I swear by fatwood. You can buy it from LL Bean and other places.
Also, a completely clean fireplace is harder because there is no bed of ash to protect the embers. I also like to warm up the flue first by holding a burning twist of news paper in it. This will help draw air into the fireplace and up the chimney.
And an old rhyme as to firewood selection:
*Oak logs will warm you well
If they’re old and dry;
Larch logs of pinewoods smell
But the sparks will fly!
Beech logs for Christmas-time;
Yew logs heat well;
“Scotch” logs it were a crime
For anyone to sell.
Birch logs will burn too fast,
Chestnut scarce at all;
Hawthorn logs are good to last
If cut in the fall.
Holly logs will burn like wax -
You should burn them green -
Elm logs like smouldering flax,
No flame to be seen.
Pear logs and apple logs,
They will scent the room;
Cherry logs across the dogs
Smell like flowers in bloom.
But ash logs all smooth and grey,
Burn them green or old;
Buy up all that come your way -
They’re worth their weight in gold.*
I’ve seen some variants of this rhyme over the years, but the two constants are: Elm is useless, and ash is the tops.
Your fire may not be drawing properly (ie - poor airflow).
Start the fire. Cover the top half/two thirds of the open fire with newspaper or cardboard (cardboard won’t flex into the flames and catch alight). Air will draw into the base of the fire and it should get going pretty quickly. And I second the dry wood comments. Get another load of wood now, to dry out for next winter.
Oh, and check for drafts in the room. If you don’t have any, you may have issues getting the fire to burn well.
Si
Dried orange peel burns well. So just scatter some pieces among the kindling wood to get a better start to the fire.
Nah, boy scouts tend to smoulder rather than burst into flame.
Plus they get really annoyed
If you did wind up buying a cord of green wood, don’t give in to despair - if you leave it loosely stacked outside, it’ll be decently seasoned by next winter. Also, Les Stroud doesn’t try to burn big split hardwood logs - he basically burns kindling and softwoods (which burn easily, but you don’t want in your fireplace due to creosote) all night long.
I’ll second Xema’s method. That’s how I do it. Once you get 2 logs burning, put on the fire gloves and experiment by moving them closer together + further apart. You will find a sweet spot, where the logs are far enough apart to allow good airflow, but close enough together that each log cooks the other. remember this distance, and it will make fire starting much easier.
Building a fire is an art that takes practice.
If you absolutely need a firestarter, don’t waste money on fatwood or starter logs. Fill fiber egg cartons with dryer lint. Melt parafin in a double boiler, pour over egg carton. Let cool, break into 12 long-burning fire starters.
Is your flue open? It’s not going to draw much at all if it’s closed, and if it’s been unused for years, it probably is, to keep drafts out of the house when you’re not using the fireplace.
Stick your head in there (before you light it!) and look up. You should have a lever that you can move with your poker. Move it the other way. Now try.
And for starters, I like to stick a broken-up old piece of candle in a wad of newspaper. Sometimes I buy the cheap seasonal candles on clearance for fire-starting. Place a couple of well-seasoned pieces of kindling (I like last year’s interior split wood) over the newspaper, but don’t weigh it down too heavily. Once the kindling gets going, slowly add a piece or two of wood.
Don’t underestimate the importance of turning your big logs once they’ve been well lit from the tinder. I had a whole chord of oak that you could sit atop a moutain of kindling, but the only way to get a ‘bright’ fire with visible flames was to turn those logs over to expose the burning bottom side to air every so often.
-rainy
Here’s the poem I recall:
In terms of heat value, where I live ¶ the best common species are hickory, maple and oak. Ash is about 85 - 90% of these, but is particularly valued because it has a low moisture content when green (thus “ash wood wet and ash wood dry”) and because it makes beautiful coals.
Allright, I bought some parafin and have a collection of dryer lint. The trouble is we don’t eat many eggs so no egg cartons. I figured I could use paper cups instead. The trouble is I’m not clear from your directions where to pour the parafin. Do I pour it on top of the dryer lint so I make a dryer lint parafin block?
I’m all about cheating. I had a fireplace where I grew up, but we had the ultimate in cheater starters, a gas igniter that you turned off once the wood was burning. If I ever build a fireplace, thats the way I’m going for sure.
I bought a few of those starter bricks. They are fairly cheap so I’ve got something that works, but I would prefer to make my own starter bricks. They look like wood pulp in parafin. I’ve also figured out that I can put wood thats on deck to the side so that it heats to get dry.
Yes the flu is open, and I know how to check for and change the airflow before starting. As I said, I’ve had a fireplace before. I just never had to start a fire.
To find wood shavings to mix with paraffin for DIY fire starter bricks, find a local cabinet/furniture shop. They’ll give it to you by the bagful for free. Best would be just shavings from a surface planer or shaper, but most shops have a vaccuum system that mixes everything up. Try to avoid pure sawdust - it cakes.
I said it works slightly better for us, but the snarky comment isn’t mandatory.
Did you get it lit yet?
Actually. after leaving it alone for an hour my wife walked into the room to find that it was happily burning away. I’m going to try to make my own fire starters.
What we used to do in our house was deal with kindling etc for a long time. Eventually we decided to start using the duraflame logs. I’m not really sure if you’re supposed to use ONLY those in your fireplace, but it seems pretty pathetic. The way we always did it was, Place duraflame log on the bottom of the fireplace, then pile logs on top of the appropriate holders, then light the duraflame compressed log thing. It may take 20 minutes, but the firelog makes enough heat to work.
Is it 100% isopropanol? Typical “rubbing alchohol” is at least 20% water…not what you want in your fire after the alcohol burns off.
I’m sure there are a million and one starter tricks, but here’s a simple one: take two full sheets of newspaper, lay them flat, and roll them up in one direction so you’ve got a two foot long roll. Roll about as tight as is convenient; the result is about an inch thick and not too dense. Now bend that roll and tie it in a knot. This provides the right balance of density and lightable parts sticking out. Throw three or four of these under the grate and light em up.
Another one that I’ve seen used: get your fire set up and ready to light, and then just before you light it, roll another couple pieces of newspaper into a cone, light it in your hand, and hold it up inside the chimney while it burns (you can just throw it in the fireplace when it burns down). Then light the kindling. Supposedly this warms the air in the chimney so it gets a slight upward draft going, which encourages the smoke to go up instead of into the room.
If you can get hold of some old wooden pallets (some places will let you take away the broken ones for free), these make excellent kindling and the larger pieces such as corner blocks are great for building up the fire before you add a seasoned split log or two
[QUOTE=Christopher]
Allright, I bought some parafin and have a collection of dryer lint. The trouble is we don’t eat many eggs so no egg cartons. I figured I could use paper cups instead. The trouble is I’m not clear from your directions where to pour the parafin. Do I pour it on top of the dryer lint so I make a dryer lint parafin block?
QUOTE]
Yes. Paper cups should work fine. Just fill the cups up with lint, melt the parrafin, and pour it in the cup to soak the lint. When I made them, it was for camping, so I coated the back of the egg carton also to prevent water from soaking in. If stored/used indoors, I would not worry too much about complete coverage. I’d reccomend waxed cups for just a bit extra fuel.
That’s what I do. Typically I make a three-log pyramid, with the Duraflame log in the bottom front position. Light the Duraflame, and away it goes; add more logs as needed.
No artistry, and no bragging rights, but it works, and it’s easy.