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Make It Easy:  Making a fire  |
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campchic
True Blue Farmgirl
312 Posts
Erin
Nebraska
USA
312 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 16 2008 : 7:35:15 PM
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It's that time of year again! And I have tried & tried to make a fire in our fireplace. All I create is a flame for awhile and then smoke. What am I doing wrong. Please teach me to make an awesome roaring fire.
Erin
Farmgirl #190 |
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doglady
True Blue Farmgirl
435 Posts
Tina
Howard
Ohio
USA
435 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2008 : 7:42:32 PM
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Hi Erin,
I place the wood in our woodburner kind of like how you stack logs in a log cabin style. You need to be able for air to get underneath the wood - not just piled on top of each other. My chimney cleaner also told me to crack open the nearby door which creates a draft when you first try to start the fire. It works every time. Make sure that you're working with dry wood too - if it sizzles as it burns - then it's wet wood. Good Luck.
Tina
You can tell your dog all of your secrets and they'll never say a word!
www.kennelcreations.com |
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willowtreecreek
True Blue Farmgirl
4813 Posts
Julie
Russell
AR
USA
4813 Posts |
Posted - Oct 16 2008 : 8:51:30 PM
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Is your wood wet? A lot of smoke is usually caused by we or green wood. I usually build a base of small sticks and a little dryer lint. I then make a teepee of larger logs over the base and then I light the base by putting the flame to the dryer lint. Keep some small kindling close by and keep feeding the base until the larger logs catch. I can usually start a fire on the first try with this method.
Farmgirl Sister #17
Blog
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Suzan
True Blue Farmgirl
659 Posts
suzanne
duncannon
pa
USA
659 Posts |
Posted - Oct 17 2008 : 05:18:18 AM
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| I'm not too good at this either (always said it is a good thing I don't have to make my living being an arsonist) but cracking a nearby window really helps! I can usually get it going doing this, otherwise the house fills up with smoke... |
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campchic
True Blue Farmgirl
312 Posts
Erin
Nebraska
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - Oct 17 2008 : 05:18:46 AM
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Thanks for the suggestions. The wood is dry. I'll try your tips!
Erin
Farmgirl #190 |
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Alee
True Blue Farmgirl
22941 Posts
Alee
Worland
Wy
USA
22941 Posts |
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Contrary Wife
True Blue Farmgirl
2164 Posts
Teresa Sue
Tekoa
WA
USA
2164 Posts |
Posted - Oct 17 2008 : 06:23:30 AM
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That's the first thing I thought of Alee, is your flue open.
I tightly crumple two pieces of newspaper and stack my kindling around it tepee style. You have to watch it carefully to know when to add the larger pieces of kindling at this point. Once you get the larger kindling goes well, add a bigger piece of wood until you have a regular piece of firewood in your fire. We heat our house with two woodstoves, so I build a lot of fires.
Just remember, keep your fire small and hot, that way you won't have excessive kreasote buildup in your chimney.
Teresa Sue
Farmgirl Sister #316
MJ's Heirloom Mavens Badgebadger
MJ's Heirloom Mavens Bookclub Coordinator
"Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly." The Dalai Lama |
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campchic
True Blue Farmgirl
312 Posts
Erin
Nebraska
USA
312 Posts |
Posted - Oct 17 2008 : 06:42:40 AM
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The flue is open, We just had a chimmney sweep here to check things out.(We moved here last year, the house sat empty for 20 years) Everything thing checked out fine. I'll try opening a door next time. Teresa-- How do you place your bigger piece of wood? When do you know when to add more pieces?
Erin
Farmgirl #190 |
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carycamille
True Blue Farmgirl
163 Posts
Camille
Cathlamet
Washington
USA
163 Posts |
Posted - Oct 17 2008 : 5:21:42 PM
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OK, I had to make a fire the other night because we were cooking fajitas, and I am the worst fire maker there is!!! But this is what I did, it was easy and worked like a charm. I took two toilet paper rolls and stuffed them with dryer lint then on the outside of the rolls I put a thin layer of vasoline jelly. They lit right up because of the vasoline and because of the dryer lint stuffed inside they burned nice and slow and caught my rained on wood on fire with ease. (Oh, I did stack my kindling in the teepee formation and when it was burning good I started adding the bigger pieces of wood.)
