Build a Fire in a Woodburning Heater

Lighting a fire in a wood burning heater is, in general, viewed as an easy task. Because of this, some people may forget a few key steps in the process that would help them enjoy their fire better, resulting in what could have been a nice night by the fire easily becoming a smoke filled room. This article explains a recommended method that, if followed, should help make your fire enjoyable from the start.

Steps

Starting a Fire with a Grate

  1. Check that the damper is open. The damper is a device that controls the amount of air flowing through the flue. The flue is the passage or duct for smoke in a stovepipe or chimney. There should be a lever which you can try moving one way or the other. One direction will close the damper, the other will open it — check to see that the damper is open, or else smoke will pour back into the room. This is much easier to do before lighting a fire in there. Once you have determined that the damper is open, you are ready to get started.
  2. If your woodburning heater has glass doors, open the doors 30 minutes before lighting your fire. This will allow the inside of the fireplace to come to room temperature. Cold air is heavier than warm air, so if the outside is too cold, it can create a river of cold air flowing down the stovepipe or chimney, into the woodburning stove, leaving it trapped there by the doors. By opening the doors and allowing some warm air from your room to rise up the chimney, it may be enough to start the draft moving upwards.
  3. Check the draft. Light a match near the opening of the flue and see if the draft is coming down or going up. If it is still coming down, you must find a way of reversing the draft and getting it to go up. Under no circumstances can you light the fire with the draft coming down. One method is to use a starter block (StarterLogg is one brand — break off a quarter of a stick) or a commercial wax log (such as Duraflame or Pine Mountain). These will light and stay lit, creating some warmth inside the woodburning heater and helping the draft start upwards, and they burn with little smoke:
    • Close the damper. This will stop the air from coming down and pushing the air into your living area. Most woodburning stoves, in addition to a damper, have a vent that restricts the air entering into the woodburning heater, so you can use this instead of the damper to control the air flow.
    • Put the block on the back of the fireplace shovel, light it and place it up inside the woodburning heater, near the flue opening. What you are trying to do is to heat the upper part of the heater.
    • When you have heated it (you will need to use trial and error to determine how long this process is), slowly open the damper and with luck and skill you will find that the heat and fire from your little block will force the air up the chimney. When the draft has fully reversed (you will hear the air sucking the fire and heat from the starter block), you can safely light your fire.
  4. Set up the base of your fire with newspaper and other tinder. Newspaper or tinder will help light the fire and create plenty of flames in the beginning.
    • Crumple up four or five pages of newspaper into light bundles and place them on the grate as bedding. Don't use too much, or you'll generate a lot of unnecessary smoke.
    • If you don't have newspaper, you can use other Tinder to create flames. Tinder is light, dry material like dry moss, straw, tiny twigs, or newspaper that takes a spark. Tinder gets lit first and burns very quickly. The key is to get enough tinder under the kindling so that the kindling begins to burn.
  5. Stack kindling on your tinder in a grid, creating a stable foundation for your larger logs. Kindling catches fire more easily than big logs, helping generate a bigger flame in the beginning and sustaining the fire for a longer period of time.
    • Be sure to stack your kindling horizontally. This means laying it down flat, not standing it up on end. Additionally, leave gaps for air to pass through. Air is fuel to a fire.
    • Stack it in layers, criss-crossed. Stack two or three larger pieces of kindling on top of the newspaper, and then two or three more pieces on top of those, at a perpendicular angle, creating a kind of grid. Continue stacking smaller pieces of kindling onto the grid, each new level perpendicular to the last.
  6. Stack one or two larger logs on top of your kindling base. Depending on your kindling placement, you may be able to fit a couple of logs over your kindling securely.
    • Generally, opt for smaller logs over larger ones. Larger logs may look nicer and be more fun to burn, but they have larger surface areas, making them tougher to catch fire. Two logs that are equal in size to one is almost always preferable.
    • Stack the wood at most to two-thirds of the height of the firebox. You don't want your fire to rage out of control when you light it.
  7. Light the newspaper first. The kindling will ignite from that. Watch the smoke carefully for the first half hour. The smoke should be nearly undetectable if it's drafting right up the flue.
    • If the smoke from the chimney turns black, the fire is not getting enough oxygen. Use your fireplace poker to lift the wood stack carefully; just pry it up a little, like jacking up a car. Take care here — all you need to do is allow some air to get under it. If your bed of coals underneath the grate is too high, use the poker to spread them out under the fire, leaving a couple of inches of air space.
    • If the smoke is grey, most of the combustible material is escaping through the chimney instead of burning.

