Chimenea

mary43

sue - OH was always 'in charge' of our chimenea and he used to leave the cap off so the smoke went through the chimney and didn't come out at the front...............bit like having a chimney in the house I suppose..........if that was covered up the smoke would come out into the house.
I'll check with him when he comes in but I'm sure thats what we did and just put the cap on when we'd finished.
We were always told not to put too much wood on ours to prevent flames came out of the top of the chimney
We also had a rain cover (sort of plastic thing) to put over it when we werent using it in case of rain.

Larumbelle

space_rider wrote: »

I tried to light it without the firelighters and it didn`t work. Resorted to the firelighters again. I`ll have to see if I can buy different lighters that don`t smell!

We use homemade firelighters. Both sorts smell for a few seconds when lit but work great and aren't all chemically:

For chiminea: fill the inside of a toilet roll tube with dried leaves and small sticks. Wrap it in newspaper like a christmas cracker. When you want to use it, light the 'christmas cracker' ends

For barbecues: fill the compartments of a cardboard eggbox with wax. Stick a small lump of charcoal in each cup before the wax sets. When you want to light it, separate each 'cup' off and light the cardboard.

mary43

sue - just 'googled' and found this from a website advertising chimeneas:

The slender chimney includes a rain cap that prevents wood from getting wet and smoking rather than burning.

I think once the fire gets going and there are no flames then you're ok to put the cap on to keep the heat inside the chimenea.
I rememer when I bought mine from the Good Homes Show at the NEC a few years back the salesgirl said you can fry egg and bacon on top of the chimney with a frying pan it gets so hot. Never tried it though.

Ety

silvercharming wrote: »

We use homemade firelighters. Both sorts smell for a few seconds when lit but work great and aren't all chemically:

For chiminea: fill the inside of a toilet roll tube with dried leaves and small sticks. Wrap it in newspaper like a christmas cracker. When you want to use it, light the 'christmas cracker' ends

For barbecues: fill the compartments of a cardboard eggbox with wax. Stick a small lump of charcoal in each cup before the wax sets. When you want to light it, separate each 'cup' off and light the cardboard.

Thanks, I'm really struggling on what to burn....mine took a whole pack of fire lighters to get it burning!!!

Etyx

sue34

thankyou all for your help and idea's :-)
i lit the chimenea last night just to try it out and used 'waxed matches' that i bought in asda to light the wood, at first i thought they would not get the fire started but they did,
22 matches in a box '£1.20' , square things covered in a wax, when lit place on wood and it started the fire up nicely, did not have to add anything else to get fire started :-)

mary43

OH used to just scrunch up a bit of newspaper, few sticks (anything we'd got spare) and pop a firelighter in.-used ordinary household matches..........once it got going we either added charcoal if we were cooking.
Glad it was ok for you

sue34

use my chiminea today, second time, and have notice that the hinge is cracked on door,'door hinge' making it hang down when opened :-(
i only got it on the 19th may, will the company i bought it from replace the door? as i thought it would last longer than that.

mary43

sue34 - I'd have thought so.............if it were me I'd want them to. It should last longer than that especially as you've not used it much

peediedj

we bought a cast iron one,a big one,theres no way the wind would blow it over,it takes 2 people to lift it

sue34

i have emailed them today, company not opened till monday, so have to wait and see what they say,
the rest of chiminea is fine just the door hinge, which is 'all in one' attached to door ' had to be a fault in welding for it to just break ,crack, ?
let you know what they say

all sorted :-)
will send me a replacement door, when stock comes in