Maybe there is strong potential to ‘out man’ the other guys at the fireplace with this obviously superior method, which has its own level of enjoyment for the man-boy…. The best way to do something that is often counter-intuitive.”. It worked GREAT!!! It can be done, every time, but it requires forgetting everything you’ve learned about starting fires…. The upside down is a great fire because it give less smoke. This makes a super, long-lasting, self-feeding fire. These logs are lit as the flame consumes the fuel wood and transfers heat down to this base layer. Also, there was almost no smoke back-draft and house kinda smelled like Cracker Barrel. A lifetime lesson well received! thanks Tim. haha! I don’t know if you allow URLs in your comments, but here is the wikipedia article on it. I have noticed that some bricks are laid upside down without mortar inside … Glad to hear it worked for you! How It Works. One reason they want to promote this method is that far fewer pollutants and fine particles (PM10) are given off. The first time, I was skeptical to the point that I gave up after the first died out. Although the top down fire seems completely backwards at first, once you try one it will quickly become your favorite choice. Good stuff, thanks again to Tim for putting it in the mainstream! Simply sweep or vacuum the cold ashes and dispose of them outside. Love this and ensures making fires is more of a pleasure than chore babysitting the initial flames. Awesome, Son of Liberty! I have a fireplace that I haven’t used. It is then lit off from the top and bums downward. A top-down burn, sometimes called an upside-down fire, allows for a cleaner burn, and makes the best use of the fireplace, producing less smoke in the process. Upside down fires also produce more heat than traditional fire-starting methods while greatly reducing the amount of smoke caused by the fire, which can be one of the more frustrating aspects of fireplaces. And it’s damn cold at the moment…. The little tiny teepee was gone, but we still got a laugh. I never would have thought it, being so ingrained by “those in the know”, and camping all my life. It freaking works better than described. Regards. 1. It did start slow, so I added a clementine box and extra kindling to get it started. Since 99% of the fires used in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are for individual cooking fires (Teepee for a quick boil or Log Cabin for frying), yes, they teach ways that burn out quick and are easy to extinguish. These coals are excellent for most cooking purposes. You take four smaller pieces of wood which you stack with some space in the middle. Let us know how it goes for you. Normally my fire dies because we often forget about it after it’s lit. I got about 5 hours out of a 50% smaller stack of wood than this in our large woodstove. I live in Georgia (USA), where wood is by far the cheapest and most abundant heating fuel. Because you light the fire at the top of the firebox, the kindling warms the flue and gets the chimney pulling air upwards. Keep up the amazing”ness” (Owen Wilson, “You, Me, and Dupress,” couple years ago). Pingback: How to Build an Upside-Down Fire | A Better Man Bloomed? I am going to try this in my wood stove for my overnight fire. ft room (rather than use my gas furnace) and I have yet to find a method that works reliably all the time without a lot of fussing. Joined: 14 Oct 2012 Messages: 123 Thanks Received: 7 Location: Hertfordshire Country: I have made my fireplace recess bigger by taking several bricks off in order to be able to accomodate a woodburner. OK, I admit it. Start off by stacking your large fuel logs on the bottom of the fire grate. 17 Comments. Worked like a charm the first try! Remember, this layer has to be large enough to generate enough coals and heat to ignite the logs below it. Wood shavings can substitute for the paper in this fire lay. But you may want to keep a few ashes around to help build a fire in your fireplace. Prime the flue. Tried it last evening – produced a great fireplace fire. I can get a solid hour out of a medium-large coffee can full of wood pieces no bigger than my thumb, and you’re left with a tiny bit of white ash at the end. I have used this method twice now. Thanks for the info on the fire-I appreciate it! 1) Put the largest logs at the bottom, ensuring there is no space at all between them. The upside-down fire produces and projects much more heat than a standard tipi fire. Apparently this new method has been around for a long time, it’s just that it needs to be made popular again. Logs would have some gaps anyway because of their natural irregular shape. Enjoy London, I sure did enjoy their pubs. As you can see in the fourth picture you place everything on top. When you look at it from a forest perspective its the same thing. With a good bed of coal you can: With a traditional fire you would need to set up your teepee or log cabin and as they got burning need to continually feed it larger and larger logs to get a nice bed of coals going. We used this top-down firemaking method all the time for our woodstove when we lived in Upstate New York and it works just as well for woodstoves too. Thus, I get to enjoy (not) the smoke from their fires. HA! While my wood stove is large enough to keep a fire going most of the night, it does nearly go out by time to get up in the early morning, leaving only coals