How do you start your fires?

Figured I would post here, aside from paper what do you guys use for firestarting? Here is what I use;



Costs about $75 to buy and gets a fire going in my boiler quickly, eats the little 1LB cylinders though, I go through one every couple of weeks. A few years ago on ebay I bought a little brass adapter that allows me to fill the 1lb tanks with a 20lb tank. Takes about a minute per cylinder to fill. There is that whole transportation if refilled warning on the side of the cylinders, however most times they never leave my basement =) Just though I would share, they are a very cool looking torch to top it all off. You can solder up to 3" copper as well, I have also silver soldered 2" copper with it running MAPP gas, although oxy/acetylene is much better suited to the task Crosstech is the brand name, they have single, double and triple tip torches and are the hottest naturally aspirated torch you can buy. I use my single and double tip all the time while working.

Super Cedars!

They still let me play with matches, so I do.

We've had some warm days here the past week and running the stove all day was not needed. The Super Cedars really do make getting a cold start an easy task. I can have a nice heat producing fire going pretty quickly by being able to use small to medium splits right off the bat.

1/4 of a super cedar and about 2.3 seconds with a cigarette lighter.

Me too.

We've been in a warm spell but it is still winter, we might get another cold snap BG. I too have been cutting way back on wood consumption.

I don't use super cedars. They are a local product and I have tried them, they work just fine, but no better than a chunk of firestarter from walmart. You can but the big box for 10$ and break up the bricks into little golf balls. That 10$ box will last me several, maybe 5?, years of full time burning with a cat stove. I used the same product with a non-cat and had to buy a box per year.

That torch. Is it one of the torches that turn on the fuel and light with the press of a button or is it old shool where you open a valve and then light the flame? After using a push button torch for some soldering I would never buy the old school type. I have a 500k btu weed burner for moderate heating and an oxy/acetlynene rig with regulators when I need real heat and am willing to futz with valves and matches.

There's many old barns falling in around here. I usually scrounge a few boards every summer and put them in between the rafters of the wood shed. Chop it up with a hatchet in the fall and box it. It's mostly 100 year old hemlock and 2 or 3 layed on 1 sheet of paper is usually an inferno in 30 seconds and ready for splits.

Whatever is handy. Paper and kindling, super cedar... Whatever burns. I've never used a torch though.