solid fuel fire

I'm about to start using my open fireplace (baxi burnall underfloor vented) - been swept and checked etc. Maybe a few logs at Christmas, but basically smokeless fuel. What is the best way to light this ? Simon.

Reply to
sm_jamieson
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Define "best" ? I take it to mean cheap and effective.

I generally use screwed up newspaper and dry citrus peel as the starter with a few pieces of twig as kindling and a couple of bigger bits of wood on top with pieces of coal strategically placed to get started.

It is all about getting the right combination of fuel and air so that the initial paper burning delivers enough heat to start the wood and the wood enough to start the solid fuel. Fragments start most easily.

BTW if the wood isn't dry enough you will regret putting logs on an open fire they can spark terrifically from internal steam pressure and you should have a mesh firescreen in front when unattended.

Reply to
Martin Brown

My mother was very proud of having been a girl guide:-) (only allowed 2 matches to light a fire).

She showed my children how to make *newspaper* firelighters.

roll a single sheet into a tight tube and then plait the tube. several of these placed together and ignited would easily light logs and generally start a coal fire.

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Reply to
Tim Lamb

Best for me is the way that gets a fire with least faffing around. It isn't the cheapest way but it works every time.

I use one fire lighter (and prefer the ones individually wrapped where you light the wrapper) 4 or 5 bits of dry kindling and 1 small log or larger piece of kindling. By kindling I mean pieces of dry wood up to about 20 mm square and 120 to

200mm long.

  1. Place small log into fire place.

  1. Place fire lighter next to log.
  2. Place kindling diagonally over log and firelighter in such a manner that kindling is resting only on log not on fire lighter.
  3. Add fuel of choice, either logs or coal.
  4. Light fire lighter with gas lighter. I have a long nosed gas lighter designed for the job.

The most important bit is that you have dry kindling so either chop your own (I'm currently working my way through some old floor boards) and store them in a dry place for a few months or go buy a sack full.

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

Easiest, use a weedburner.

Reply to
Capitol

The Missus liked* that method as well, but the paper used nowadays seems less burnable than it used to be. Always seems to burn leaving a residue ,don't know if newsprint has changed over the years to allow for colour or more use of recycled material and has fillers like china clay in it.

  • As the only newspaper we see is a local free ad sheet which only arrives when they find some poor sod to deliver it for a few weeks till they give having not covered their fuel costs it is rare we actually have any to burn.

Plenty of birch trees around though to peel bark off though which makes a good fire lighter.

G.Harman

G.

Reply to
damduck-egg

In message , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes

Yes.

I actually use a *creme brule* gas torch and sticks split from an ancient creosote impregnated chicken shed but I felt the OP might find those our of reach:-)

Reply to
Tim Lamb

I sometimes use dry pampas grass for firelighter and kindling.

Reply to
S Viemeister

On Wednesday 27 November 2013 10:50 sm_jamieson wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Firelighters IME, though newspaper and kindling work.

Reply to
Tim Watts

The free paper is awful for burning. The metro (if someone has been on the tram) is better. I don't buy a paper very often to know what they're like.

It can be quite frustrating getting a bee smoker to light using newspaper - the shredded cardboard from CTC boxes is excellent though. Just need to get someone to send me some more chocolates.

Reply to
mogga

allowed 2

Matches, cheat. Flint and steel, I must get a set modern flints and steels are very good, the tinder is the harder bit though I believe cotton wool and vaseline takes very easily.

Yep, tightly rolled twisted newspaper burns slowly much better for fire llighting. Screwed up balls burn far too quickly.

Agreed. I use the inside pages from CPC flyers (not the glossy covers, they don't burn very well)(*), loosely folded in half width ways 3 maybe 4 times the scrumpled a bit so they hold a stick like shape. Lay a dozen or so next to each other in the grate ina little stack. Take half an opened out waxed drinks carton torn into 1/8ths, two bits on top of the pile of CPC pages three bits along each side. Put a couple of bits of kindling on top, light the carton bits and add kindling as required. Let it catch and get going then add smaller logs.

Yes, excellent lighting material. Our kindling varies from cut up/split pallets that the logs get delivered on to the smaller bits from the split logs, bark that has fallen off etc, to the odd bits/branches of the trees that have been pruned.

If burning wood on an open fire a spark guard is pretty much essential, even wood that normally doesn't spit occasionally does and it only takes one ember to set the carpet alight. Trouble is spark guards also block the IR. B-(

(*) Screwfix, Toolstation, Wickes, Machine Mart, etc, catalogues aren't very good either.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Hum, I pretty sure that a lot of the last tonne of logs are oak(*). They do snap crackle and pop. They are also a bit of a begger to keep burning, they do burn but if you aren't careful they just char all the way through and go out, if you can keep 'em alight that charcoal goes well though.

(*) Thick soft red bark with grooved crinkly surface. Pale heart wood with a tight grain. I must take a plane to one and see what it's really like and on the end grain to see if the rings consist of distinct pores.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Or be idle and just buy firelighters.

Reply to
harryagain

This is seasoned oak rather than freshly cut. The body of the bark is a dark red/brown. The timber immediatly below the bark is very pale for a number of growth rings then it darkens for the heart wood. Very much like:

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I've now taken a chisel to the end grain of a lump and the rings do have pores and cleaned up along the grain. If it ain't oak it's something doing a damn good impression...

It's not a softwood, to damn hard under the chisel... I've not seen any UK softwood with growth rings this small or with pores in the rings.

Seems a shame to just burn. With 50 mm to play with taking 5 to 10 mm off with a thicknesser to remove dings/staining still leaves a fairly thick bit of wood. Again 30 inches wide will cut down to remove beer pump fixing holes and still leave a sizeable width. There must be a market even if it's only flogging to a reclaimed timber place.

That timber is less easily reused unless they can be reused as window frames.

Likewise but even so I've had the occasional spit and ember leap out when the doors have been open.

I should imagine it depends a lot on what you burn and if there is a stove or open hearth at the bottom. There is so much dilution/cooling of the gases with an open hearth I'd wary about not sweeping at least once a year. A stove running well most of the time burning hardwood probably doesn't build up much if anything, start burning softwood at a low rate things may well be different. I've put a few bits of pitch pine through ours and you can watch the resin pour out of it and burn with great yellow sooty flames...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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