Tips on Starting a Fire
Collect your materials:
**starter material - newspaper or a firestarter (Kindle Candle or pressed wood product). This should ignite immediately upon contact with flame. Newspaper should be LOOSELY crumbled, not packed tight.
**Kindling - finger-sized pieces of softwood or fatwood. These should ignite within 15-30 seconds of contact with flame.
**Small firewood - no larger than your forearm. 1-2 pieces maximum to start. This should ignite and burn within 1-3 minutes of contact with flame.

Open the damper. Reach into fireplace and feel for the draft. Is there air flowing up or do you feel a draft coming down the chimney?
Lay your fire - Lay the starter material on the grate (or under, in the case of a Kindle Candle), followed by the kindling and ONE OR TWO small pieces of firewood. Air should be able to circulate freely under and around the materials, but there should not be a “log cabin” on the grate - materials built up with a large hollow space in the center.
Draft up - light your fire and enjoy!
Draft down - open a window or door in the same room as the fireplace, on the windward side of the house (air should be coming in through the window, not flowing out). Wait 15-30 seconds. If the draft has not been corrected, twist a piece of newspaper tightly into a wick, light it, and stick the burning end close to or into the damper opening. When you can see the flame ‘reaching’ into the flue, use your wick to light your fire.
Wait until the fire is burning vigorously before adding more wood.

Factory built fireplaces should not have fires of more than 3 logs at any one time. Masonry fireplaces, depending on their size, may be able to contain a larger fire.

Please remember that, for the most part, fireplaces are not intended as a heat source for your home. They are aesthetic in nature and should not be used as a replacement for a whole-house heating system (like a furnace or electric heat). If you need greater heat output, consider a wood-burning stove or a wall-mounted propane heater.



Problems:
If the previously described process does not result in a properly drafting chimney (that is, smoke going UP not down), please note the following:
**How often does the problem occur?
**What are the weather conditions? Is it windy, snowing/raining, damp, dry, extremely cold, warm?
**What appliances are installed in the home?

Dryers, kitchen and bathroom fans, and power-vented furnaces all remove air from the building and can decrease the inside pressure of the home. When these are in use, particularly in a well built or ‘tight’ home, they can tip the pressure balance enough to cause the chimney to act as a source for make-up air, by drawing fresh air down into the home. In effect, the house attempts to 'breathe in' through the chimney.

Is the fire being started small (as described in “Starting A Fire“) or were many logs or large logs added early on in the fire?

Make note of all the above information and call us with your answers. We may be able to assist you from the office, or we can make an appointment to come and perform an evaluation of the situation and provide recommendations.