Best way to light a fire in a small woodburning stove.

hollydays

I've got a small non-cast iron woodburning stove I've just had installed.

I'm looking for inspiration as to how to run it efficiently

-taff

There are lots of ways of lighting a fire, and proponents of any of them will extoll them above all others but you need to find a method that works for you.
Wood burns best on a bed of coals. and as log as there is oxygen form the side it will burn. It doesn't need air from the bottom, but coal fires do.

Basically, you light it, you get a good layer of red hot coals [this can take up to an hour]. When you're burning wood it should not smoke. If it's smoking, it's not burning hot enough and it's clogging up your liner and smoking up your screen. You need to see flames and a good lot of them. |Place a log on those coals or two or more depending on the size of your fire, it can be burned at heat for about an hour [ dependng on size] on the coals, the fall apart as red coals, place another log on etc etc.

You can light from the bottom up, the top down, make a teepee, make a v shape, whatever you fancy and youtube has examples of all. Basic requirements, paper, kindling, logs.

I'm a bottom up or a top down depending on my mood.

keith969

My tried and tested method: Take 4 double sheets of a broadsheet newspaper (I find Saturday's Telegraph works best, after I've done the crossword . Roll each into a tube and loosely knot. Place on woodburner hearth (as taff says on top of old embers). Add kindling and one log on top. Light (long matches help), making sure the air vent is open. Once the kindling has caught and roaring nicely, close down the vent. Enjoy!

SG27

Lighting a fair is an art and much harder thsn nost people realise.

Firstly dry kindling and logs are essential. I mean well seasoned not just not wet.

My method is to roll up sheets of newspaper into a tube. Place for rolls on the grate and to on top leaving a gap down the middle. Then stack 3 layers of kindling jenga style on top of that with a an extra couple making a cross on top. Drop one match down the centre. Shut the doors to crack and in a few seconds you have a roaring fire to add larger logs too.

Jonesya

Have you got a gas supply to the fireplace?

Gas pokers might be worth looking at if you're using it regularly- think a poker, connected to the gas, that you light, push in the fire and it lights the fire without firelighters or lots of kindling.

This sort of thing:
https://www.bes.co.uk/gas-poker-for-natural-gas-only

pramsay13

Did the installers give you any kind of guidance?
I have top and bottom vents so I normally open both of these fully and then light a firelighter with a pile of small dry wooden pieces around it.
Once the wood is alight I put on larger pieces until it is going properly then I can add bigger logs.
I also close the bottom vents and use the top vent to control the fire.

Apodemus

Good advice above. Some fires are harder to light than others and if you are struggling, you could keep a kitchen blowtorch with your kindling or use one of these small travel battery fans to blow air into the kindling after you light it. A few scrapings of wax from old candles helps the kindling, as does inclusion of dried tangerine peels and strips of birch bark. Some newspapers nowadays won’t really burn, so if you are a Times reader, you may benefit from switching (Telegraph seems ok, Daily Mail less so!).

vacheron

SG27 wrote: »

Lighting a fair is an art and much harder thsn nost people realise.

Firstly dry kindling and logs are essential. I mean well seasoned not just not wet.

My method is to roll up sheets of newspaper into a tube. Place for rolls on the grate and to on top leaving a gap down the middle. Then stack 3 layers of kindling jenga style on top of that with a an extra couple making a cross on top. Drop one match down the centre. Shut the doors to crack and in a few seconds you have a roaring fire to add larger logs too.

+1 for everything above. This is almost exactly my method except I use a small fibre firelighter in the middle of the "Jenga Stack" rather than the newspaper.

The purpose of the kindling stack serves two purposes, one reason is to provide a sustained flame to ensure the later larger logs catch, but the other purpose is to generate initial heat in the fire and the flue which begins the process of drawing a convection current into the fire and up through the flue to ensure everything burns cleanly and efficiently.

If you have a manual with the stove, read the section on the air supply, especially if your stove is multi fuel as it may have a primary and secondary air mixture as well as an airflow regulator.

Grenage

I opt for an upside-down fire; big stuff on first, with pieces getting smaller as it gains height - kindling on top.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Open vents, chuck in wood, light firelighter, close vents once it's going, we have a fire every day for around 8 months of the year, fiddling about with special ways to light the fire went out the window pretty quickly!

-taff

I second a blow torch to start it off too, much easier than fiddling with long matches or a gas lighter.
I also recommend the free mags in lidls for free paper, take a handful on your way out

I also shut the bottom door vent but open the air regulator underneath the fire to control the air wash.