How To Make Your Own Fire Starters

Originally posted December 27, 2013

For many in my area, we heat with wood and one thing we talk about is how difficult it is at times to get the fire started.  If you were to ever come to my home you would see toilet paper rolls lined up in the bathroom and find bags of them by the fire – this is also a conversation starter – “why do you have all those toilet paper rolls.” Home-made fire-starters is the answer! I have shared this with many around these here parts, so I have decided to re-post this. These are the best fire starters and so easy to make!

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We heat our house with a wood burning stove. It is almost the end of December and we have not turned our heat on yet.  Some mornings it is a bit chilly in the bedrooms, but not enough for me to turn the electric heat on and pay that bill.  The wood is stored outside under tarps and I usually have enough wood around the stove for about 3 days – but there are days when I have great difficulty getting the fire started.  Even though I let the wood heat and dry by the fire – some of the wood is still wet and that makes it super hard to get the fire started.  I use paper, burnable mail and I do have a stash of fat wood – but I wanted to find something else to get my fires started.  I did some research and found that lint, wax and toilet paper rolls make great starter material.  We always save out toilet paper rolls, Stella collects all the wax from our candles (why – I don’t know – but I am glad she does, but when I asked her for it, she said she threw it away – ugh!!) and for the lint – I put a call out to friends and family to start collecting for me.  We dry our clothes in the warmer months on the line outside and in the colder months on a line by the fire.  We do have a dryer but I try not to use it.

Fire Starters

Firestarter done

Items Needed

Lint from your dryer or cotton balls
Toilet paper rolls or paper egg cartons
Wax or crayons
Old saucepan

1. Stuff your toilet paper rolls or the egg carton with lint – don’t’ pack too tightly.

Firestarter stuffed

2. Melt the wax or crayons on the stove.  Since we no longer had Stella’s bag of wax – I used a broken candle and it finally made me take out the small part of candle holders around the house.  I also tried crayons since we had a bag of broken ones.

Firestarter waxFirestarter crayons

3. Pour the wax over the lint in the egg cartons or with the toilet paper rolls you can dip the whole thing into the wax.  I poured some wax into one side of the rolls and then flipped over and poured into the other side.

Firestarter pouring eggFirestarter pouring tubes

4. Allow to dry.  For the toilet paper rolls – set on wax paper to dry.  For the egg cartons either place on wax paper or on a cookie/baking sheet.

Firestarter poured

5. If using the egg cartons – after the wax has dried cut up – with each egg holder becoming a fire starter.

With the wax and lint – this should burn at least 5 minutes or more – enough time to get that fire going!

 

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3 Responses to How To Make Your Own Fire Starters

  1. Candace says:

    What a fun post! It was fun to see how this works. Really quite amazing. I’m sure you’re happy to have these and get the stove going quickly!! You are one ingenious person. : )

  2. Jo says:

    Wow, is right. I am so impressed. I buy these for our wood oven!

  3. Deborah Wilhelm says:

    I remember you telling me about this so I’ve been giving you our toilet paper rolls but I’d forgotten you needed dryer lint so I’ll start saving that for you also 🙂

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