Should You Keep Fireplace Doors Open Or Closed While A Fire Is Burning?

One of the most important questions we answer all of the time is quite a simple question:

Should you keep your doors open or closed while a fire is burning in your fireplace? The answer is always OPEN. 

Why to keep your doors Open

  • Tempered glass that comes standard on most fireplace doors will shatter once it reaches temperatures of 450 degrees. When a fire is burning, your fireplace can reach temperatures up to 1200 degrees. Keep your doors open like this EZ Door Steel shown to the right.
  • If the doors are closed, you are losing all of the fireplace’s heat. Why would you want that anyway? If the doors are closed, 99% of the heat goes up and out of the chimney.
  • Many objects around your fireplace can be combustible, including wood around many prefab fireplaces. If your fireplace gets too hot because the heat can’t escape, you can damage the area around your fireplace.

The Source of the Problem

The reason so many people think doors should be closed is because of the abundance of photoshopped pictures online. For their product photos, manufacturers photoshop closed doors onto burning fireplace to make the overall picture look better. Unfortunately, this confuses a lot of people into thinking they should keep their doors closed. We door our best to use our own photographs, but sometimes still need to use manufacturers images. Always keep your fireplace doors open while a fire is burning.

 

 

Some Common Myths About Fireplace Doors

Myth 1: Keeping my fireplace doors closed will make my fire burn longer

This is simply not true. The better the airflow is, the better and longer your fire will burn. Closing the doors will stifle the fire, not keep it going

Myth 2: Glass Fireplace Doors are made to radiate heat throughout the room.

No. Heat is not meant to be radiated through tempered glass doors. If you are looking for your fireplace to radiate heat throughout the room more efficiently, look into a fireplace blower or direct vent fireplaces.

A Helpful Tip to Maximize Warmth

We have clearly stressed the importance of keeping your fireplace doors open while a fire is burning. But what about after the fire has been put out? We like to close our fireplace doors once the fire is put out.

This accomplish two things:

  1. It prevents any additional ash and soot from exiting your firebox keeping your house free of extra debris
  2. It keeps the warm air in your house and prevents it from escaping out of your chimney. You just burned a fire to heat your home… Don’t let that air escape!

Thanks for reading and remember to always keep your fireplace doors OPEN when a fire is burning!

If you are looking to purchase a new set of fireplace doors, check out our wide selection of Fireplace Doors For Majestic Fireplaces.