Starting your fire

[Frances]

Re: Starting your fire

Poor armadillo...
The argument about reducing smoke I can appreciate. The one about being safe even more so...

But seriously, being able to light a fire without accelerants is cool, learning to get it just right and improving your skill. In fact, after this discussion I'm severely tempted to try the thing with rubbing two sticks together...

[Archena]

Re: Starting your fire

Other than wet wood in a survival situation or charcoal 'cause it's annoying I really never saw the need for an accelerant - heck, with those cool charcoal chimneys I don't even need lighter fluid for that anymore!

And on the 'low tech but still cheating' end - birthday candles! Shave the bottom end a bit, light both ends and lay under the tender - works wonderfully. You could use a tea-light but I wouldn't - they take four hours to burn normally and in a hot fire you're likely gonna have a running mess - and molten aluminum if you forget to take off the holder!

Sigh - I have to go buy a cross-cut saw - I can't get to mine right now and I have a tree limb down. Free firewood!!!!

And for the 'do it the hard way' minded: Wildwood Survival - Fire from a Can of Coke and a Chocolate Bar

[fullback66]

Re: Starting your fire

Try dryer lint. works great.
FREE, SAFE, PLENTY OF IT.

Tell me what you think.
fb66

[asudavew]

Re: Starting your fire

Try dryer lint. works great.
FREE, SAFE, PLENTY OF IT.

Tell me what you think.
fb66

Ill try it.
Does it smell.?


And dont forget the oxygen.
An air compressor will stoke it right up@!!@#

[jazzfan]

Re: Starting your fire

Try dryer lint. works great.
FREE, SAFE, PLENTY OF IT.

Tell me what you think.
fb66

Don't have a drier. What about belly-button lint?

[james]

Re: Starting your fire

Try dryer lint. works great.
FREE, SAFE, PLENTY OF IT.

Tell me what you think.
fb66

Go on. I won't believe until I try it -- which should be tomorrow. The dryer is running as I write.
James

[Archena]

Re: Starting your fire

Don't have a drier. What about belly-button lint?

It's probably not a good idea to stick a lighted match into your bellybutton.

[jazzfan]

Re: Starting your fire

It's probably not a good idea to stick a lighted match into your bellybutton.

Probably not a good idea to stick a lighted match in your clothes drier either

[fullback66]

Re: Starting your fire

Belly button lint might work. Toe jam is defiantly out. If you sprinkle a little dandruff on the lint LOOK OUT, it will blow up your oven.
I learned from experiance!!!
happy firing.
fb66

[Richie]

Re: Starting your fire

It takes a long time to read 9 pages of posts so I'm sorry if this has been suggested before. I use a small butane torch made by BernzOmatic that traditionally is used to soder I believe. I use it to ignite the small twigs on the bottom of my "tepee" and then keep it going for about 5 minutes and presto, big stuff is burning

You can find it at Lowe's and places like that.

BernzOmatic?
Trigger Start Torch Kit

Sorry if this was posted years ago, but that is a whole bunch of reading that cuts into drinking time.

[Frances]

Re: Starting your fire

They're selling these things to start your fire around here:

THIMA GmbH Naturbrennstoffe | Swissflame Holzbriketts Rindenbriketts Holzpellets

Looks pretty ingenious to me...

[Archena]

Re: Starting your fire

It looks like tightly rolled up raffia to me.

[oventhusiast]

Re: Starting your fire

I get the newspaper and twigs going then lay my heatgun on low at the mouth of the oven on the floor and it looks like a blast furnace! An old hair dryer would probably work just as good. Good ole' Oxygen!
Rick

[jpmanley]

Re: Starting your fire

I have a very low tech and non accellerant fuel method to start any fire that I build, and I teach the method to all customers that I build masonry heaters and bakeovens for, and anyone that will listen.

We call it the Top down burn, and it is the cleanest burning (as in no clouds of smoke) method to get your appliance's firebox up to speed. Fire start up is typically the dirtiest part of a burn, untill it gets up to speed.

I start by laying the larger diameter pieces of properly dried and stored firewood side by side and parallel to the length of the firebox/oven. Then I add another layer of wood, the pieces smaller in diameter, and perpendicular to and across the top of the first course, sort of log cabin style. Keep the pieces of wood fairly close alongside each other.
I continue adding layers of gradually smaller diameter pieces of wood, finishing it off on top with nice dry kindling. I bring home free scrap lumber from job sites and/or collect dry pine cones from my woods. You can even buy a bundle of low grade cedar shingles for pretty cheap at Home Cheapo.
I then simply light the top.
The fire starts small, and within about 10 minutes, assuming that you are using nice dry and properly dried and stored firewood, there is a fully involved fire going.
The theory is that the wood ignites down the stack of wood when they are hot enough and ready to start to out-gassing.
Just check out your chimney top with a typical start up with lots of newspaper , kindling or an accellerant. Very smoky! Try the top down burn and you will see virtually nothing but steam coming out the chimney.
I have not used newspaper to start any fires (and I have 2 masonry heaters that I use every winter to heat my home and shop, one indoor bakeoven, and one outside pizza oven) in many years, and I have never used an accelerant, just well processed and stored firewood.


Just another comment. I noticed somewhere else on this forum is a suggestion that you load the wood for the next oven firing into the oven to really dry the wood for the next firing.
Don't do it.
It is a false economy as it is taking the stored heat from your oven to dry the wood, heat that you will have to replace in the next firing. No gain.
It is also dangerous and very polluting.

I drove by a bakery years ago that uses a bread bakeoven that I built them a few years prior. I noticed that there were clouds of blueish brown smoke (like from a damped down air tight woodstove) pouring out of the chimney. I stopped by and the owners were not at home. I checked out the oven, and there was no fire glow behind the door. I opened the door and I was looking at a pile of smoking wood being cooked into charcoal. I was very lucky that it did not ignite and blow up in my face.

[Archena]

Re: Starting your fire

Um, I think the using the oven to dry the next load assumes you were firing for some other reason and that you load the wood after you had finished cooking to take advantage of the 'leftover' heat. I'm pretty sure they meant already drying wood and not straight up green.

The top down sounds interesting but I don't see how it would reduce outgassing. Anyway, I may try it tonight - I found building a fire in my firebowl while I'm working in the cold outside makes things nicer - plus I have a ton of yard waste that needs to go bye-bye.