National Fire Prevention Month Is Time To Sweep Your Own Chimney

Oct. 12, 2009 - PRLog -- “How to Sweep Your Own Chimney” is Lee Cuesta’s most-viewed article on e-How.com, and it has helped hundreds of families reduce the fire risk in their homes.  Some of the comments from readers include: “Great article on this daunting task! Great tips and warnings also!“  Because October is National Fire Prevention Month, Cuesta encourages homeowners to preclude 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.”

“How to Sweep Your Own Chimney,” by Lee Cuesta, is available 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.”  Cuesta grants permission to reprint or adapt this article, as long as the author’s name and original source are acknowledged.

“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.

“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.”  

Cuesta currently has 4,536 article views at eHow.com.   The direct link to access all of Cuesta’s articles at eHow.com is this:
http://www.ehow.com/members/LeeCuesta-articles.html.  ”By far, ‘How to Sweep Your Own Chimney’ is my most popular article,” Cuesta admits.  The webpage containing his article also includes other resources to help homeowners accomplish this task.

In addition, Lee Cuesta is available as a fully bilingual, freelance writer – English or Spanish – to write pamphlets, web content, brochures, fund-raising letters, press releases, full-length articles, and speeches for you or your business.  Cuesta has written regularly for InSite and World Pulse.

From the depth of his personal experience ranging from Chiapas, Mexico, to Athens, Greece, he brings stories that engage the readers.  He is author of the intriguing novel, Once:Once, or 11:11, where he combines the skills of a storyteller and investigative reporter.  This novel has been called ”a thrilling novel of the complexities in Mexico … Like a story lifted off the page of today’s newspaper.”

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, Christian Life, Prisma, El Faro and Apuntes Pastorales.  His articles have received international response from readers.  So significant are his articles, in fact, that they are often reprinted or adapted for other magazines.  More information is available at his website:  http://leecuesta.com/  as well as http://www.leecuestalive.com/.

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Lee Cuesta provides "Excellent X Elegant" service in three areas: fine freelance writing including pamphlets, web content, brochures, fund-raising letters, press releases, full-length articles, and speeches for you or your business; superior Spanish-English translating; and professional speaking. Visit http://leecuesta.com.