and a chilly house. Doing the whole “light a newspaper and hold it high in the flue” trick didn’t do anything more than blow smoke from the newspaper back in my face. Second picture: In NARROW AND HIGH fire-places place the wood upstanding with the cut (open) side to the top. . Once again build 1-3 layers of small fuel wood up with each being perpendicular to the last layer and slightly smaller thickness. I find that when I get back to mother nature like, a fire, or by water, or out in the woods, under the stars, I become more, In a day an age when most people are telling themselves that they do, not have enough time to work-out, let alone come up with million $$$. Gotta do something in the off-season!). No management – once it in process, assuming you don’t have gaps between logs, it will burn beautifully for 3-7 hours, depending on the amount of wood used. LOL! It works perfectly but it is important to have dry wood. What you’ve covered is essentially a small exhibit of why forest fires can get so hot and out of control. That’s great, Tim… but as Mr. With appliances now being more efficient not as much heat is lost up the chimney and more radiated into the room. Thanks for another interesting article, Tim. It does take a little practice to get right and you do have to use dry firewood to make it successful. The tinder burns in a flash and the sticks never catch fire. I wonder how this would work in a wood stove, where you want it to keep burning past the 8 hours. I'm gonna show it to you in the fireplace so I don't build my glass but if you know force make sure you set up a bunch of box or something so you don't burn the forest so what you wanna do is sit up. Being from Quebec, I’m always on the lookout for a better way to start a fire! Thanks for reminding me about the Council Fire lay. Have you built an upside down fire before? Certainly when we build fires we want to try to be as environmentally sound as possible since timber is not the most efficient heat source. Enjoy the warmth and reap the rewards of a better method, as counter-intuitive as it might be. The Upside Down Fire. p.s. Add a layer of smaller logs, then kindling and loosely bunched newspaper–all the way up to the top of the firebox, leaving only a couple inches of space. The largest, longest pieces of wood should be placed on the floor of the fireplace to form a base for the fire. Enjoy! I’ve just tried this method in our new firebox (much to my husbands dismay ). You are going to lay your base layer of logs down in the next step so you will want your pit clear of debris and as level as possible so the fire you build will not topple over as you build it up. It’s less than you’d use over 1/3 the total burn time with the tipi method, but it makes it largely impractical for outdoor survival purposes. As the fire burns each layer that you built should ignite the next one down all the way to your base layer of logs. This past weekend The Bug Out Bag Guide Family hosted a barbecue for some close friends. Really can’t wait to use this method the next time I want to impress in the wild! Who would have ever thought we’d be getting THIS kind of great advice from Tim. It all burns down to nothing. Who’s the boss now! The top-down fire was a real breakthrough for me back in 1992 when I learned about it and has made my fires consistent performers ever since. fire" because, starting with the biggest logs on the bottom. Have you thought about making these posts/articles available as a pdf download. Instead of building a standard teepee or log cabin we decided to try building what is called an “upside down fire”. the thermostat on the 2nd level will elevate 2-3 degrees with a well maintained rip-roaring fire. This is is SOO useful, I’m going to try it as soon as I come back to my log home in Canada. Cool trick. Please let us know in the Comments Section below what you thought about this fire building method or if you have any tips or tricks to getting it to work better! That floored us. Instead of placing tinder at the bottom and building on top of the struggling fire… I started with 2 decent sized large pieces of wood then 3 split smaller sized and toped it off with some broken (as flat as I could find) pieces. When you’re done you probably create a total of 3 or 4 levels with a lot of twisted newspaper in the middle. Thanks! Woodstoves can be a very green and economical way to heat, whereas fireplaces tend to be pretty and pretty wasteful. It’s great to pass on useful stuff, but at least try to give your sources. 3. My guess is that it will work but the fire won’t last as long. This alludes to one potential drawback: you must start with a substantial amount of wood. Pine cones work very well for firestarters. What's the difference between them? To further prevent possibility of smoke entering the house, you can crack open a nearby door or window during the lighting process. Working on my ‘muse’ right now. It’s not counter intuitive at all, it makes a lot of sense if you really think about it. I call it "the upside-down. And since you can use them upside down or right side up, they can go pretty much wherever you’d like. I agree with the ‘critical mass’ comment. I will keep you all posted once I start working on it. built in a layered fashion starting with tinder at the top and increasing in size all the way to large logs at its base (Btw,I’m still new to this ‘prepper lifestyle’-but I am wishing I had been exposed to it,years ago…but now’s as good as any to start learnin’ right? I only had to mess with it at the very end to bring the final 2 logs together. From Andy, even if you use a tipi-style fire: “One tip for a smoke free start is to light the end of a rolled up newspaper hold it up the chimney for 10 or 15 seconds before lighting the fire to get the airflow moving and avoid any back draft.”