Here’s a quick post I’ve been meaning to put up for a while. It describes the “top down” method of lighting a fire in a wood burner. Like my parents before me, I used to light my fire “bottom up”, that is by first setting fire to some small kindling using scrunched-up newspaper (or later a fire-lighter cube), then gradually building the fire by adding increasingly larger pieces of wood. This requires that you have an assortment of different sized wood prepared, that you keep a careful watch on the fire to ensure it doesn’t burn too low lest it die out, and that you have to keep opening the door to add wood to a fire which is still cold and smokey, inevitably letting smoke into the room. At least that was my experience, as supported by the dirty ceiling that I used to have above my wood burner burner. But then eight years ago, whilst browsing a book called Norwegian Wood (by Lars Mytting) in a local bookshop, I chanced upon a description of the top-down, or Norwegian, method of fire lighting. This vastly superior method starts with a platform of full-sized logs (i.e. the size that you would stoke the fire with once fully ablaze) across the bottom of the firebox. On top of this platform of logs you set fire to some kindling. Then you shut the door, and when you come back one or two hours later you have a clean burning roaring fire ready to be restoked. No smoke comes into the room because the fire is already burning cleanly. In addition, far less smoke goes up the chimney because the logs below are heated by the fire above. The smoke and unburnt gasses they initially give off have to pass through the fire above where they have a chance to burn. This is in contrast to bottom-up fire lighting where the logs are heated from below, and their unburnt gasses and smoke go straight up the chimney. I must admit that when I first read this description I wondered if it could possibly work. But after I tried it, I found it so superior to the old method that I wondered why I had never heard about it before. Maybe I was the only poor schmuck who was still bottom-up fire lighting? Well, I have since asked many people (here in New Zealand at least) how they light their fire, and so far, every one of them was using the bottom-up method. And so I was inspired to write this post in the hope of spreading the word so that others may benefit from it as I have.
To illustrate the method, I took some pictures of starting a fire in my wood burner.
Start with a row of logs on the bottom. I lay a couple of stick across them with a fire-lighter in between.
I light the fire-lighter and then lay some more sticks over the top of it. I’ve put a third row on here, but I have found that just one row across the top is sufficient.
With my burner, I like to leave the door slightly ajar for a minute to create a strong air draw and ensure that the kindling is burning before shutting the door. Don’t forget to open the air vent fully.
Only 20 minutes after lighting the fire the logs are ablaze. At this point I usually push the air vent in slightly to slow the burn. I can now leave the fire for another 1-2 hours before restoking.
Once Around the Block 