Fire Starting Challenged

[tulip]

1. Make sure it's sufficiently cold outside. A chimney won't draw on a warm day.

2. crack a window near the fireplace to start the fire. This will correct the negative pressure and help the chimney draw.

3. build your pyramid with newspaper, kindling, and logs as described elsewhere in this thread.

4. twist some newspaper and light it and wave it around as far up in the chimney as you can reach. This will warm the chimney and start the draw.

5. light your fire; make sure the window nearby is cracked. You can close the window if you want after the fire is going.

Make sure your wood is properly seasoned and dry.

I'm heating with my wood/coal stove for the second winter, and so far it's fabulous. I was originally going to use it for backup heat, but I like it so much that I use it anytime it's in the 30s or below. Up to know, that has meant only at night for a few weeks, but this week it's high in the 30s every day. Wood stoves are much more efficient than open fireplaces, but fireplaces are so nice to watch.

[Becky]

Wood stoves are much more efficient than open fireplaces, but fireplaces are so nice to watch.

Our wood-burning fireplace insert is the best of both worlds. Super efficient and easy to burn in, but with the beauty of an open fire.

We'll be able to heat the entire first floor and a good chunk of the second with it (and a fan or two!) once it gets cold, and that makes me happy

[Catrin]

Thanks for the tips everyone - and I did not know that about Duralogs. I will finish up what I have and then focus on getting a real fire going. Pity I do not/cannot drink wine because that sounds like a nice thing to do with the corks. My body doesn't like the sulfides in wine - it isn't a pleasant experience to drink it... Good beer is quite another story

[Becky]

Good beer is quite another story

Just buy beer with corks in the bottles

Anything from Brewery Ommegang comes to mind....

[OakLeaf]

Organic wine is unsulfited, and much easier to find these days. "Wine from organically grown grapes" still has added sulfites, so look for the USDA Organic seal. If you're super sensitive, probably still best to avoid it, since wine grapes contain a small amount of naturally occurring sulfites (up to 20 ppm can still qualify for organic certification).

[Roadtrip]

The only thing I can say here is just be sure to leave plenty of room around the larger pieces of wood when you add them... you need to allow the fire to continue to breath and not smother the fire. Make sure the fire is going good and small/medium-ish logs are fully engaged before going on to the bigger stuff.

I use those little fire starter bricks, newsprint, and kindling in my base... then a medium piece of wood... light and get it nice a toasty... then on with larger wood.

My firebox is on the small-ish size and I can't put huge pieces of wood on the fire, so I normally have medium pieces of wood and only put on the med/lg pieces when I have the fire good and hot.

Sadly, last time we had an inspection done, we were told we had a cracks in our tile liner and being that the water heater flu shares the chimney, the fireplace flu is too narrow to slide a replacement liner down in, which means rebuilding almost the entire thing in order to have a properly functional fireplace.

Sooooooooo... it remains dark until we can save the $$$.

[spokewench]

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!