Buying Hearth Tools to Fit Your Hearth, Your Home, and You

A set of tools for your hearth that's worth your money should consist of five parts: four tools and the stand. The poker is used to adjust burning wood and debris, as well as comb over ashes. The spade or shovel is used to transport leftover debris and ash out of the hearth. Tongs are for lifting burning wood when the poker would be inappropriate. Finally, there's the broom, which helps sweep undesirable elements into the spade in turn. As you can see, each tool has its place and use, and so you shouldn't go without any of them if you really intend on using your fireplace for fires.

Don't be fooled by the many different-looking types of sets available. Most of them perform the exact same functions. The main difference in pricing is caused by either material (brass versus iron, for instance) or by artistic craftsmanship. As a general rule, a cheaper set should function just as well as an expensive set of tools, and may even last longer due to fewer fragile elements.

Pokers equipped with additional spikes are more useful than simple straight spikeless pokers. This is because the spikes can be used for multiple functions, while the spikeless poker can really only push objects in terms of convenient and ergonomic use. Besides the ever-useful spikes, you may also want a particularly long poker for larger hearths, or a handle with insulating elements if you're worried about heat being transferred through the tool.

Smaller brooms aren't necessarily less useful than larger ones. The shorter bristles tend to be more hardy, which allows the broom to handle the additional weight of ashes and chunks of wood. Because of this, many smaller brooms aren't only as good as larger ones, for their intended purpose they're actually better. In general, you should try to avoid overly large brooms unless you really have the size of fireplace to make use of it.

The stand for your hearth tools is just as important as the tools themselves. It should hold the tools firmly but also allow easy access to them. Besides that it should also be completely stable, and this is where many models fail to meet consumer needs. While a little wobble may not seem like much before you purchase a tool set, once you've been living with that wobble for a while you'll probably find it gets on your nerves.

**Fireplace tools* are most frequently offered in relatively cheap iron models as well as more expensive brass models. Brass holds no serious practical advantages over iron, but looks so vibrantly different that many consumers choose to pay more for the look alone. But remember that that look comes at the price of cleaning the set frequently enough to keep it in pristine condition. Otherwise, you may as well go with iron, and enjoy something that doesn't require much cleaning due to being naturally dark already.

The same companies that produce tools for your fireplace also usually produce **firewood rack** products too. These may come in indoors and outdoors varieties. Models meant for inside use may even match tool sets by the same manufacturer, which is a nice aesthetic touch. However, many people will choose to eschew this part of the hearth setup, preferring to keep their wood in a simple stack on the ground outdoors, or using processed wood logs that come in neat and tidy packaging.

It's possible in most places to find a set of tools for less than a hundred dollars. However, you should beware of any sets below fifty, as sets so cheap are likely to have had shortcuts taken in their manufacture. More beautiful, expensive, and moderately impractical tool sets are also available for those who can afford them, with prices ranging up to hundreds of dollars.