Tips for lighting a cold stove?

It's all good ... so long as it works for you. I recall a story to relate - At Forestry school many years back our 'Fire' prof (Dr. Robert Steele) invited the class to his home for an evening and told us he was about to light a fire with one sheet of newsprint and 1 match and nothing else. We didn't say much but were keen to see what he was going to do. So he placed two splits aligned NS and crammed the crumpled up newspaper between them so the faces of the splits were like about an inch or less apart. He lit the paper at the front and we all watched intently - it worked and both pieces were burning away and like magic he had a good fire going. He explained that heat was the key factor. There was fuel and air - but the heat was trapped between the faces of the splits and the temperature spiked quickly and as they burned more heat was trapped and - just like that - fire. Probably not relevant but sure was interesting for us in his Fire Science class.

 

With dry wood, that works like a charm.
It's how I start most of my fires.

 

not applicable in all cases but in some. you can have negative air pressure in the house. i do in mine because my basement shop's exhaust fan sucks air from the upstairs and vents it out the basement wall. i crack a window near the stove or the front door for the first number of minutes when lighting the stove.
everybody figures out by process of elimination what's going to work with their setup.

 

Go slower......................like when the Mrs. isn't in the mood!!!

 

Relatively small pine splits crossed like a V with the point toward the back of the stove. Then a bunch of small stuff in the open end of the V. A piece or two of fatwood in front of the small stuff. Light it and close the door with the air control full open. The air flows front to back- the fatwood starts the small stuff, the small stuff catches the bigger stuff. The door is closed so no problems with smoke.

 

I do it alot like this but i use a propane torch pointed up the flue to start the draft. I live in a weird spot on a hill and if its windy i can have a bugger of a time. The super hot air from the torch works really well, i can watch it suck the smoke from the newsprint up the chimney......

 

We have to take a newspaper sheet and roll it tight then poke it over the lip of the smoke baffle and as far into the pipe as possible. Then lay in kindling and a bit of paper.
Light the twist in the pipe, when the airflow turns it does a little roar, that is when we light the paper and kindling.
My dad had a three story exterior double wall chimney, he took the clean out off the bottom and let it smoke out the bottom until the heat finally pushed up the whole stack.

 

It's called "Murphy's Law".