Winter is here, start your fires the right way

Slow burning and high heat are the two qualities you should be looking for in your firewood. In general, density and dryness are the properties to look for in your timber. We legally source aged red ironbark-species which is in abundance in Southern Queensland and share both these properties. It’s important that you correctly start your fire to avoid smoking out your own home and your neighbours. Since red-ironbark is a dense timber you want to make sure you start your fire with small kindling and build up to bigger logs. White smoke emits when your fire is not hot enough to burn the gasses emitted from the firewood. If you’re using a combustion fireplace, make sure that you’re getting plenty of air flow to the fire (fan on and air slide open) until white smoke is no longer visible and you can see your firewood is glowing red hot. From here build it up. Once you’ve worked your way up to bigger logs you can turn the fan off to save on electricity. Gradually you can close the air slide once your fire is burning hot so you are using your firewood efficiently. If you have multiple logs on the fire make sure you leave a gap between them so air can get to the surface of your wood. It’s important that you don’t let your fire smoulder as the white smoke has a negative impact on the environment…if you want to put out the fire open the air slide so the timber will burn out quickly and only place wood on the fire that you plan to use. Learn your fireplace and its functions (i.e. mine has two fan speeds and the air slide). You should be able to find manuals online for your particular fireplace. It’s even more important for those using fire pits to stop the white smoke quickly so since there’s no chimney to direct the smoke and you’ll smoke out your neighbours. Learn to start your fire properly and avoid using anything that emits toxic fumes. I also recommend learning to safely use an axe. This is handy for splitting up your firewood to suitable sizes when you’re building your fire. If you want a splitting block (a big round block for splitting on) let us know when you order, no promises but we might have one in stock that we’ll put in your load. Furthermore, don’t hesitate to ask us any questions about starting your fire correctly.