Sweep Your Own Chimney During National Fire Prevention Month

PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 07, 2008 – National Fire Prevention Month is this month, and Lee Cuesta has published an online how-to article aimed at preventing a danger that is both common and preventable:  chimney fires.  “October is also the month when a lot of people resume heating their homes – with either fireplaces or woodstoves,” Cuesta says.  “So this is the time when they need to sweep the chimney.”

“We responded to a flue fire last winter,” recalls a firefighter in Eugene, Oregon.  “The home was only about a year old, but the header beam in the fireplace was installed too low.  The intense heat from the chimney fire ignited this header beam, and so we had to tear the whole brick face off the wall in order to put it out.”

The intense heat in a chimney fire is fueled by the highly combustible mixture of soot and creosote, the by-product of burning wood or coal.  Soot and creosote accumulate rapidly inside the chimney of a unit used for home heating because more of the heat is forced into the room and not up the chimney.  The way to remove the creosote is to sweep the chimney.

“How to Sweep Your Own Chimney,” by Lee Cuesta, has just been published at eHow.com.  The link to access his article directly is: http://www.ehow.com/how_4534056_sweep-own-chimney.html.
It provides seven concise steps, plus tips and warnings, which enable the readers to sweep their own chimneys utilizing the “Line and Weight Method.”  

“It is hard to find the detailed ‘how-to’ articles that answer most questions,” says Cuesta.  “Most of the time the articles are much too simplified.  That’s why I write how-to’s in which I emphasize completeness.”

Cuesta continues:  “It’s also hard to find the good ones – like mine – because there’s a flood of similar ones that precede it.  How can anyone expect to wade through 500 potential articles just to find the good one?  So at eHow.com,  all they need to do is search for LeeCuesta (no space) in the Members section, and they’ll go directly to my articles.”

Lee Cuesta is also available as a fully bilingual speaker, English and Spanish.  From the depth of his personal experience ranging from Chiapas, Mexico, to Athens, Greece, he brings stories that engage the audience.  He is author of the intriguing novel, Once:Once, or 11:11, where he combines the skills of a storyteller and investigative reporter.  As a bilingual writer and journalist who worked in Mexico City, the author has been published extensively in periodicals such as Northwest, Eternity, World Pulse, Indian Life, Interlit, The Fresno Bee, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Christian Life, Prisma, El Faro and Apuntes Pastorales.  The articles receive international response from readers.  So significant are his articles, in fact, that they are often reprinted or adapted for other magazines.  For more information, go to his website:  http://www.leecuestalive.com/.