How To Select The Right Fireplace Screens For Your Home
If you love a roaring fire, you know that the right accessories do more than beautify your home. They keep you safe and make manipulating wood and stoking the fire itself safer and easier. Fireplace screens serve several purposes in the home and come in a wide variety of traditional and contemporary styles that can suit anyone’s home perfectly.
A fireplace screen is made up of a metal frame that holds metal mesh or screening. You may notice that a screen is normally only used with wood burning fireplaces. Other types of fireplaces, such as pellet stoves or natural gas fireplaces use fire doors or other screening methods. They do not depend as heavily on a fireplace screen to keep embers and sparks in where they will not cause any damage.
Fireplace screens need to be stable and made of metal that is fairly thick and hard. You want to make sure that there is no chance that the screen will fall over if it is accidentally bumped or moved so that you can get at the fire inside the fireplace. You also want to make sure that a very hot fire will not melt or warp the frame of the screen since this can make it unusable. It should not be lined with a solid liner since this can keep necessary air flow from reaching the fire and allowing it to burn properly.
There are a range of different styles you can choose from. The first thing to decide is how many panels you want your screen to have. There are fireplace screens with one panel. These are often a simple piece of mesh held in a metal frame. There are also three panel screens. These have a broad central panel that spans the front of the fireplace, and two side panels which keep it propped up. Often, three panel fireplace screens are some of the most traditionally styled ones.
There are also screens which have four or more panels, but these are just three panel screens with a divided central screen. When you are shopping for a fireplace screen, you should be able to view the fire behind it since this is part of the fun and enjoyment you get from a fire.
You also need to make sure that you can access the fireplace easily with the screen that you have chosen. Keep in mind that they should be easily movable. You may want to pick a fireplace screen that has mesh that can be drawn aside. You may not want to have to move the screen in order to access the fireplace since the metal can get quite warm the longer it is near the heat of the fire.
Finding fireplace screens is not difficult. You can find them online or in many fireplace and home improvement stores. If you do go to purchase one, you should have an idea of the style you like and the size of your fireplace. Then, any skilled employee can give you good advice about which ones will suit you best.
Jeff Bridges has always enjoyed the warmth received in front of the fire he currently runs a website where he sells fireplace screens. There they promote many differently styles, colors, and designs of fireplace screens.