      • You probably did not light the fire from above.
      • You may have used wet wood.
      • The fire is getting too much oxygen. Yes, this is confusing - fire is a delicate balance of air and fuel. When there's too much oxygen, the fire has a hard time catching hold of the fuel, and can make more smoke than normal.
  8. Open a window slightly. If you're still having trouble getting a good draft on the fireplace, and smoke is coming back into the room, try opening a window about an inch (2.5cm). This works best if the window is on a wall opposite the wood heater, with few obstructions — you will not want to have people seated between the window and heater. Sometimes, this breaks a kind of "vapor lock" on the room and allows the smoke to rise up the chimney.
    • If people are between the wood heater and window, they will be chilled because the wood heater will start to suck air up. It will start pulling hard from that window, which will create a stream of cold air running between the window and wood heater.
    • Stay out of the way and let it go — sometimes if the chimney isn't tall enough, this is the only way to get the draft running well and keep smoke out of the room. The rest of the room should stay warm - it's just the draft path that will be a little chilly.
  9. Add larger logs. If you're trying to enjoy an evening, you can make sure the fire will go a while without tending by building it properly to start with. Once the fire is going well, you should begin to see some red, glowing embers beneath the fire.
    • As the smaller wood catches and the fire burns hot, grab a larger piece of wood. Put that on top of the fire carefully, being as certain as possible that the stack is not leaning side to side any direction.
    • The bigger wood takes a while to catch fire, but once it does, it will burn a long time without you having to get up and stir it or move it around. The glowing embers will keep things hot, and you should be nice and toasty for a couple of hours this way.
  10. Stir the wood down at least half an hour before you want it to go out. Break it up with your poker and try to spread it out as much as you can over the area of the firebox. The thinner it's spread, the quicker it will burn up and go out. Check after the fire is out to insure that the coals and embers are all dead. If so, close the damper so that you do not lose valuable home heat through the chimney all day long.

Starting a Fire without a Grate

  1. Put two large logs — the bigger the better — in parallel about 15 inches (38cm) apart. Make sure they're perpendicular to the pane of the closed doors, or fire box opening. These large logs will be the bed of the fire and contain the embers to feed it.
  2. Place one cross-bar across the two large logs. This log should be about the diameter of your forearm, and it should rest parallel to the pane of the glass door or fireplace opening, closer to the opening of the firebox.
    • This cross-bar will hold the other firewood and keep an air vent open where the fire can draw fresh air to feed it from underneath.
  3. Crumple newspapers (not glossy paper) on the bottom of the fireplace. Alternatively, use other tinder like dried twigs or wood shavings as a base.
  4. Place some kindling on top of the newspaper. Do not put any larger logs or fuel on top yet. If you can stack the kindling in a grid fashion, leaving plenty of space in between for air to pass through.
  5. Light the fire from the newspaper or tinder. Make sure that the kindle starts to burn — you'll want to hear crackling noises.
  6. Place some logs in between the large logs on top of the cross-bar. Again, these logs should be about half the diameter of your forearm, resting parallel with the cross-bar. Keep this arrangement at all times: two logs, one cross-bar on top and firewood held by the cross-bar.
  7. Finished.



Tips

  • Check the wind speed. If it is over 20 mph (32 kmh), then close the doors on your fireplace. The cold air will sink into the chimney, causing the warm air and the cold air to circulate, therefore not allowing any fire to develop.
  • Be sure to use thoroughly seasoned wood for your fire. Wet or unseasoned wood is harder to burn. (It will burn, though, so if it's an emergency, you can burn it wet.)
  • A simple trick to heat the column of cold air plugging up your fireplace/stove is making a fist-sized ball of kitchen or toilet paper. Put it on a plate or on some aluminium foil. Pour a sensible amount of alcohol over it and place it (use a pair of tongs to avoid dampening your fingers with alcohol) on top of your woodpile as near a possible to the flue( smoke duct ). Set it alight and close window or stove lid. After a little while, when the flue is warm you can light the definitive fire, starting from the bottom of the pile using several one-sheet-only newspaper balls.
  • If you're still having trouble with draft, it's possible your chimney isn't high enough. If you have a short chimney, try get a couple of extenders — usually you can get them from fireplace stores, or places where they sell masonry supplies. Use some roof patch to stick it to the existing chimney. You can also try taking off the spark arrestor — sometimes the tops are placed too close to the closed part. Use some mesh, like hardcloth over the top of the opening to catch larger sparks and embers, but leave the top off. This can also help a difficult draft situation.

Warnings

  • Be sure that your stovepipe/chimney and wood heater is properly cleaned and maintained. Checking for cracks once per year will ensure that you don't have fire escaping and igniting the frame of your home. That would not be good. Eliminating creosote buildup (oily soot) from the inside of the flue will keep you from suffering a chimney fire, which is a terrible thing — very hard to put out, and very destructive. See How to Inspect a Fireplace Chimney.
  • Be sure the draft is working correctly before lighting the fire.
  • Be very careful when using some fire accelerant to light a fire,there's always a risk of explosion, house fire and physical hazards.
  • Invest in a pair of fireproof gloves (welding gloves will work) in case a piece of burning wood falls out and you need to retrieve it immediately.
  • Do not leave a fire burning in your wood heater unattended. All sorts of unexpected things can happen — there can be a pocket of moisture or sap inside a log which can cause it to pop with the heat. If it pops violently, it could compromise the heater's door, and you can wake up to a nasty surprise.

Things You'll Need

  • Tinder like newspaper
  • Kindling
  • Wood
  • A device to start fires (matches, lighter, etc...)
  • Fireplace tools (poker, shovel, tongs, etc)

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