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Lighting fires

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Smurf1976

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14 February 2005
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Smurf's gone to the other side and taken up smoking as well.

Well, not quite...

My new house has a wood heater. Now, politics of heating aside (don't mention the war ), I just want to know how to get the damn thing going.

Thankfully I haven't needed to use it yet, but I thought I'd have a go at getting it going before it's 10 degrees and I'm actually needing it to work. Not much success so far, 4 attempts at fire lighting and I've managed to smoulder away two and a half small logs. Lots of smoke everywhere but no real fire.

Flue has been cleaned so that's not the problem. I chucked some cardboard in and that burnt pretty well so the air must be getting in OK (yes I've had it fully open).

So presumably I'm not going the right way about lighting it. Either that or the wood (which is dry not green) is no good for some reason (it's from a wattle tree I cut down a couple of years ago - yes it's been split). Is wattle no good for burning and hard to light?

Thankfully the house does have a heater from the other side, but that's only minimum size (3.5kW) so I'll need to use the fire when it's really cold.

Anyone got a foolproof fire lighting method before I freeze or choke on the smoke? Or is the problem with the type of wood?

I never had a problem with the old pot belly stove I once had, but this fancy fire I have now doesn't have a grate with air rushing through it to fan the flames.
 
Smurf this is a very odd request but spending last Xmas in Ireland i did my fair share of lighting fire and this was my technique.

Scrunch and stuff in about 8-12 sheets of newspaper (mix around these fire lighter just to be sure), next add a generous layer of kindling (twig & or finely splintered dry wood) and on top of that lay three or four small to medium thickness pieces of wood or branch.

Light with match or lighter.

Once it is well alight add another 3-4 medium pieces of wood and once these are alight add one or two of your chunky logs (split in two if they are large).

Essentially the idea is to build the fire gradually, just like investing in the markets. Slow and steady wins the race.

Finally, you should have a lever that once the fire begins to light you can flick across. This draws air from below the fire up the flue.

Lastly, insert cork screw into a bottle of fine red wine, fill two glasses and tell your girl how much you love her while starring into the burning fire.

Hope that helps
 
Wattle can be very dense Smurf, it's not an ideal burning wood. Give the Eucalypts a try, should be much better.

As a further tip, gets some smaller sized pieces raging first and get a good base of red embers before throwing in the bigger pieces.
 
Hey Smurf, no doubt the time you spent down the pinball arcade when your mother thought you were at boy scouts has come back to haunt you......................
 
JeSSica WaBBit said:
Hey Smurf, no doubt the time you spent down the pinball arcade when your mother thought you were at boy scouts has come back to haunt you......................
Click to expand...
Looks like it. Always thought I missed something not being in the scouts. Looks like I've found it.

I've never before had any trouble setting things on fire though. Actually I've done plenty of that. It's just that I don't want to use a whole bucket full of petrol or my nice 170kW (!) blowtorch inside the house. Otherwise I might end up with a bit more fire than I really want...

I've just found out it's going to be quite warm tomorrow. Damn! I'll have to wait before having another go at fire lighting. Well, unless I want a sauna in the lounge room.

Actually, maybe I should try it tomorrow. With my luck I'll end up with a roaring fire at the very time I don't want one. Then the neighbours will think I'm really weird.
 
Hey Smurf,

As Wayne said wattle is far from premium heating fuel but as long as its dry try two pieces 75mm diameter, by however deep your fire is, as a base.
Lay them facing away from you 10 to 15" apart and scrunch your paper up (8-10 pages with no coloured ink) between them. Then build your kindling (15 x 15mm) up in layers (4 works well) as criss cross overlaying fingers with about 20mm gap between pieces (horizontal).
If your fires big enough then lay some larger pieces (40-50mm) together over the stack to form a tee- pee shape.
Have all your vents wide open and set her off, once the tee pee collapses (due to fire) into the centre build another stack over the coals with some 80-100mm pieces leaving plenty of room for the oxygen to get in.
Once she's roaring throttle in the vents, to bank it a bit, and your away

(Yeah I know this sounds very anal, but man when you've sent someone home to camp a million times to light the cooking fire and you get back an hour and half later and their still blowing on it...........................)