. The most common mistake in building up the top-burn fire is not graduating to fine enough kindling. Amazing how violently some people defend their conventions. This causes heat to rise quickly and to warm the flue. Heating up the flew with burning paper does prevent the smoke from back-drafting. 3) Repeat until you get to the top, where you will have strips of crumpled paper and — at the very top — 3-5 fire-starter squares (my preference) or fire-starter oil sticks. If this works in the natural elements, which I assume it does, this method is quite the find for campers too. Because of this extra burning, the smoke disappears.). It is very disappointing. I had to add small pieces of wood on top in order to build up enough embers. For some people, stacking and lighting a fire … I will certainly try this out. I like it a lot! Turning things upside down, it turns out, yields longer and hotter flames. It breeds trust. Thanks so much Tim, keep up the great work. She passed on the suggestion in December and I embedded the video she forwarded. Hardly a new Goncept. Which brings me to my question. Earlier, before leaving for the trip, Larry and I we were caught jumping off the roofs of the camp cabins after being told not to. … That every fiber is converted into heat might be deceptive with upside down fires I think, I agree that this type of fire would make it burn more of it, but that this ash might as well be carried of and up with the hot air. I’ll give it a try this afternoon. This is one cool way to heat up the house and save on propane. No backdraft smoke into the house. A slight variation of that is a method I developed to win matchless/paperless fire-starting competitions in boy scouts. Another important step to knowing how to work a fireplace is to make sure all ashes are cleaned out of the firebox before you start stacking wood for that first fireplace fire. As a kid in Summer camp, my friend Larry and I stumbled on a similar method. The counselor snickered and laughed as well telling us that the fire wouldn’t last and when it burned out, we would have to rebuild the fire again, the right way. My understanding was that the tipi method was used to get the fire started (thus the high allowance for airflow). Perfect for indoor decorations, outdoor lamp posts, patio lights or really any light fixture of your choosing, these bulbs give that fireplace feel without the hassle of any smoke or fire hazard. 18min worth watching all the way through. However with the right, especially of a newer designs, a closed wood stove would be even more efficient and environmentally friendly I believe(for example jotul.com). However, because at the beginning of the fire, the flame is much higher up and closer to the flue, the flow of air is started immediately, and any remaining smoke will go straight up rather than simply collect until the flue warms up from a bottom-based flame. Standard fire-building lore would have you believe a great fire starts with a tipi of wood and pile of tinder under it. Did you give our step-by-step instructions a try? Ceremonial campfires may be needed to provide light for ninety minutes or more. I was in the Boy Scouts and learned the ropes from men who repeated the steps like religious commandments: tons of paper and tinder at the bottom, building up like a tipi (teepee) with the smallest kindling at the bottom and the biggest logs at the top. Using the Upside Down method, you’ll build your fire base in a log-cabin fashion. But once the first larger pieces caught, the fire had no trouble maintaining it’s strength. Curious to see if “no ashes” holds. I won’t get 6-7 hours, but my fireplace is small compared to your examples. I’m a convert! 2) This is important: ensure that the paper strips are bent or otherwise prop the fire-starting squares/sticks a bit off of the shingles or layer below. The embers this fire produces are unlike anything I’ve ever seen: The final construction after three minutes of assembly. It can be a great option for many applications: Yes! A sustainable, easy and eco-friendly method to light a fireplace. Efficient. Looking from above they make a #. I believe that a well-prepared society is the best safeguard against any natural or manmade disaster. The fire from the top warms the air in the flue and creates a more efficient current of air for cross-ventilation, and there is little warmth wasted. Did the number of comments have some influence on that? With the upside-down fire technique you build your fire from the base up before you light it, not only that, but you start with the biggest logs at the bottom, then some smaller logs and then the kindling on top. I Will comment on the result of my attempt to mimic the photos shown above. Well done sir, looking forward to another year of great posts. NB: The size of our fire place is literally no bigger than 2ft x 2ft x 1.5ft(tall) so I had to downside the setup. I agree with the first comment. But if you’re in it for a short duration fire, this works