A wood stove or wood burning fireplace is a great heating source for your home, and they can be the perfect way to heat up your house on those cold winter days. However, it’s important to baby proof wood stoves before firing them up!
And here’s the thing…as parents we can’t (nor should we!) remove ALL the harmful substances and dangers that a child could experience. On the contrary, teaching children about fire is just what they need. However, we need to baby proof the house to protect children from serious and long term injury.
But many parents can feel overwhelmed with all the baby proofing that needs to get done, so here are five wood stove child protection tips to consider to make wood burning safer for little kids!
Install a Safety Gate
The most obvious safety concern is keeping children a safe distance from the hearth. And the most practical way to baby proof this area is with a fireplace baby gate. (Not a fort constructed from furniture and blankets!)
Get a wall-mounted safety gate...it won’t move as much when assaulted by toddlers who, with a free standing baby gate, can push hearth gates close enough so that they can touch the hot fireplace surfaces.
(Don’t ask me how I know that. It wasn’t a big deal, actually, just a few first-degree burns. And he never touched wood burning stoves again. I suppose that’s some old-school behavior management!)
Secure each end to a wall with screws (don’t worry, you can patch the walls later on when the kids are older!) and check that the fireplace gate extends far enough around the wood burning stove or fireplace doors so that curious children can’t reach through the bars and touch hot metal.
Fireplace Screens
I don’t recommend a simple fireplace screen. A fireplace screen simply covers the fireplace opening but they care not considered “child-proof.” Most screens sit close enough to the fireplace to get too hot and don’t reduce the risk of a burn.
Fireplace Doors
Similarly, fireplace doors just aren’t enough. While in the summer it will keep a toddler from playing in the ashes, in the winter, fireplace doors still get hot and hot glass burns! Add fireplace gates to the doors.
While a safety gate takes up a larger area, it does a pretty good job of maintaining a safe distance between little ones and third degree burns!
Hearth Pads
Heat is not the only danger, here, though. Hard and sharp brick and stone can do some damage to fragile heads. In the summer when the stove is not in use, for added protection, consider a Hearth Pad to soften blow of any hearth-side diggers. Using some double sided tape, secure the sucker (the hearth pad, not the toddler) to the bricks or stone.
Install Carbon Monoxide Detectors
A wood stove does produce carbon monoxide…but not any more than other heat sources like oil, kerosene, or propane.
Carbon Monoxide
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that can cause carbon monoxide poisoning. It is created when fuels such as wood, coal, natural gas, or kerosene are burned. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, and chest pain.
To avoid dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, check the stovepipe connecting your stove to the chimney for any loose joints that might leak smoke and carbon monoxide.
Also, check the pipe (and your chimney) for any soot or creosote build-up and clean your chimney if necessary!
Finally, get a Carbon Monoxide detector and install it in your home.
Smoke Alarms
And while we’re on the subject of alarms, let’s talk about smoke alarms! (Because many smoke detectors have built in carbon monoxide detectors as well).
The nitty-gritty of smoke detector installation is the subject of another post, but, for now, just be sure that you have working smoke alarms to protect you and your children from fire and smoke.
Control Emissions
Many people have the misconception that wood burning stoves are worse for asthma than gas, oil, or electric stoves. However, although there are differences in pollutant concentrations based on stove type, they all produce some pollutants, including particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
But, the facts remain, wood burning stoves DO produce PM’s, and they can contribute to kids’ health issues like asthma or allergies.
Tips
So, it’s important to take some steps to control them. Some of the ways you can control emissions from wood burning stoves include:
- Installing a stove fan to help move the air around and improve combustion.
- Keeping wood burning stoves clean and free of ash and debris.
- Using dry, well-seasoned wood.
- Adjusting the airflow on the stove to get the best combustion possible.
- Regularly cleaning the stove and chimney
- Closing the damper when the stove isn’t in use
Store Wood and Fireplace Tools Out of Reach of Little Hands
Hot iron and dusty emissions were obvious to me as a new parent, but falling firewood and toppling iron implements were not.
My kids were little monkeys who wanted to grab ahold of anything they could. “Oh, look, different toys!” they seemed to say!
We set up the baby gate around the hearth, but couldn’t fit the firewood rack inside it. So we set it outside thinking…”they won’t be interested in climbing on that.” Wrong! One of my children nearly dumped the whole thing over on his head when he was three.
So we ended up getting an old chest (with a lid!) that we set outside the baby gate and used it to hold the firewood.
Also, the fireplace tools got too hot if we set them inside the gate next to the stove, so we ended up ditching the little rack stand and just kept the poker and shovel on the hearth under the stove.
Different solutions will work for your space…but plan on a strategy for stashing wood and tools!
Manage the Dust
To baby proof a wood stove, only a handful of people consider dust.
No question, burning wood is a dirty business. The wood chips, sawdust, and stove ash all become residents in your home and become part of the air. (It becomes abudantly clear on a sunny day when you look up into the sunbeams and say to yourself, “Holy @#$%, look at all that dust!”
Most fireplace tool sets come with a broom to help clean up ashes form around the fireplace door or wood burning stove. However, the dust is so fine that brooms mostly just move it around.
To help keep those particulate matters off the floor out of little lungs, use a hand vacuum around the hearth to make it easy to frequently suck up the dust.
Or, if you are so inclined, put in a central vac port near your hearth to make it even more convenient!
Final Thoughts
A wood burning stove can create warmth and a beautiful ambiance to your home. But child proofing can test your cognitive abilities! Small children can get into so many things they we never anticipate. But most of these challenges have a simple solution. To best baby proof wood stoves, use a safety gate, pad the hearth, install a carbon monoxide detector, stash the fireplace tools and firewood, and manage the dust.
These simple steps will keep the little ones safe!