Fireproof logs?

[Will C]

Only need to scare dry birch with a match to get a nice fire, a good size lump of oak on the other hand needs some encouragement to get away 🤔

 

If all the wood is dry it should just be a case of learning each woods burning caricatures to get the best out of it.

[Avinunca]

1 hour ago, coppice cutter said:

I find that the harder the wood, the slower it is to get going.

 

Is it possible that you're simply comparing the different burning characteristics of two completely different types of wood?

An hour to get a fire going does seem a little slow and not very comfortable. Looks like I need to generate a lot of heat in the woodburner. 

[topchippyles]

46 minutes ago, Avinunca said:

An hour to get a fire going does seem a little slow and not very comfortable. Looks like I need to generate a lot of heat in the woodburner. 

Pickup a bag of instant lighting charcoal from home bargain's that should get the fire going for you

 

[Avinunca]

I was going to try using a lot more kindling but will try the charcoal if that fails - thank you.

[John Skinner]

If you're really struggling to get things going. Try lighting with a simple butane blowtorch. A quick and easy solution. You can pick them up (the trigger) online cheaply and the canisters can be bought in most shops; including Home Bargains.

 

You really shouldn't need to use a load of kindling to get it going. I lit mine this morning with 8 small strips of kindling, 1 firelighter, a screwed-up bit of paper and 2 mid sized logs.

 

5 bits of kindling on the base of the stove. 2 logs placed on that. Paper put in between. Firelighter in the middle of the paper. 3 bits of kindling on top of that. Light it, shut the door and walk away. Job done.

[coppice cutter]

10 hours ago, Avinunca said:

An hour to get a fire going does seem a little slow and not very comfortable.

Not really, a proper woodburner needs a wee while to get in to it's stride properly.

 

I always start off with smaller stuff, not just to get it lit, but it'll also burn away quicker and form a good bed of embers which seems to be crucial to them going well

 

Throwing a big chunk or two of hardwood on at an early stage isn't going to get you good heat in a hurry in my experience. If you want heat quickly you need to split a few bits down smaller, or get a consignment of softwood as well to use first and then the hardwood after it's going well.

[GarethM]

As coppice says, best to split logs down into much smaller pieces to start the fire.

 

Learning how to build a fire takes time & experience, people just assume a log will turn into a roaring forest fire.

 

Kindling plus a log split into pieces a little larger than kindling, then slightly larger until there is a good ember layer for your larger logs.

 

Even then just because it's a log size doesn't mean you shouldn't split it smaller.

[neiln]

As said, is it's properly dry then it's down to learning what it needs in your stove top burn well.  I like lots of paper (16 pages of tabloid size), lots of kindling (a dozen bits, some small, some larger) and a couple of smaller logs.  I'll let the stove roar for a good while, get it hot and the flue hot.  Then load a couple of bigger logs and enjoy.   Birch is very easy to get going... Very easy to split and dries fast too.... Anyone got any birch arisings they want rid of? 🤣

[Avinunca]

 I was used to the Home Bargains birch logs lighting extremely easily and assumed there was an issue with the new logs delivered to me. I used a lot of kindling today and put a thin log on top initially. This got the fire going a treat. I only had a very small amount of kindling left in the house before I bought more today.  I bought some charcoal too but it wasn't needed.

Thanks to everyone offering advice.

[trigger_andy]

You really need to have a mix of firewood. Burning solely de se hardwood is always going to be a struggle. I tend to get my Stoves up to temp with Softwood, Birch, Cherry and get a nice bed of ash then start to introduce the denser hardwoods like Ash, Beech and Oak but still mix in the Softwoods and easier to burn hardwoods