A Hidden Cost of RMHs!

By building Shorty in our home, and completely rebuilding the Studio Dragon, an unknown cost has reared its ugly head!
For years, during any trip to the "city" we picked up several copies of a local "Bargain News" for sale paper.
All sorts of good stuff you might need. Each copy was read and then placed in the burn pile. Month after month, they kept adding up.
By winter, you had a good-sized pile at each stove, and we never ran short of fire starter.

Until we built Shorty, our house had a traditional-style wood burner, with a fire lit in the fall and not allowed to go out until spring. Sure, we had to relight a few times in the spring and fall, but for the most part, there was always coals to get it going.
Prior to building the new Studio Dragon this fall, my old original RMH was lit once a day, and continued burning until nightfall.
With the new high-mass double-wall Dragon, she gets lit once in the morning and then allowed to go out. Later, if it's cold, we might light a midday fire, let it go out, and then have an evening fire before we shut the intakes down for the night.
Now that I am retired, "haha," the shop stove is only lit once and kept burning until I quit for the day, which gave me a "stash" of burnable fire starter to move to the house and studio.
By mid-winter, paper was getting scarce. Sure, we have junk mail and cardboard, which are crappy fire starters, but burn fine when tossed onto a bed of coals.
If we lived near a city, local newspapers would be freely available once they were out of date... thank goodness we DO NOT live someplace like that!
As of mid-winter, we are now purchasing blank newsprint 10#s at a time for $27.20 !!!
By spring, I will have spent over $50 on paper!
Who knew? Nobody told me that these RMHs had such an appetite!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081VXLC2R/?coliid=I2XGANVJDHQAIG&colid=1C1TN95U35AY6&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

Be sure to add this hidden cost when calculating the financial feasibility of building your RMH.
No RMH, paper is free!!!
Firewood consumption is at its maximum.
With RMH, newspaper costs skyrocket to over FIFTY DOLLARS!!!
Firewood consumption is minimal...
Your Choice...

Do you have birch bark around to use? Pine duff? Those can make excellent firestarter. So can dry grasses.

I've heard that dry pinecones work pretty well also, although it might depend on the type of local cones. I think some people dip them in a little candle wax - usually the bits left-over when the candle goes out.

Not sure they'd completely replace paper. I guess that's why I see some videos of people starting their RMH with a propane torch. I always figured that was a waste of propane, but maybe not?

We also ran into this problem! We used our RMH for the first winter this year and ran out of our giant stash of newspaper. And only went thru two face cords of wood. We bought crayons and candles from the thrift store. Roll the crayon in the subpar starter like cardboard or junk mail and now its a super starter.

Iv also heard good things about using pinecones. Il have to send the kiddo out to collect us a bunch so we can try them out.

Oh my, I have piles of dry bark duff in the wood sheds.
Very little, paper birch nearby, as that is an excellent fire starter, and I would use it. I love the smell!
Pine cones work, but not really well until dry.
I like using newspaper, fast and easy, and it works every time.
Oh, and do I use a propane torch on the paper and kindling in the shop and studio, but just to get them going faster.

I intended this post as a satire.
My point here was not really the cost of the newspaper, as much as how little your RMH is burning.
$50 for paper versus the cost of multiple cords of wood.

It is a win-win when you start heating with bricks instead of wood!

Pine cones and corn stalks, with twigs snapped off the ends of the prunings off the fruit trees are my go-to.

I try to harvest all the corn stalks into bundles at the end of the growing season, tie them and hang them up in the shed so they keep dry. Then bring one bundle into the house at a time.

Sometimes if the tree prunings still have leaves on after they've dried I use them - fire starter and kindling all in one!

I think somewhere I have memories of this car advert buried deep inside me - I just KNEW that corn-stalks burned well.

At least, I always assumed they were corn-stalks. Looking at them now I'm not 100% sure.



Part of me is thinking how long ago that was. And a part of me is also thinking that our current car was already seven years old when the advert was made. Time is weird stuff...

Burra Maluca wrote:.....
At least, I always assumed they were corn-stalks. Looking at them now I'm not 100% sure.

......... Time is weird stuff...

Quite possibly sugarcane.....was, and in many places possibly still is, common practice to burn out the old chaff before re-plant and also for disease control.

Time and Western "objects" both are weird.  If my own failing memory serves me, many eastern religions see objects as 'events'.....  That rock that fell on your foot and caused so much pain is simply an event in time.  And a hard and enduring one at that! :-)   Edited to add:  Why do we say "event in time"?  Is the event literally within the concept or 'stuff' of time?  Sort of like a "change in the weather"...?

Thomas R., does this mean that we can blame the development of RMH's world-wide for the decline in a free press?   :-)

But also, the one thing I've found to be a good firestarter when newsprint is absent is spruce twig....the dead stuff from the branches closer to the trunk that no longer have needles.  I'm thinking many of the conifers in your region would have similar, but also things like dogwood and other shrubby hardwood species would have brittle shoots that can be stock-piled for lighting later.  We actually still have a bit of problem with that due to high humidity in our region, but the mountain west should be pretty dry for storing I would think.

Is this post a joke? Lol

thats sugarcane being prepared for harvest---they burn off the leaf-----makes it easier to manually chop down the cane---the leaf has a fine cutting edge on it---also drive out the cane rats and ---the snakes---with machine cutting it lessens the waste/extra material on the stalk-----for fire starting my stove and no paper to be found--  i have used gorse---goes up like petrol---and i use my homemade spoke shave on a round dry pole of wood to make wood curly-- wurly s as the kids call them---but old newsprint and small kindlings are the best/easiest by far ---and i can understand why you would be prepared to buy it in .

Hi Marta;
Yes, this post is intended as satire.
It is all true that I have twice bought #10 of blank newsprint.
I like it a lot, and now use it exclusively, rather than dealing with printed paper.
The real point here was how little wood you burn with a mass heater.
Paper is cheaper than cords of wood... and USPS drops it off at my door.

Good one!

The NZ cabbage tree (Cordyline australis) has long, straplike leaves that hang off the trunk and dry out sheltered by the crown, all the better to pull off by the handful in the dead of winter. They're loaded with resin and make the best tinder around. Our native "flax" harakeke is also good when the leaves have dried. Since the free regional newspapers folded, these are my go-to firestarters.

Of course, fish and chip paper is unbleached newsprint and has the added bonus of grease.