A Caveman Can Do It, Why Can't I?

[firefighterjake]

I am so frustrated. All I seem to be doing is burning paper.......we let the woodstove burn out because the weather has been warm. Getting a little cold in here. Wanted hubbie to come home to a warm fire. For the past hour I have been just burning paper!! 2 inches of ash in the bottom at least. Damper open, air vent open. 3 big dry logs, little pieces stuck in, newspaers all around....it just won't catch. I am about ready to burn the owner's manuel. Any quick tips to get the home fire buning? Strickly wood stove speaking please you dirty minds

TNTBTHD, everyone here has their own secret (or not so secret) "Never-Fails-To-Light-With-The-First-Match" method . . . you may have to experiment on your own and see what works for you and what doesn't.

As others have mentioned some of the possible problems you may have had the other night could have been the draft and firewood that is too big.

In time you will "get it" . . . trust me . . . we all started somewhere . . . and in time you too will be ready for Survivor.

In the meantime here's what I do . . . as I said . . . try folks' suggestions and see what works best for you.

1) Assuming my stove is cool and no fire has been running (and therefore there are no hot ashes -- or at least the chances of hot ashes are lessened) I will open my front door and clean off the front glass, clean up the hearth a bit, clean out the ash pan and then afterwards (or sometimes before I clean out the ash pan) I move the ash away from the air inlet to give my starter fire as much air as it needs without any blockage.

2) Now take some newspaper and crumple them up into balls and place them in the bottom of the firebox. Don't be stingy . . . use up an entire section (4-5 large sheets).

3) And now for my "secret firestarting method" . . . and no, I do not and would not advocate any flammable liquids . . . instead I use what I have always used to get even stubborn fires to burn . . . and that secret starter is . . . cardboard . . . yup, just plain, ol' brown cardboard that you find in a cardboard box. I strip off any plastic tape and cut my cardboard into 8 x 8 (or so) chunks and place these on top of the paper . . . typically crunching up the cardboard to give it a few ridges (to help with the airflow).

4) On top of this cardboard/paper mix I place a rather small (3-5 inch) split or round . . . I particularly like to use a well-seasoned (sometimes from a standing dead tree) piece of softwood -- cedar, spruce, pine, etc. I place this single piece in the back of the fire.

5) Some folks have had great luck with SuperCedars or by breaking off chunks of the sawdust/wax logs you can get at a local department store . . . as for me I use dead pine branches sometimes . . . but more often I use some split cedar kindling (ranging in size from 1/2 inch to 2 inches). If you do not have access to kindling you can sometimes use the bits and pieces of wood and bark that invariably fall off while splitting or handling the firewood . . . or you can cut up some pallets and split these into smaller pieces of kindling with a hatchet . . . or you can go the wicked easy route and pick up some cedar shingles at your local hardware store for use as kindling (which one of my co-workers does.) Place 4-8 pieces of this kindling on top of the crumpled cardboard and paper. I usually make a little house of mine . . . laying two one way and two the other way (probably goes back to my love affair with Lincoln Logs.)

6) On top of this I either place a couple of small softwood slabs or a couple of boards that I have cut off from a pallet. If you want to get things going in real good shape feel free to add another pallet board . . . or two . . . but not too many.

7) With my air draft fully open I now light the newspaper on fire . . . and I will leave my side door (my stove has a front and side door) to my stove slightly ajar . . . usually with it resting against the woodstove frame . . . sometimes a bit more . . . but the one thing I will not do is leave the area.

8) Let the fire build . . . it will typically catch the newspaper and then the cardboard and then the smaller kindling on fire. Resist the urge to just shut and latch the door completely at this point . . . in my case the fire typically dies out if I do this. Instead I wait until the small kindling has really caught on fire and the flames are starting to really fill up the firebox. At this point shut and latch the door . . . give it a few seconds . . . the fire may die down and then start right back up . . . but if the fire dies and doesn't come back to "life" in a few seconds I may open the door just a bit again and then repeat until the wood really catches.

As I said . . . what works for me, may not work for you so well . . . so try this idea or one of the other suggestions . . . eventually you'll find something that works out well and in no time you'll be lighting fires as if it was second nature.

 

[ansehnlich1]

Assuming you have dry wood?

I say do it this way......

1. crumple up paper, like 6 or 8 sheets of newspaper, or more.

2. split some 2x4's into kindling and arrange them on top of the paper.

3. place some small, DRY firewood on top, small meaning 1 to 2 inches in diameter

4. crumple up 2 or 3 more sheets of newspaper and put on top of the whole pile.

5. light paper on top first, then light paper on bottom, then leave stove door open an inch.

If that don't burn, nothin' will

 

[tryin.not.to.burn.the.house.down]

one other thought is if the setup does NOT use an outside air feed, (and maybe even if it does, too) then something innocuous like a laundry dryer, kitchen stove vent hood, or bathroom fan could be compounding the negative pressure within the house. in order to have a draft, that air needs to come from somewhere. if you're sending air out thru another vent hole, THAT air also needs to come in from somewhere (it's called Control Volume Theory in fluid dynamics; mass in must equal mass out). With your doors and windows all closed up, the air will filter in thru tiny cracks, gaps, etc. But if the 6" dia tunnel (read: your flue) is open to draw in air, you can bet those devices will easily overpower it. And yeah - this unusually warm New England weather sure isn't doing any favors - it was a royal pain to light off our Heritage last night, and I didn't even bother today with it at all. Must be hell unfreezing for the first time since the 2004 election... :cheese:

I have a 120 year old house, Original restored windows and doors, 3600 sq ft, so I am sure air is coming in a going out in quite a few places. I think it had to do with the wood. We just got 8 crd delivered and hubbie says it is not quite seasoned.....and here I thought that meant tasty. He got it going with some older splits that we had on the property. Lessoned learned. You are all great. I think I am going to get some of those small starter logs when it gets tough like that. Thanks.