Starting a Fireplace Fire: Tips & Techniques

[Evo]

Do you have your chimney cleaned often Evo?

I haven't used it much, so I doubt there's much of a creosote build up. I think there's a bird nest in it now. :grumpy:

<smacks Dawguard>

 

[Cyrus]

Well, so much for those birds.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Speaking of rectangular fire, here's my fireplace with a firelog in it.

It does look sad, and it looks too neat and tidy for my zoobie taste what with the glass ornament on a stand and the somehow, all too lady-like folding screen. I like big hEarth's you can sit on made out of granite rocks with space for a cord of wood stacked to the side. Nice to have a spit for cooking roast beast, or a wrought iron bracket for a cast iron pot of everything stew.

 

[turbo]

Very sad. Not exactly a roaring fire, eh?

Darn! We heat our house with wood, and a fireplace like that would consume 15-20 cords a year and leave us frozen. We've got a tight little wood stove with a glass door, and have heated our house this winter with less than 4 cords of wood (that's about $600 cut, split, and delivered) which is pretty good for Maine. When my wife and I were much younger, we rented a Georgian brick farmhouse with a drafty old wood furnace in the cellar and a new modern wood stove that we had bought for the kitchen. An old fellow up the road asked if we were going to heat the whole place, and I told him that we would heat the kitchen, bath, living room, and bedroom, and close off all the other rooms. He asked how much wood I had and I proudly told him that I had laid in 10 cords, which I figured was maybe 2 years worth. He told me to go cut more, and I laid in another 5 cords, and we used it all that winter. Felling, bucking, and splitting (with a maul) 15 cords of wood in one season is enough to make you think about heating efficiency and the value of insulation. I'm a small stocky person (150#, 5'7"), but believe me, you would not have wanted to take me on after that 15 cords were in. Gyms are for people who don't have real things to do.

 

[Evo]

It does look sad, and it looks too neat and tidy for my zoobie taste what with the glass ornament on a stand and the somehow, all too lady-like folding screen. I like big hEarth's you can sit on made out of granite rocks with space for a cord of wood stacked to the side. Nice to have a spit for cooking roast beast, or a wrought iron bracket for a cast iron pot of everything stew.

I have replaced the crummy screen in the photo with a wrought iron one.

turbo-1, this fireplace sucks more hot air out of the room than it heats.

I had a wood stove installed in a house I had years ago, it was great. I'm also very handy with an axe.

 

[turbo]

turbo-1, this fireplace sucks more hot air out of the room than it heats.

Most of them do, and you have to be directly in front of them absorbing the meager radiant heat to enjoy them. Not much of a problem in Southern California, perhaps, but a real deal-killer for northern climates.

I had a wood stove installed in a house I had years ago, it was great. I'm also very handy with an axe.

If you want to visit Maine, my wife and I will feed and shelter you as long as you can split a cord or two a day. :rofl:

 

[Evo]

If you want to visit Maine, my wife and I will feed and shelter you as long as you can split a cord or two a day. :rofl:

I'm getting old, I don't think I can do that, unless the pieces are small to begin with and I just need to split them. Damn, I can cook and clean though.

 

[Danger]

I bought a neat little gizmo for a fellow at work several years ago. He was an outdoorsman, and I'm not, but I like the idea so much that I'm going to get one for my winter survival kit. (You need one of those in your car where I live.) It's a magnesium block with a 'flint' rod inset along the edge. You just scrape off some shavings with your trusty pocket knife, then use the blade as a striker. It will even light damp tinder.

 

[turbo]

I bought a neat little gizmo for a fellow at work several years ago. He was an outdoorsman, and I'm not, but I like the idea so much that I'm going to get one for my winter survival kit. (You need one of those in your car where I live.) It's a magnesium block with a 'flint' rod inset along the edge. You just scrape off some shavings with your trusty pocket knife, then use the blade as a striker. It will even light damp tinder.

These work well, if you take the time to shave the magnesium finely. This is why I often used 4X steel wool as my tinder. Almost any metal can be oxidized, and the more finely divided they are, the easier they burn. Magnesium is pretty great and burns very hot, but 4X steel wool is dirt cheap and you can get it at any hardware store. The fact that you can ignite it with some flints and a piece of hard steel is not widely known.

 

[Danger]

The fact that you can ignite it with some flints and a piece of hard steel is not widely known.

True. I've ignited it with a battery, but I thought that it was purely a resistance phenomenon. Never tried to burn it with a match or anything. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Dawguard]

I just carry around high explosives wherever I go. Lights first time, every time.

 

[turbo]

True. I've ignited it with a battery, but I thought that it was purely a resistance phenomenon. Never tried to burn it with a match or anything. Thanks for the tip.

Fire it up and throw on a bit of dry peat, some lichen, leaf duff, etc, and you'll have a nice fire in no time. Feed in some cedar boughs, pine tips, etc and you'll have the heat to touch off much larger stuff that you have found in your vicinity. If somebody who is reasonably healthy dies because they cannot start a fire, they have died of ignorance.

 

[Danger]

One advantage that I have is having initially grown up in a house with a pot-belly stove for heat and a wood range for cooking. I can definitely build a fire... it's the starting it part that I never paid attention to. I've always had matches and/or a lighter in my possession.

Harkening back to the discussion that Brewnog and I were having several months ago about Welsh engineering... the ex-from-hell absolutely insisted upon piling the stuff in her fireplace in decreasing order of size, with the kindling on top, and kept getting pissed off because it wouldn't burn. I finally forbade her to go near it if I was there.

 

[BobG]

True. I've ignited it with a battery, but I thought that it was purely a resistance phenomenon. Never tried to burn it with a match or anything. Thanks for the tip.

It really annoys the heck out of all of the other students if you light steel wool, put it on the end of pencil, and then put the pencil in a centrifuge.

Aah, high school, how I miss it. :rofl:

 

[Danger]

I should think so.