Lighting a woodburning stove

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Shimshams saying something like:

Good idea.

It's done on some of the Kunzel stoves. Essentially they are batch loaded cross draught gasifiers. Load them with dry wood and set the timer, come ignition time and a 400W hot air blower ignites the load. Many pellet burners have something similar.

AJH

heater in themselves. It's a pity in some ways that modern practice is to insulate the chimney liner away from the brick.

If you look in junk shops you can find hot air blowers which can be used to light fires. Essentially an electric fire element inside a hollow ceramic tube with a kick ass hair dryer on the far end. These are great for open fires because they blow very very hot air through the fuel and the combination of heat and air gets the fire going really quickly. However you are still left with the problem of incorporating this safely into a stove and also managing the stove so that it has enough draught to light but then once lit does not over heat and/or burn all the fuel. If you were building a stove from new then this should be possible, but cutting and welding a sheet iron stove (cast iron would be even more difficult) is probably further than you want to go. You would need quite a bit of space around the stove as well to be able to fit the bulky extra bits you would require. You would also have to cut through the fire bricks. Hmmm....losing enthusiasm for the idea already.