29 Sep 2020 Re-lighting your fire for the first time this autumn
Unfortunately, the summer is nearing its end, but to many, this brings a positive new season to our homes. One that allows us to curl up on the sofa each evening, watching the newest episode of your favourite series with the fire heating up your frost-bitten toes and giving out a feeling of warmth and love for winters return. However, before re-lighting your wood burner this year, there are some steps that you should take to ensure safety remains within your home, allowing you to receive the maximum benefit from your crackling fireplace.
Preparation
Before lighting the wood burner, refresh yourself and your family upon basic fire safety, informing each person of the steps to take when the fire is alight or, in the worst-case scenario, in case of a fire within your home. You may also wish to take assistance from a chimney sweep to ensure that, over the summer months, birds haven’t taken use of yours for nesting and that any debris has been cleared, allowing room for the safe lighting of your wood burner. If you hadn’t cleaned your fireplace out for summer, you may also wish to do this now.
It’s all in the flue
Now that safety has been recapped, your chimney has been cleared and your fireplace is fresh, your home is ready for the annual re-lighting of your wood burner. It is common for homes to experience rooms filled with smoke when completing this action each year, but we can teach you of a way to work around this, allowing for a smoother and more satisfying process to be carried out. It is all to do with the flue. By warming this up before lighting the fire fully, you can create the perfect environment for a wood burner to operate. The warm air will take itself up the flue, creating a draw at the bottom to feed the fire and creating the way to suck all smoke up through the flue and out the top of your clean chimney. To warm the flue, leave a small piece of kindling to burn out for around half an hour.
Re-lighting
As the flue will have been warmed thoroughly by use of the kindling, you may need to take additional care when lighting the fire fully as you may find that even without the use of a match, once additional kindling is laid, the wood burner may be able to light itself due to the heat. By using small, scrunched up sections of dry newspaper, place them in the same place as your kindling was. Step back for a moment to ensure that if it does re-light, you are a safe distance away. If it doesn’t, top the newspaper with some additional kindling in a cone shape. If, once again, the wood burner doesn’t light itself, use a long match to light the top of the cone and begin your wood burner’s successful first burn with minimal smoke.
For any further advice or assistance with your wood burner this winter, get in touch with our friendly team here at Fiveways Fires and Stoves by calling 020 8127 4747 or emailing us at where we will be happy to help you out.