What are Fireplace Doors and what do they do?

A fireplace door is a common part of an open fire in the USA. They perform several very useful functions. 1. By controlling the amount of air being sucked up the chimney, it helps cut down the loss of heat. Open fireplaces can lose over 80% or four fifths of the heat up the chimney to warm the crows!!! A fireplace door can reduce this heat loss substantially. It will reduce the directly radiated heat by a relatively small amount. But if the fire has a back boiler, the addition of the fire-front doors will substantially increase the heat going into the boiler and thus to the radiators. 2. By controlling the amount of air and oxygen, the fire will burn in a more controlled and efficient way and the fuel burns for longer. 3. Fire-front doors make an open fire much safer in almost every respect. The danger of falling coals or sparks is totally eliminated, and the danger of a child or elderly person falling into the fire is equally eliminated. 4. The doors will also reduce smoke and dirt ...  more