North Park Homestead

Ever since I was a kid, I used rolled up, twisted newspaper and kindling to start fires in the fireplace.  For the first half season with the wood stove, I followed tradition.  But sometimes, especially with imperfectly seasoned wood, the fire just didn’t take off.  And something about the stove’s small firebox made it more difficult to rekindle smoldering wood.

Then,  like any dealer with a quality product  – try it  – you’ll like it – first one’s free -you’ll be hooked, the proprietor of Super Cedar Firestarters offered up some free samples in one of the discussion groups at hearth.com.  I’m hooked.  Just half of one of these gaines-burgers practically guarantees a rockin’ blaze.  It has the side benefit of much less ash to clean out, which is a big plus, given how little my stove is.

Check their site every now and then or get on their mailing list. They do have special offers on super cedars occasionally, which make them an even better deal.

There’s something primal and deeply satisfying about the heat from a fire – listening to the crackle, watching the flames dance and flicker. But open fireplaces are often a negative heat source as they suck a huge column of warm air up and out and generate just the local radiant heat – warm faces, cold backs.

My first attempt at wood heat efficiency was an after-market heat-a-lator. It’s a replacement fireplace grate that uses tubes and convection to circulate heated air into the room.  It has an optional blower to really kick out the BTU’s.  We used it for a year.  It helped, but I wanted more.

I spent a long time reading around on hearth.com learning about the different kinds of fireplace inserts and free-standing woodstoves.  Since San Diego winters really aren’t that brutal and I didn’t want to do a major install, I focused on the small stoves that could be vented through the chimney.  I preferred the look of the free-standing stoves, but there weren’t too many that would fit in our tiny fireplace.  Jøtul F 100 Nordic QT would fit and I really liked both the look and the quality ratings.  They were available locally at The Warm Hearth in La Mesa.  I had it installed by Jan at ChimTech who came highly recommended by several sources.  We’ve been loving it ever since.