Britannia Ovens (esp Range cookers) your experience

[Charlottechicken]

I've been saving my loo roll tubes to make firelighters (with a little old candle wax and tumble dryer fluff) but my mother has decided that she can tightly pack them with rolled newspaper and make logs for me. I also have some very old cotton sports socks which need to go in the bin and was thinking of stuffing these with the fluff and using as firelighters instead.

 

Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn't burn these items when I get my stove?

 

Does anyone have any other ideas as to what could be used as fuel or firelighters in a stove (besides the obvious) without causing a potential pollution problem?

[The Dogmother]

No reason at all Claire. I sometimes use shredded paper from work as well, or old bills, torn up. Twisted newspaper makes good firelighters too.

 

I have a stash of kindling from when I took down old fence panels in the garden and smashed them up, next door's old shed made good kindling too.

[Cinnamon]

I have a nice big box of spent company bank statements & reciepts which I am going to burn this year with great happiness

 

We mainly burn old window frames as we tend to get a lot of those!

[The Dogmother]

I just burned all my confidential waste Sarah

 

Incidentally, does OH get any old Victorian front doors? I am looking for a 2'6" one.

[Cinnamon]

No,not really & if he does they are usually in such a bad state that they are fit for nothing.

Most of the stuff we replace is more modern (60's onwards) & poorly made,so needs replacing often. The older stuff is so much better made that we don't get to replace it!

[The Dogmother]

Shame, I am looking to replace my 1970s (ghastly) front door with a proper Victorian one to go with the house.

[Olly]

I have a 'log' maker like this - you make tubes of newspaper and pack them with shredded paper, they burn really quickly and make a lot of ash but they are very good for starting the fire, and getting rid of confidential papers. You do have to consider what's going up the chimney - don't burn stuff which may give off fumes, e.g. painted or treated wood, or woodchip, and don't burn plastic. The only trouble with paper is the amount of ash and soot it creates.

[The Dogmother]

I always burn a really hot fire after burning paper - that clears the soot out.

[Daphne]

We collect so much light cardboard packaging and paper feed sacks to burn over the summer that the house looks quite disreputable at this time of year. I find that tightly scrunched/rolled paper is slow burning and tends to get hotter and leave less debris, but I need a bit of looser stuff to get the fire going as well.

[The Dogmother]

I tend to use a couple of sheets of scrumpled up newspaper under the firelighters/kindling, that lights instantly and gets it going nicely.

[Aunty e]

We use all our old papers and bills as firelighters. After the trouble we had last year learning how to light a fire, my tried and trusty method this year is to scrunch up paper and completely cover the bottom of the stove with balls of it, then chuck a couple of bits of kindling on top, three bits of wood and light the paper. Works beautifully, but it helps if there's a decent bed of ash in the stove. We find card doesn't burn very well and makes a mess in the stove, but paper seems fine.

 

As for Victorian doors, I would heartily recommend you get someone to make you a reproduction one - it'll be much toastier. http://www.stained-glass-studio.co.uk/Reproduction%20period%20doors.htm

 

Our 30's semi has a pair of VILE patio doors as the front door, and I was going to have a big front door and sidelight put in to replace it. But then I spotted my neighbour having exactly that done and chucking the original 30's doors in a SKIP! They have the stained glass and everything! Anyway, needless to say they're now in my garage awaiting the attentions of a carpenter