great! Then, as the wood doesn’t have any of the gas materials left in it, the charcoal ignites. I was also amazed at how well this method works when I first tried it, hopefully it keeps you and your family warm all winter! The largest, longest pieces of wood should be placed on the floor of the fireplace to … Tim, I found a link to the brochure I mentioned. Would it work just as well with a nice big pile of tinder on top. All the flue does is provide a tube through which air is drawn upwards. Outdoors your tinder tends to burn fast and hot and leave little in the way of embers to drop down into the larger wood. Adam, Anyways Tim, i found this lecture interesting and likely up your alley. The irony is, we have a small-ish wood stove at the cabin and my husband has been reluctant to try this method. April 3, 2013. Mrs. Homegrown. We lit the tiny little teepee fire, snickering in anticipation for the reaction following the return of the group. The real trick: crack open a window. https://www.thebugoutbagguide.com/upside-down-fire/. Great on a cold February night! “That is genius and exactly what I expect from you and this site. Worked perfectly, first time! Stick to the same method of laying each layer down crosswise across the layer below it to allow proper air flow. I’ll definitely have to try this new fire starting method, even though it appears counter intuitive. But you may want to keep a few ashes around to help build a fire in your fireplace. We’ve got a tiny fireplace and it worked great when when we filled the thing up. You are going to use large fuel wood for this layer, larger than your thumb. Place this tinder on top of your kindling. Thanks, Tim. As a boy scouts, I sometime made large fire making a small ‘tipi’ on top of a large “upside-down’ fire… then there is even no need for fire-starter other then some newspapers. Thanks! An upside down fire is built in a layered fashion starting with tinder at the top and increasing in size all the way to large logs at its base. I noticed a mix of split logs and round logs. Smoke comes from incomplete combustion, which is what you’ll get when you have a flame struggling under a heavy pile of wood. People often build them in fireplaces or woodstoves for the same reasons why they are used outdoors. Wow, amazing. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Building an upside down fire, whether you’re camping or using the fire in your home fireplace, will change how you view starting fires. Being self feeding makes an upside down fire an excellent choice if you want to keep a heat source burning through a long, cold night. When we went to cut our tree at Christmas, the local forestry department in Zürich was giving out a brochure which described exactly this. This thread is archived . they tend to do this over a shorter period of time and require that a fire tender monitors the burn rate and add more fuel and eventually place logs onto the fire. Huh? This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The one question I have lingering is what if you don’t have an accelerant, like the fire starting sticks or oils. Another cool post! Cool. It works but I’ve found out a couple of things while experimenting (I’m an engineer and pyromaniac I can’t help it). These very small wood pieces are typically 1/4″ x 6″ lengths stacked vertically at the base of the teepee (chipped with a hatchet, broken further with an 8oz claw hammer). The fire from the top warms the air in the flue and creates a more efficient current of air for cross … We usually use all split logs, do you need the rounds for the top layers, or will this method work with all split wood too ? Were were on an overnight camping trip. Normally I just select everything, paste it to a document and edit out the dross. We piled the wood in a similar fashion to your upside down fire. No paper at all. Set it up, go get your food ready and then come back to a nice bed of cooking coals! But it’s best to separate them slightly as when they’re packed together (as they are when you buy them) they really struggle to get going. Starting The Upside Down Fire To light an upside down fire, you would ignite the fuel that you placed on top – the stuff that is easiest to burn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwood. Thanks! 67% Upvoted. But if you’re looking to build a clean-burning fire that lasts for hours, you might consider using the “upside down” fire lay. Trust the laws of physics, and light your fire. I love her to death but shes got me chasing her everywhere! Thought you might be interested in this amazing girl who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “can’t.”. Hold the Chimella by the handle, point it up your open chimney with your thumb over the open/close button. But having experienced the frustration of continuously tending a fire (I have two wood burning fireplaces), I was soon hooked by your post. LOL, and you’ll go the distance with a minimum of waste. Ashes and dispose of them have their merits to help build a fire building methods have served me and. A long burn to this setup is that it makes a lot of sense you... To see or try any other way in turn lights the logs back together called!: upside down fire also helps reduce smoky fireplace problems by warming the.... London, I scored some brownie points with this upside fire technique rocks up embers! 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