Hey, does anyone else agree that with news media going more and more online / digital, it is getting harder to find newspapers to use for starting fires? I still get the flyers but they have a lot of unhealthy colour dyes and don't light / burn very well. What are some readily available non-toxic alternatives?
Newspapers harder to find for starting fires
- Thread starter CabinCamper
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Not really. We get the Sunday paper which suffices, though in the winter we are burning 24/7 so no need for a cold start lighting. It's good to keep local news and reporting alive. If no newspaper there are products on the market like Super Cedars which a small chunk of works quite well.
Try a search on "Fire Starter" to see other threads on this topic. Here is a recent example:
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Fatwood vs kiln dried starter wood vs ... for a wood burner stove ???
None that paid me yet! Plenty of Xrays though. I've definitely damaged them over the years with severed nerves and partial numbness in at least one finger on each side. Had nails sewn back on to try and reform the shape. Stuff like that. So . . . would you say you are a Master of Your Own...
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I go out daily for two papers covid be damned. I get the two locals and ignore those from NY, Trenton & Philly
I will buy the Sunday New York Times when I need newspaper.
I get a lot of supermarket flyers in the mail on Thursday. They last the week. As mentioned, not as good as regular newspaper.
Received a free copy of The Epoch Times newspaper in the mail today. Went in the pile.
I get a lot of supermarket flyers in the mail on Thursday. They last the week. As mentioned, not as good as regular newspaper.
Received a free copy of The Epoch Times newspaper in the mail today. Went in the pile.
Russn77
New Member
I do hand-tool wood working so I have plenty of shavings to use 
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I only ever use the junk mail "newspaper", and there's no sign of that running out! I have no concerns about toxicity of print dies, although I do remover the very glossy sheets or the ones that feel more like a plastic grocery bag than paper, simply because those just don't burn.
I make firelighters from chainsaw dust, old candle stumps and cardboard egg cartons, great firelighters, but it's a very inefficient return on invested time.
TE
I make firelighters from chainsaw dust, old candle stumps and cardboard egg cartons, great firelighters, but it's a very inefficient return on invested time.
TE
I agree, cardboard is readilly available but newsprint is getting harder to find.I was just barely scraped by. With my bottom grate design, cedar fire starters and wood shavings do not really work. I made an effort last summer to stock up on newspapers and will be doing it more intensely this year.
If I run low on news paper, I got to my local recycling center, walk into the bin and grab what I need.
There are several free weekly local newspapers; find out who delivers the new ones and you should be able to get enough outdated ones to last all winter.
Contact the Jehovah's Witnesses for free reading materials.
IV been using the plain brown paper the comes in shipped goods from Amazon and Sams club. I wrap up some kindling inside and im off blazing in seconds. Lots of plastic bubble wrap too but havnt found good use for that.
My town and the local towns makes a profit on resale of recycled newsprint as we have segregated recycling chain. its subsidizes the cost of other recycled streams. They do not want folks taking home back more than they dropped off. If there is person who wants general assistance payments in town, the town has the right to ask the work for the payments. They assign folks to the recycling garage to re-sort the recycling streams into high value streams like sorted mixed office, newsprint and clean cardboard.
Towns who tied in with zero sort operations end up having a tough time getting rid of recycled streams due to the contamination of the streams.
Towns who tied in with zero sort operations end up having a tough time getting rid of recycled streams due to the contamination of the streams.
Wood.
When you drop a tree, save some branches. Cut 'em to size like firewood and reserve part of a woodpile for them. When you split wood, save some chips. Fill some bins with dry pine cones. If you can't be bothered, split a dry split into kindling.
I was in the woods many years ago and needed another, larger felling wedge. I thought I could get by without but it was a leaner and I really wanted it to fall up the hill, not down the hill. Stood there for about 5 minutes puzzling over it before it occurred to me that I needed a thing that could be made of wood, and I was standing in the woods holding a chainsaw!
People tend to scoff when I say 'wood' and endorse a commercial product.... and I'll grant you, plastic wedges and wax-based firestarter have advantages... but wood is free, it works great, and you already have some.
In the course of scrounging for wood on my own lot and when neighbors have some dropped, I often come across birch. By the time I get to splitting the rounds, and certainly by the time the splits are seasoned and ready for the stove, a lot of the bark peels off and the layers separate easily. I have a cardboard box full of the sheets. I also have a number of big boxes full of bone dry branch pieces in various diameters from spindly stuff up to maybe an inch - whatever I can break by hand quickly. Every windstorm drops a lot of this stuff off the trees. I do a bottom-up start, beginning with a couple of sticks maybe pinky-size, with a number of birch bark strips between. Then I add some very small twigs, progressing up in diameter, then add some smaller splits of regular firewood. That birch bark lights easily, and the high surface area/mass of the stuff lets it get to a good blaze in seconds. It doesn't last long, but enough to get the smaller stuff going well, and so on. There is plenty of stuff in the woods to scrounge for getting fires going. I haven't used newspaper for this in years.
Dry pinecones burn like a torch because they are full of pine rosin. Where I am, I could heat my house forever with nothing but pinecones if I wanted to load the stove once an hour.
Paper towel and toilet paper core's work great. We collect them all year. Plus a fire starter. But you do need all the stars aligned to have effortlessly. I now use steel pipe sleepers. And the key is correctly stacked splits.
I just go to the local corner store and ask them for a big bunch of older news papers. They just cut off the date lines and get refunded for the copies they don't sell so they're pretty happy to get rid of the rest of the paper. Recycle the flyers and use the news paper. I think I had to go and get two big armfuls this year.
As I posted elsewhere, get a weekend subscription in the NYT - and then either read it and burn it, or just burn it, whatever your preference, it'll make you feel good .
I use the kids school work, letter format, white, no gloss, no colors. Of course only those that are not worth keeping...
And splitting misses; 1/10- 1/30 or so of an inch thick flakes of oak and whatever I split in this year.
I use the kids school work, letter format, white, no gloss, no colors. Of course only those that are not worth keeping...
And splitting misses; 1/10- 1/30 or so of an inch thick flakes of oak and whatever I split in this year.
WoodBurnerInWI
Feeling the Heat
In the mail twice a month we get some kind of paper that has ads and other random flyers. Throw away the non newsprint stuff and I keep the newspaper. In a pinch, I can also grab the local paper from my job since we get two copies of that every day. Since working from home became big last year, and since my wife still works from home, she has a huge milk crate full of insurance documents that would normally just be shredded at her office. I've made good use of those last year and this year
fvhowler
Feeling the Heat
totally second TP and PT cores, neighbor across the street save 1/2 his recycling pile newspapers for me, constant supply. He also told me dryer lint stuffed inside PT/TP cores work well with small branches for top down starters. Shredded bills for recycling also excellent firestarters.
If there's a U-Haul store nearby, $10 can get you 10 pounds /200 sheets of ink-free packing paper:
www.uhaul.com
and the cardboard box it comes in can come in handy, too...
Packing Paper for Moving - 24inch x 30inch Sheets
U-Haul packing paper is an acid free and ink free newsprint paper ideal for protecting fragile items while moving or storing.
www.uhaul.com
and the cardboard box it comes in can come in handy, too...
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