How do you start the fire in your wood burner

Small splits and a propane torch

I get a box of Duraflame starters or equal, throw one in, some small splits on top, walk away, about an hour later, open up, and filler up....Thats only if I let the fire go out or real low, typically I reload on top of a nice bed of coals, basically the same process as above, but without the one hour wait......

My Innova- the nineteenth century method. But it starts easy. Throw kindlin' in, a few pieces of newspaper and light. Then i go get a wheelbarrow full of wood, the wood is just outside the door. Fill the boiler full and walk away.

The Garn- If it's been out for over 24 hours put a layer of cardboard down and fill boiler. Hit the switch. I've been using a torch for a few seconds.It's off to the races.

I use a couple balls of newspaper, few pieces of kindling, and a 2 second shot with trigger start propane torch.

couple 2 or 3 sheets of news paper balled up loose, 2 or 3 culled shingles or lath strips from the last job we did, load wood gas boiler, fire with trigger start propane torch at open secondary combustion door thru ceramic nozzle, primary door is closed, wait 5 minutes to make sure fire is ripping, close secondary door, close by-pass damper, turn fan on, walk away your done. in 15 minutes or less.

By vigorously rubbing 2 nice dry oak splits together !

I use the left over charcoal from the previous burn. Throw some kindling in put the charcoal over the kindling above the nozzle start the fan and hit it with the torch for 10 seconds. Load with small splits on the bottom to larger towards the top and close the door. Repeat 12 hours later.

Pretty painless with the Garn. Load it with 3-6 inch wide by 24 inch long dry oak and hit the blower (actually sucker at the firebox). Two minutes with a trigger lp torch and it's good to go. Lp tank is a only couple bucks and lasts about a month. Don't have the TV in the Garn barn yet so it's quick and dirty.

This for starting a Buderus up-draft (three-pass, cast-iron) boiler: 4-5 dry pinecones. Normal sized dry splits (4-6" dia.) on top. Wooden match. Done.

Running w/o storage has me actually starting a fire from scratch only 2 or 3 times, once at the start of the season and a couple of times when we come home from a long weekend and was burning oil. Every time it is using propane torch and a couple small pieces..get a flame going after about 60 seconds and it's more wood after that.

I build a new fire every day that runs for a duration of about 4 to 5 hours then the boiler is shut down for the remaining 20 or so hours of the day. I usually load with enough wood so that there is charcoal left when the storage temperature is satisfied.
When it's time to light a new fire I rake the coals over the nozzle, fill the firebox about 3/4 full with splits (DRY), direct a propane torch up through the nozzle for 30 seconds to 1 minute until I see a glow reflecting off the U blocks, close the door, pull the bypass and walk away.
For the first two years I ran the boiler, I would stand there and wait for the fire to grow to a crackling inferno and then shut the lower door and pull the bypass until one day while I was standing there waiting for the fire to establish itself it came to me that what I was doing was burning up the valuable charcoal I had started with only to establish a new batch by building a bonfire. Since that enlightening moment I have lit the fire as described above and it has never failed me.
Perhaps my experience with the Wood Gun educated me in some way. With that unit, I only needed the smallest number of charcoal pieces raked into the center to get a quick light off. I would rake any remaining charcoal into the center, wad up a newspaper page, light it and throw it on to the charcoal, and immediately follow with my fuel load. Just one small piece if glowing charcoal was enough to get that monster burning.

On the rare occasions when I need to start one from scratch, a handful of pinecones, some kindling and a propane torch. (Fancy one with electric ignitor). Beats burning your fingers with matches.

Im not gonna say it was positive, but did fred just say something non-negative about WG? Alert the media! JK fred.
I rake what left of coals(about a cup) over the nozzle, toss a handful of noodles, throw match in, fan on, pile splits to the top.

Coal Reaper said:

Im not gonna say it was positive, but did fred just say something non-negative about WG? Alert the media! JK fred.
I rake what left of coals(about a cup) over the nozzle, toss a handful of noodles, throw match in, fan on, pile splits to the top.

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It worked the way it worked because that fan will suck your socks off. There were other positive things about the Wood Gun. I just can't think of any of them right now.

Coal Reaper said:

I'm not gonna say it was positive, but did fred just say something non-negative about WG? Alert the media! JK fred.
I rake what left of coals(about a cup) over the nozzle, toss a handful of noodles, throw match in, fan on, pile splits to the top.

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How do you stop your coals from falling through? Thats the thing that got me playing with a grate.

maple1 said:

How do you stop your coals from falling through? Thats the thing that got me playing with a grate.

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Good point. About half the time the coals are big enough to block it up. When i stack my wood i will throw in the full length "splinters" so they are randomly available. If needed I will take said splinter and lay it across nozzle so there is a smaller opening. If no splinter is available i will just put two splits prtially over nozzle and pile coals between them.
Not quite sure axactly how i would go about it if i didnt have the fan tho.

Pine cones are the best with a small stack of kindling! Top down of course.

My wife collects them over the various drop seasons, then dries them in the barn.

Coal Reaper said:

Good point. About half the time the coals are big enough to block it up. When i stack my wood i will throw in the full length "splinters" so they are randomly available. If needed I will take said splinter and lay it across nozzle so there is a smaller opening. If no splinter is available i will just put two splits prtially over nozzle and pile coals between them.
Not quite sure axactly how i would go about it if i didnt have the fan tho.

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Something I would really like to try or find is a nozzle liner made of stainless, that just fits inside the nozzle, with a lip on the top so it wouldn't fall through (think small pot with bottom cut off), and with some grate-age across the top.

You know i have one maple

TimfromPittsburgh said:

I have been using the nineteenth century wood, cardboard, kindling and match method to start a fire in my boiler every morning. My daughter recently got a new woodstove with a built-in ignitor that uses a stream of super hot air which ignites the wood directly. That has made me curious whether there is twentyfirst century technology I could be using to start the fire in my twentieth century boiler. Is anybody using s more modern method to light their fire?

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Some Kindling and a few pieces of firestarters lit by a propane torch

Coal Reaper said:

You know i have one maple

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How's it holding up? Maybe weld a couple or 3 stainless rods across the top to help hold the coals up there?

Eric Johnson said:

On the rare occasions when I need to start one from scratch, a handful of pinecones,

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I hear that the squirrel anti hunger coalition will be in contact with you regarding this practice and will call for legislation prohibiting the use of food for fuel.

Maple, I have not taken it out but it seams to be holding up. Havent paid it much mind actually. I will look it over in six weeks if the groundhog was right today. It burns very nice. But i did have an issue a few weeks ago where a chunk of wood completely blocked the nozzle. Kinda made a mess!

Now I'm starting to get worried about the way I start my fires after reading this thread and all the people that use kindling.

I haven't used kindling since I got my Englander 30-NC up and operational this last November.

I routinely take 4"-6" splits, fill the stove and then start the fire with a handful of either paper or torn up shipping box cardboard. I use the top-down method for starting fires. No kindling and I stopped using firestarters when I discovered my 4-6" splits starting the firestarters on fire.

This routine has my fires usually blazing in about 10 minutes or so. I have the door cracked for about these 10 minutes, so maybe that makes a difference.

My wood is usually down in the high teens, sometimes down into the 15-16% range.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong? If so, what should I do? Put my stove wood in a bucket of water overnight, or start using green unseasoned wood - or maybe there's a simpler solution????