Our advice on the best way to light your fire
If your fire’s not burning well, it’s often just a matter of how it’s being lit. Before calling us out, try the steps below—they’re easy to follow and can really help your fire get going properly. Especially in the colder months, getting it right from the start means a warmer, safer home all winter long.
1.
Using 3-4 pieces of scrunched up newspaper, burn this off first with nothing in the firebox. Leave the door slightly ajar and the air control slide to high/full open. This is called 'priming' and helps create hot air to push the cold air up and out of the flue system. This starts the draw process.
2.
Once the newspaper has fully burnt off, start your fire like normal with a base of kindling, pine cones, newspaper/firelighters.
3.
Leave the door ajar and the air slide fully open/on high to get the fire roaring. We want the fire and flue to heat up as hot and as quickly as possible. Modern fires need to operate at 550-900 degrees celsius as the core, so we need to get up to this temperature asap. This should take 10-15 minutes.
4.
Once the fire is going, start adding more wood, not full logs yet, but small ones and continue to stoke it. Close the door but keep the air control slide fully open/on high.
5.
Once the small/medium sized logs have been well lit and established, put on a larger log and allow to catch fire, then you can start turning down the air slide if it has started heating up. This should be around the 30-45 minute mark.
6.
Keep refueling as the wood burns down. With each new piece of wood, turn the air slide to high/fully open to allow it to catch, then turn it down again after 3-5 minutes.
NOTE: Cold, frosty, still days are when its hardest to get a fire started - you will need to burn the fire harder and hotter to start the draw process as there is more cold air in the flue system that needs to be pushed out.
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Also, if you have a chimney where more than 50% of the chimney is located outside the roof, you will always have a harder time getting it up to temperature as the more of the flue is exposed to cold weather.
Get even more handy fire-lighting tips and watch a series of videos on the New Zealand Home Heating Association's website >