Good value fire lighters?

Beckyy

Not sure if this is the right part of the forum, but:

I was wondering if anybody can recommend a good place to buy/bulk buy good fire lighters please

We have a stove, and are moving soon to a house with an open fire/back boiler, so will be using it an awful lot. I usually just buy Zip when they're on offer at Asda, but have been looking for some cheaper ones.

I've seen a huge amount on eBay, but didn't want to bulk buy from a seller without knowing if the brand is any good. Would hate to be stuck with a couple of hundred rubbish firelighters.

(Not an awful lot of value shops around my way, no wilko etc.)

manda1205

Never understood why people use them, can't you just use newspaper and sticks? That's the way I have always started our fire and it's always worked. Might be occasion where I have to chuck some sugar on if the sticks are damp, but otherwise when i was lighting a fire every day thats how I started it. Just pure interest, but why do you need fire lighters?

Beckyy

Although mainly seasoned, our wood can sometimes be a little damp as it's stored in an outbuilding outside. Even when cut down to kindler sizes to light can be difficult to catch just from newspaper. We don't have enough space indoors to store a lot of kindlers, and along with wanting to get it started relatively quickly and easily, we usually use firelighters unless we have particularly dry sticks. We also use coal too, which takes a while to catch, and a firelighter makes sure it has a flame for a good few minutes until it's alight.

just_trying

Hi, if you have a Home Bargains near you they sell very good firelighters for about 50p a box. I had a coal fire with a back boiler up until about 8 months ago when i moved. I used coal on it the majority of the time, i agree they are handy for starting the fire but i always found kindling and paper to be just as good.

alleycat`

Don't use them much but the ones at home bargains are cheap and work pretty well.

chris175

When we had an open fire we used to buy little "tea-light" candles for use as fire lighters.

Just light a candle and put it in the grate then position some small pieces of wood just into the flame and hey presto.

they are much cheaper than proper firelighters, we got 200 for about £2 when they were on offer!

manda1205

Beckyy wrote: »

Although mainly seasoned, our wood can sometimes be a little damp as it's stored in an outbuilding outside. Even when cut down to kindler sizes to light can be difficult to catch just from newspaper. We don't have enough space indoors to store a lot of kindlers, and along with wanting to get it started relatively quickly and easily, we usually use firelighters unless we have particularly dry sticks. We also use coal too, which takes a while to catch, and a firelighter makes sure it has a flame for a good few minutes until it's alight.

TBH I think you need some good sticks, I wouldn't be using your normal logs chopped smaller, they're no good. You need some pallet wood or washing machine packaging wood (hubby works for electrical company, they chuck this wood in the skip so if you know anyone its brilliant stick wood), chopped into small 2-3cm width sticks, gets a fire going in no time at all, even coal. We used to mainly burn coal and as long as you have a good base of lightly scrunched newspaper and the criss cross lots of sticks on top, and then drop a few pieces of coal in between the criss crosses, it will soon catch. Sorry still no help with fire lighters but as you can tell I think they're a waste of money, lol.

shegar

I chop whatever I can get my hands on, but ive never used fire lighters, I chop sticks and bag them up, I always bring a handful of sticks in in the evening and lay on the hearth til I go to bed so that they are dried completely ready for the next day............

just_trying

Another idea which i used to do especially in the winter is to dry the kindling for the next day beside the fire so it is drying while the fire is on. That way it is bone dry and you do not need alot of it sitting on the fireplace. Maybe this could be a solution also.

mark_j

Newspapers for me aswell.

I never have time to read a newspaper, but i raid my granmothers recycling bag and take nwspapers from there.

I have an Aarrow Ecoburn 9, newspaper and some good dry sticks and i have a roaring fire in a couple of minutes.

suki1964

Seriously - newspapers and good dry stick are the cheapest but if like me you cant get dry stick - then tbh I find the asda fire-lighters to be very good value. I wouldnt use a whole one - I just break off a wee piece