Otherwise that blowtorch should do it.
 
Wattle usually just smoulders much like sandalwood unless it is tinder dry , then it does ignite but as a fuel source it is spent quickly . Any flame and heat is hard earned .

I had an old wattle tree removed and chopped up , but had to put pine cones in with it to get the flames going and had more ash than heat out of it .

We have a combustion heater , that we get our moneys worth out of each winter , it gets pretty cold here , so much so I've had to thaw the fishpond a few times . What we do is get a mixture of wood ,some bought , some fetched , your supplier if you have one , would know it as a bastard mix , excuse the french , but , that's what they call it . It burns well and long .

ie. bit a malley , bit a redgum , bit of blackbox etc.

But the key to having a nice roaring fire is to start a kindling fire first , then as the flames develope , add the fuel wood one or two pieces at a time until you have a comfort level desired .
Bear in mind though , wood heaters are expensive to run if you buy the wood without sourcing your own supply independently .


Ps.. Remember that oxygen is one of the main fuel sources the flames want , you can stack paper up and light it and it can go out and just smoulder , that's because the flames cannot get oxygen at a sufficient enough ratio to grow in strength . Keep the wood etc. spaced so flames can get oxygen as a fuel source too .
 
Good posts in this topic.
Agreed...
Little bits (on "scrunched") paper first (think of matchsticks ), air (forcefeed oxygen by blowing...) then incrementally bigger bits (within reason)... "Cribbing, with (more) smaller stuff on the bottom, getting bigger (thicker) above, with space between the pieces to allow oxygen into the fire is the way...
Practice helps, and some good guidance here in the topic Smurf, you'll be an expert really soon...
Regards,
Scuba

BTW You will soon do away with the paper when you find the good timber or "accelerant"
 
Im a country boy and have been doin it all my life in winters

You should only need 3 pieces of newspaper, 4 at the max.

The key is to only loosely scruch it and then layer thin wood first then getting bigger. The biggest you probably want to put on at first is about 2 fingers thickness and then slowly keep adding till a bed of coals has built up for the big stuff.

Any stone fruit wood (apricot, plum etc) is fairly light and works wel at first. The red gum or mallee make ideal 'overnighters' or slow burners
 


Gee prawn, you`re drawing on millions of years evolutionary experience there.A great explanation of how to create fire.
 
You could always use the 'city slicker' fail safe method - those kerosene fire starter blocks, works every time with stringy, yellowbox etc

Also, for when (if?) you get it going, there is a good product called Smartburn - it actually works. About $45, lasts for about 3 months, but reduces having to clean the flue etc.

Smartburn

Smartburn is a device comprising a mixture of natural ingredients encased in a steel tube-like structure. When placed in a wood burning fire it reduces the particle emissions from the fire by up to 50 percent while simultaneously cleaning the chimney of black soot and sap deposits.

CONTACT DETAILS:
www.smartburn.com.au
 
There are times when I've thought something like this would be handy :

 
I used to have a solid fuel water heater at my house south of Perth. Every day after work, I'd have to come home and light a fire, otherwise I'd have no hot water!

So, i got pretty good at lighting fires, not that I really had any problem as a kid :

The secret is, is to allow enough room for the oxygen to get around. I found that rolling the sheets of newspaper into tubes was more efficient than just scrunching them
 
Thanks everyone for the help.

In short, got the fire lighting thing sorted out. It works well, VERY well. No, make that TOO well. Raging fire in about 2 minutes. Sauna not long afterwards.

I'm not one for the "bad cook blaming the oven" scenario but in this case it really was the wood. Left the wattle alone and tried the exact same proceedure with some better wood. Might have to use a bit less of it next time unless it really is snowing.

Didn't seem to be any smoke this time either. That's good as I don't want to upset the new neighbours with washing on the line etc. They're probably a tad puzzled at why I'm lighting fires when it's not cold though.
 
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