Camille |
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Sage
True Blue Farmgirl
207 Posts
Pam
Worland
Wyoming
USA
207 Posts |
Posted - Oct 28 2008 : 09:23:55 AM
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I agree with the other ladies that a teepee formation works great. I have found that some flues need to be heated to help get the air drawing up through the chimney.
To warm up the flue try this method. Build your fire with crumpled paper and very thin wood splinters on the bottom making sure to leave air spaces for the fire to draw air up through your stack of wood. Add small sticks or kindling in a teepee shape and include three or four medium size pieces. Then put several pieces of crumpled paper on top and light the fire on the bottom followed by setting the top pieces of paper on fire. The burning paper on top will warm the chimney and get the air drawing upwards.
I save dryer lint to add to the kindling and add small bits of old candles. You can even pour melted wax over lint filled cardboard egg cartons to make firestarters.
Good luck. Sage :)
Farmgirl sister #140
www.heritagedesigns.etsy.com |
Edited by - Sage on Oct 28 2008 09:29:59 AM |
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clux64
True Blue Farmgirl
162 Posts
Celeste
Blair
NE
USA
162 Posts |
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5 acre Farmgirl
True Blue Farmgirl
1007 Posts
~~~*Terri*~~~
WA.
USA
1007 Posts |
Posted - Nov 25 2008 : 10:40:41 AM
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Is your wood damp?, or perhaps, green wood?
Farmgirl Sister #368
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http://thecontentedwoman.blogspot.com
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Lanna
True Blue Farmgirl
330 Posts
Lanna
A little town in Idaho
330 Posts |
Posted - Dec 09 2008 : 4:55:32 PM
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Do you happen to know what kind of wood you're using to start your fire? If I remember right, we use white fir for our kindling and red fir for our bigger logs (the white burns hot and fast, the red slow and steady). Hubby's work deals with BTU's of all the different kinds of wood and so on, so I just nod my head at him and smile. :)
We also do the exact same firestarters as Celeste described. I was in girl scouts for years, and taught my hubby that firestarter trick that he thought was just amazing but that I knew as just regular knowledge.  So now he's taken charge of that particular project, and has also used very dry pinecones dipped in wax (I just buy the blocks of ParoWax from the store). That and random newspaper and small pieces of kindling get things going pretty well in our upstairs stove.
One other thing that may be causing your smoke is if you're starting from a cold fireplace/chimney. It takes a while to heat up those pipes so they start drafting well. And well, fireplaces just won't work as efficiently as some of today's woodstoves. There's lots of info about that kind of thing on the Hearth boards where my hubby hangs out.
Lanna, mama to three little monkeys |
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Mother Hen
True Blue Farmgirl
604 Posts
Cindy
Peck
ID
USA
604 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2008 : 12:31:39 AM
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Erin, You'll have to ask the others if it's different in a fireplace, I have a wood stove. In my wood stove, I've made the mistake of cleaning out ALL of the ashes, then I always have trouble getting a fire started, but if I leave some ashes in the middle when I clean it out, I don't have any problem at all. I put my wadded up newspaper on the ashes then my kindling and I bank some smaller logs on the sides of that, then when the fire starts to get going I put a center piece of wood on the 2 I banked on the sides.
I don't know if you are heating with wood, but once I begin a fire in the fall, I usually don't let the stove go out until spring when we are warm enough.
I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Psalms 34:1 |
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sweetproserpina
True Blue Farmgirl
535 Posts
meg
Vinemount
Ontario
Canada
535 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2008 : 08:43:34 AM
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This may sound crazy but I read this tip somewhere and it works a treat. I always found that often my newspaper would burn up too quickly and I wouldn't get the fire to light really well because of it.
Roll your sheet of newspaper diagonally and tie it into a knot, light the end and place your kindling over top (I'm lucky I found some really dry lathe from my aunt's old house that we're using right now). The twisted knot burns slower and allows the kindling to catch. I've never had to restart the fire since I've been doing this, cool eh?
"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world."
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http://theprimroseway.blogspot.com/ |
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Make It Easy: Making a fire |
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Making a fire
