This is much easier to do before lighting a fire in there. Once you have determined that the damper is open, you are ready to get started.
Close the damper. This will stop the air from coming down and pushing the air into your living area. Put the block on the back of the fireplace shovel, light it and place it up inside the fireplace near the flue opening. What you are trying to do is to heat the upper part of the fireplace. Leave the flue damper closed at first to allow the fireplace to get to room temperature.
Crumple up four or five pages of newspaper into light bundles and place them on the grate as bedding. Don’t use too much, or you’ll generate a lot of unnecessary smoke. If you don’t have newspaper, you can use other Tinder to create flames. Tinder is light, dry material like dry moss, straw, tiny twigs, or newspaper that takes a spark. You can also use tinder that has sap in it, such as pieces of bark or pinecones. You can also use solid firestarters as tinder. Tinder catches fire first and burns very quickly. The key is to get enough tinder under the kindling so that the kindling begins to burn. Never use any kind of accelerant, such as lighter fluid, gasoline, or diesel when lighting a fire inside of the house.
Be sure to stack your kindling horizontally. This means laying it down flat, not standing it up on end. Additionally, leave gaps for air to pass through. Air is fuel to a fire. Stack it in layers, criss-crossed. Stack two or three larger pieces of kindling on top of the newspaper, and then two or three more pieces on top of those at a perpendicular angle, creating a kind of grid. Continue stacking smaller pieces of kindling onto the grid, each new levels perpendicular to the last.
Generally, opt for smaller logs over larger ones. Larger logs may look nicer and be more fun to burn, but they have larger surface areas, making them tougher to catch fire. Two logs that are the size of one is almost always preferable. Stack the wood at most to half of the height of the fireplace. You don’t want your fire to rage out of control when you light it, and you can always add more firewood as needed.
If the smoke from the chimney turns black, the fire is not getting enough oxygen. Use your fireplace poker to lift the wood stack carefully; just pry it up a little, like jacking up a car. Take care here — all you need to do is allow some air to get under it. If your bed of coals underneath the grate is too high, use the poker to spread them out under the fire, leaving a couple of inches of air space. If the smoke is grey, most of the combustible material is escaping through the chimney instead of burning. You probably did not light the fire from above. You may have used wet wood. The fire is getting too much oxygen. Yes, this is confusing - fire is a delicate balance of air and fuel. When there’s too much oxygen, the fire has a hard time catching hold of the fuel, and can make more smoke than normal.
If people are between the fireplace and window, they will be chilled because the fireplace will start to suck air up. It will start pulling hard from that window, which will create a stream of cold air running between the window and fireplace. Stay out of the way and let it go — sometimes if the chimney isn’t tall enough, this is the only way to get the draft running well and keep smoke out of the room. The rest of the room should stay warm, it’s just the draft path that will be a little chilly.
As the smaller wood catches and the fire burns hot, grab a larger, thigh-sized piece of wood. Put that on top of the fire carefully, being as certain as possible that the stack is not leaning side to side any direction. The bigger wood takes a while to catch fire, but once it does, it will burn a long time without you having to get up and stir it or move it around. The glowing embers will keep things hot, and you should be nice and toasty for a couple of hours this way. Make sure that the logs cannot roll out of the fireplace. Your fireplace should have a heavy mesh spar resist curtain or other protective piece in front of it. Never leave the fire unattended either, just in case.
This cross-bar will hold the other firewood and keep an air vent open where the fire can draw fresh air to feed it from underneath.
Make sure that the logs cannot roll out of the fireplace.
