part of the furnace where wood fuel is placed and burned) is designed both with steel and an additional layer of insulation, which means heat won’t escape and will be channeled through your ductwork to heat your home efficiently.

US Stove’s Hot Blast HB1520 is not manufactured in the USA, and it’s made with non-domestic steel. That means it comes with a cheaper price tag than the Fire Chief FC1000E, which might make it a better option for more budget-conscious shoppers.

Ease of Furnace Installation

Regarding the installation process itself, the Fire Chef furnace comes with both pre-wired, “plug and play” electrical components and two duct attachment points to help make self-installation simpler. The Hot Blast may require assistance from a metal fabricator to fashion the ductwork connection. US Stove recommends using a qualified electrician to install the Hot Blast’s electrical components.

It may not be top-of-mind for most customers when making their purchase, but the size of the furnace itself is also an important determining factor when installing it in your home. Maneuvering a furnace to its installation location often includes fitting it through the basement door and down the steps.

The Hot Blast HB1520 measures about 45” x 25” x 54” and weighs around 580 pounds while the Fire Chief FC1000E is a narrower 42” x 26” x 45” and weighs around 435 pounds.

Furnace Door and Clearance to Combustibles

One of the primary safety concerns of a wood furnace is its clearance to combustibles range, or how far combustible materials (like extra firewood or a wall) need to be kept from the furnace to avoid them catching fire. The Fire Chief FC1000E’s clearance to combustible range is six inches, while the Hot Blast HB1520’s is 18 inches.

So think about the area where you want to install your furnace. What’s there? Walls? A work bench? Other combustible materials that can’t be easily moved? If you have more open space, either furnace will work well for you. The Fire Chief FC1000E’s shorter clearance to combustible range makes it a more versatile choice in tighter spaces.

The HB1520 also comes with a glass pane on the front of its loading door. The glass is useful for seeing into the furnace in order to know when to add more wood. The Fire Chief FC1000E features a solid steel door (without a glass viewing pane) that can be locked into place when it’s closed.

Which Wood Burning Furnace is Best for Me?

There’s no simple answer to this question. Everyone’s home, heating needs, and available space are different. Even still, at this point you should have a better idea of the differences between the Fire Chief FC1000E and the Hot Blast HB1520 so you can decide on the best one for you — or even a different wood burning furnace altogether.