How do you start your fires?

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Morgan

Member
Apr 24, 2010
111
PEI, Canada
Figured I would post here, aside from paper what do you guys use for firestarting? Here is what I use;

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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.
 
Do a search in the hearth room and you will be buried in threads on the subject.
 
We're moving from 24/7 to shoulder season burning now. SuperCedars are a godsend. Closest thing I know next to automatic ignition.
 
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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.
 
We're moving from 24/7 to shoulder season burning now. SuperCedars are a godsend. Closest thing I know next to automatic ignition.

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.
 
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