Holiday Decorating Around Your Fireplace
To have a safe holiday season you need to know how to balance your decorating aesthetic and fire safety rules.
*Please note: This guide is based off vent free fireplaces with a traditional mantel overhang which generates the most heat out from the face of the fireplace. Please use your judgment with your specific fireplace, especially with additions like a blower, heat transfer system, doors and screens, etc.*
Where Does the Heat Sit?
If you know where the heat goes on your fireplace, you can decide where you can place decorations without any issues of melting or combusting. On occasion, you can actually see the heat waves coming up from the face of the fireplace, hitting the mantel, and being deflected into the room slightly before moving back towards the wall. This heat will average 500-1500°F
For lack of a better term, heat is “sticky” and will follow any surface it hits. Vertically up a wall or pooling once it hits a horizontal surface or corner.
This heat collection can also be effected by things like how far open your damper is, how deep your mantel is and what it’s made from, if you have glass doors or metal mesh, etc.
Decorating Do Not’s
Stocking Placement – This fireplace appears to be wood burning so the damper is open, allowing some of the heat from the fire to escape but some is still going to hit the stockings on the mantel. Even with fireproof stockings, the goodies inside are sure to melt and cause issues. The flammable items in front of the open fire are also a hazard.
Decoration Placement – Weather this is wood or gas fueled fire, the candles on the hearth are bound to get soft and potentially start melting onto the hearth itself.
Stocking Placement – Like the first photo, the stockings hanging on the mantel in this photo are hanging in front of the unit and are a fire hazard. Being a gas fireplace, there’s less threat of heat transfer below the logset but having a cloth runner on the hearth isn’t a great idea either.
Wreath Placement – The mantel garland on this fireplace could be pushed back from the edge a little more but the majority of the overhanging pieces are to the sides of the unit. These may be okay if the unit isn’t used often but should be watched to make sure it doesn’t dry out or melt.
There’s also potentially an issue with the vent at the top of the chimney. If it’s an air intake for the rest of the house, this is okay. If this is a heat transfer kit that expels the hot air from the chimney cavity, it’s not wise to hang a wreath from it.
