Tips for a real fire

tinyellie

Hi All

Does anyone have any tips for making the most of their real fireplace?

I love having a roaring log fire and it looks awesome and cosy but all the heat goes up the chimney and i feel like there is plenty of energy there being wasted.

Any ideas, other than toasting marshmallows! lol.

P.s. i can't afford to buy a log burner at the moment so for now the open fireplace is staying as is.

boultdj

Put bread to rise at the side of it, do toast, and that's all I can think of.hth

mardatha

Use smokeless eggs, they're much hotter than logs. Keep a low fire on longer than a roaring fire shorter - if that makes sense ! Use cosy lamps in the room when the fire is on, even candles. Makes it dead cosy. One the fire has died down a bit, washing on an airer in front of it will dry overnight. Use a fireguard obviously

katieowl_2

I saw one of these being used on a woodburner last week:

http://compare.ebay.co.uk/like/261113819791?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&adtype=pla&crdt=0

It did seem to be pushing a lot of warm into the room, I'm going to get one when I have a bit of spare cash. Don't know if it would work on a normal fire, as it relies on the rising heat from the top of the stove to work.

Kate

rising_from_the_ashes

Just have a very little fuel (ie few bits of coal / one log) on at a time .....

You can make paper brickettes out of old newspapers to cut fuel costs (these will dry well on the heat on the hearth).

Put your clothes airer in the same room when you go to bed at night - obviously well away from the fire & with a fire guard up - to take advantage of the heat for drying clothes etc

Leave the doors open and the residual heat will keep the chill off the whole house

Use the ash on the garden.

Butterfly_Brain

I grew up with open fires and you don't lose all of the heat because the room above the fire will be warmed as well.

gibson123

My gran used to say, don't make flames you will push the heat up the chimney, she always had a low smoulder and her house was always toasty.

Alton_Towers

For cheap fire lighters I stuff loo rolls with tumble dryer lint/fluff burns a treat!

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

I was going to link to an old NTNOCN sketch about come home to a real fire, but seems the welsh has cleansed it from utube

suzybloo

Do you have firebricks in the sides of the fire - they bring the sides in so you dont have such a large space to fill in the bottom of the basket. similar to these -
http://www.diytools.co.uk/pair-of-universal-reversible-side-bricks-for-fire-places.html?utm_source=Google-Product-Search&utm_medium=Organic-Feed&utm_campaign=Google-Product-Search&gclid=CPO3v-L9w7MCFcbLtAod10QAyg

saves on a lot of fuel. We used to mix tattie peelings with the small dross and coal dust and a wee bit water then packed it into the old fashioned milk cartons - it worked a treat once they were dried out. (remebering to tear the carton off first!)