-
Take pages of newspaper and crinkle in loose balls; be liberal with these paper balls at the bottom of the fireplace. do not squish them too flat. If you can collect some pinecones, these are great for starting, place 2-3 on top of the paper. place your small wood, kindling, in a criss cross type of pattern so that air can get through. Light the paper at the bottom in several places across the front to get flame going all over the fire box. Don't let the kindling burn down too far before you add larger logs. Sometimes the logs they sell at a store are too large to get the fire going, try splitting them so that they are smaller and then once your fire is going well you can add the larger logs.
That's all there is to it. Happy fire starting!
-
I just returned from the store with a new bundle-o-wood. THIS one has smaller pieces and I also bought a box of hardwood kindling. So we will see how it works tonight :)
-
Just to check the obvious - does the fireplace have a grate? Building the fire on a grate makes everything easier because the air flow is much better.
Make sure that you're using dry, seasoned wood. Dry wood is safer because it will deposit less creosote in the chimney. It will also catch fire more easily and smoke less. Manufactured logs are probably OK to keep in the living area, but make sure to store regular wood outside. If you can possibly avoid it, don't bring in more than you can burn in an hour, unless you want to share your apartment with little critters!
It takes some patience to get a good fire going to where you can throw on a log and leave it. I find that I need to have some nice glowing embers before I can walk away for more than 5 minutes and not have the whole thing go out. Sometimes this takes 10 minutes, but sometimes it takes an hour.
-
I finally got a real fire going tonight :) Thanks for the tips everyone, they helped. The smaller pieces of wood really helped AND I finally manage to burn the log that I've tried to burn two other times :o :D
-
Yay! So glad you were successful. Air and patience seem to be the two things that newbie firestarters forget (I'm a Girl Scout leader and every year my goal is to get the girls comfortable with and good at starting fires; I'm not sure their parents are really pleased about this!).
Another really good (and cheap) firestarter is to stuff dryer lint in the compartments of a cardboard egg carton then melt wax (candle stubs work well, but you can also use parafin bought for the purpose) and pour it over the top. Cut apart the individual compartments and one or two will get your fire going nicely--just light the cardboard and the lint/wax mixture will burn slowly.
Sarah
