Saturday, 17 December 2022
Mending the fire
At the hairdresser today, Mrs H heard a term neither of us has heard for decades. The hairdresser was describing her solid fuel fire at home and mentioned 'mending the fire'. It's a term we were both familiar in the days of coal fires and no central heating, but we'd forgotten it for so long it now sounds a little odd.
Anyhow, the wood burner has been burning well but it needs mending so I'll chuck on another log.
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9 comments:
The advent of a new 'economic' grate for the family coal fire (in the late 50s) was a big improvement. Last thing at night you could close the front to the grate and top the coals with a layer of 'nutty slack' and the fire would keep in all night. Then first thing in the morning drop the front and give the coals a good poke and the fire would spring to life.
You could spread the fine ashes over the icy paths in winter too.
Interesting developments in the Rectory. We have an open fire which is OK but it smokes into the room a little bit, and of course it's nowhere near as good as a stove. The churchgoers have offered to pay for a woodburner, but Mrs. V. is against the idea as the money was initially raised for the church. They want me to arrange to install it secretly. I'm tempted.
I've never heard that one.
The thing I remember best was the coalman driving his lorry past our dining room window - for some reason he seemed to deliver at lunch time. As one, we children would recite "Aye, aye, Hector MacKay."
DJ - I think I remember those, but we didn't have one. I remember getting a faint glow to burn up by holding a sheet of newspaper across the fireplace to create a draught. Enjoyed that.
Sam - how about pushing the fuel efficiency angle? Ours uses remarkably little wood over about 4pm to 10pm which is when we usually have it going.
dearieme - I'm sure I've heard "Aye, aye, Hector MacKay" somewhere, but I've no idea where.
Sorry to pee on your kindling but wood is an inefficient fuel. That's why the shipping and trucking of it round the world before burning it in inefficient generating stations is so much green bollox.
Like DJ above, I always shovel some dust on the embers and it always lasts until the next morning!
We're extra lucky this year, as we were given a load of wood, which will see us out until Easter, and I also managed to get 120 pallets from a local building site, and cut them up for another winter's worth!
Our coal man is due this week, so he's up for a bottle too!
Jannie - I don't bother about efficiency, just price. I like stacking the logs, chopping them and burning them over winter. I even like cleaning the wood burner.
Scrobs - 120 pallets must have taken some cutting up. I one cut up one and found it a pain with all the nails.
Re newspaper: our sweep passed on a useful tip; just before lighting a fire in a cold hearth, burn a couple of sheets of newspaper in succession above the kindling to warm the air in the chimney and improve the draw. You all probably know that already, but it was news to us (the Spouse grew up with gas fires and my parents never let their fire go out in winter.)
Macheath - our sweep suggests a brief blast from a hair-dryer to warm the chimney. He uses one before doing a smoke test. I've never warmed the chimney before lighting the fire, although I do use small pieces of kindling and enough firelighters to get a blaze going quickly.
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