Does any one make their own fire starters for their wood stoves, if so, what do you use.

DEX

Want the simple life? Heating with wood, raising your own food, down home farm cooking. Visit our HOMESTEADING site at: news:alt.discuss.clubs.public.home.gardening.tillerbill (webtv only)

-- DEX (BCDEX@WEBTV.NET), December 23, 2001

Answers

My hubbie makes what he calls "boyscout kindling". It's sawdust with Kerosene. Just moisten the sawdust with the Kerosene and store in container. Use a handful/cupful - and poof!

-- Michelle in NM (naychurs_way@hotmail.com), December 23, 2001.

Hello Dex,

I heat my home and hot water with wood. I just break off the tips of pine branches around my land and light them with a match. They burn almost like they have fuel on them. This is the way I learned to start camp fires as a boy scout and it still works pretty good even when it is raining outside.

Sincerely,

Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), December 23, 2001.

A handful or two of newpaper strips and some small sticks are all that is usually needed.

-- AyleeAnn (AyleeAnn@hotmail.com), December 23, 2001.

I keep a little cardboard around for stubborn starts. Take a box and tear it up into pieces about 6" square. Three or four pieces will usually get things going.

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), December 23, 2001.

Regarding what Michelle suggested about the kerosene/sawdust mixture, make sure the container you store it in is very well sealed or the kerosene will evaporate.

There is such a thing as a fuel fairy (none of you need to worry about this, since it lives full-time in my garage), which introduces microscopic fissures in every container I store volatile substances in. It's unbelievably annoying when you need to use something and it's run out of gas (literally).

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@mm2k.net), December 23, 2001.

Fat lighter which is pine heartwood so saturated with sap that a small stick of it is enough to get a fire started pretty easily.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), December 23, 2001.

We save all the old egg cartons. Put crumbled newspaper then an egg carton, small kindling wood and then a piece or two of larger wood and light the paper. Works well for us.

-- Irene Burt (renienorm@aol.com), December 23, 2001.

My sister makes us some with pine cone in paper baking cup with wax poured over it. I save the paper egg cartons, fill with dryer lint and put a little wax over that. They also work w/o the wax. The egg cartons break apart.

-- DW (djwallace@sotc.net), December 23, 2001.

Dry your citrus peels in a slow oven. The aromatic oil evaporates and makes your house smell good, but other natural oils stay in the peel and make it burn hot on top of some crumpled up newspaper as a fire starter. Doesn't even matter if the peel turns black in the oven - it will still burn fiercely when lit.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), December 24, 2001.

"We save all the old egg cartons. Put crumbled newspaper then an egg carton, small kindling wood and then a piece or two of larger wood and light the paper. Works well for us.

-- Irene Burt (renienorm@aol.com), December 23, 2001."

A VARIATION:

Cardboard egg carton. . .find some dryer lint from somewhere. . .melt wax on top of that. . .voila!

-- me (justlurking@nothere.com), December 24, 2001.

First off, news:alt.discuss.clubs.public.home.gardening.tillerbil is not a site!!! Its a newsgroup, Its also availiable to all, not just web tv.

As for making your own starters. I use cardboard egg cartons, Toss in some sawdust, small kingling, some old candle wax and drier lint. You can alos mix in some kero with the wax if you want to make it more windproof.

-- Gary (gws@columbus.rr.com), December 24, 2001.

Newspapers work just fine, but I really like "Fatwood" sticks, which are inexpensive, and available here at Walmart.

-- Phyllis (tmblweed@wtrt.net), December 24, 2001.

If your woodstove is a certified one with catalytic converters, you will probably ruin the converter and thus its clean-burning ability if you use substances like wax or kerosene, etc. Cedar is a great starter, and we try to use all cedar for kindling.

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), December 24, 2001.

toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, newspaper.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), December 24, 2001.

what Ernest said. Pine, spruce, fir branches with the needles on.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), December 24, 2001.

Drier lint is probably okay if you are washing and drying all natural fibers, but the manmade stuff may be putting some unknown pollutants in the air. Just a thought.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), December 24, 2001.

Pine Cones.

-- Scott in Florida (allbeds@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

I read this off of one of Len McDougall's books. . .

Melt some canning wax, dip cotton string (not the thin stuff; the stuff like for curtains)into it, hang, and cut into 1" lengths. You can literally make hundreds of these for less than a buck. I use these for starting fire; each one will burn at least 90 seconds, easy. Light like a candle, and are already waterproofed to boot. 50 or so will fit in a 35mm film cannister. REAL Handy.

-- j.r. guerra (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), December 26, 2001.

I wlways thought it best to involve myself with un-necessary, and smelly incendaries. A flint and steel will light a fire in any weather, all you need is something to catch a spark in (charred cotton denim works well to catch a spark, and create a coal) Before you begin, be sure to have kindling these sizes, a handfull or so so match sized peices or shavings, five handfulls of pencil to finger size peices, four or five wrist sized pieces, and a couple of fourarm sized peices. Remember that heat rises, and that fire likes a moderate amount of oxygen. The hottest part of a fire is usually invisible, and immediately abpve the flame. Add your fuel smallest to biggest, and by the time you go bigger than forearm size, you can pretty much burn any wet wood thing you want, not that I'd be recommending you burn wet things in a woodstove.

-- roberto pokachinni (pokachinni@yahoo.com), December 26, 2001.

plastic milk jug. the white ones, not the yellow. might not be ecologically correct, but one jug will start a small log burning.

-- Jim Martin (sevenj@penn.com), January 04, 2002.