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If we lived near a city, local newspapers would be freely available once they were out of date...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.

thomas rubino wrote:I intended this post as a satire.

I got that right off. Good one!

Thomas ---perhaps that most of us seemingly bypassed/ignored the satire in the posting ---and have instead responded with various methodologies on how we start up stoves---- be  the satirical response to your satire----or am i just over satirerising this and trying to cover up for my having missed the satire in the first instance

Jay Angler wrote:...
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?

I've learned to use a propane torch as well as paper to start my greenhouse RMH. Even with fan assist, essential in this design, it's the only way I've found to keep my wife from complaining that I smell like smoked ham when I come back into the house.

A stick and a spill plane (or probably any plane that can make curls) quickly makes firestarter that shouldn't make the fly ash that paper and cardboard can create correct? I've used a small knife to make feather sticks as well, where you don't pop the curl off the stick, and instead carve them up into a little row on the stick, so you can light the end and stick into the burn tunnel so it burns like a wick.

For anyone seriously in need of paper as a fire starter, decades ago I used to pick up bales of old newspaper from our local newspaper. No charge. Of course, that was back in the day when just about every small town had a newspaper that was locally printed.

One of these is useful...

I'm gonna sound really dumb here but are newspapers actually still around? Lol

We've been using cardboard as firestarter. We have an endless supply of cardboard due to deliveries, moving boxes, groceries, etc. For a while we were rolling them into logs and taping them together with paper tape and burning them like logs to get the fire hot enough for wood after starting a small fire in the back of the burn tunnel.

Recently we figured out that if you just loosely roll up the cardboard into a tube and stick it horizontally in the burn tunnel (we have a Liberator Rocket Heater that allows us to stick things in the bottom to get the fire going) and then light the fire with a propane torch in the center of the cardboard, it will almost instantaneously start sucking fire to the back of the burn tunnel and up into the barrel. This is a great way to get the fire going fast but then you have to be ready to start feeding it small pieces of firewood or more cardboard quickly because that cardboard will burn up quick.

Disney did it better.

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

That's a sugar cane field being burned before harvest.  Note that he lit it intentionally, which isn't done to corn stalks (unless you want a field of burnt popcorn... 😁)  They do that where I lived on Maui.  Depending on wind direction, there were times we had to keep all the windows closed up tight to keep the stench out, even miles away from the burn!

Perhaps the marketing folks who made that commercial were under the influence of a different kind of burning vegetation... 🤷‍♀️

Hal Schibel wrote:I'm gonna sound really dumb here but are newspapers actually still around? Lol

Pretty much a dying industry, which is sort of a pity. We've had to stop selling the daily papers in our shop, so are missing our free source of fuel now (we used to store them up for winter). We still get Saturday's papers, but were losing too much money for the few papers that we sold during the week. The returns from Saturdays just about keep us in kindling and dog poo scoops, but I'm experimenting with twisting dead winter grass into knots, just in case we run short next winter. I remember Laura Ingalls Wilder used twists of straw during the long winter to keep their fire going,

I am going to make my recommendation again.  When starting the RMH, especially when cold, you want a clean smoke free flam to  start the draft and ignite the fuel. Paraffin Impregnated fire starters work well for this but upcycling is the pemies way.
Fresh produce is shipped in paraffin soaked cartons.  These  are not recyclable but perfect for making fire starters.  Try to arrange with your local store produce manager to pick them up on your shopping day. Keep them out of the waste stream and get a better fire starter than paper and cartons that are recyclable.

My nearby community of 3000 has a weekly newspaper.  I have no idea where it is printed.

Tommy Bolin wrote:Disney did it better.

Oh dear, that backfired a bit didn't it?



It is very important to teach your dragons self-control, and design them correctly.

I admit Vermelha did let herself get a bit overexcited that first time we let her test her newfound fire-breathing ability, but she has calmed down a bit since then. We thought she'd be a good replacement for the butane blowlamp we tend to use for setting fire to things but she didn't quite seem to grasp that we just wanted pretty patterns burning on that wooden beam, not the whole thing setting alight.

She's currently devoting herself to collecting a hoard of sticks ready for burning this winter. I might let her gather up a big nest of dry leaves, too.

I guess I should take photos of her progress...

A well trained dragon is also useful for welding up the secondary air intake.

She still needs a bit of practice at this though because now the tube won't lift out...

Burra Maluca wrote: Oh dear, that backfired a bit didn't it?

Very punny, Burra!

We had a children's story about a pet dragon. The family was at a restaurant and their oven failed, so  the dragon had to cook all the dinners and the restaurant chef was thrilled as he didn't want to disappoint the customers.

I realize that the OP was satirical, but now that you've got us on the subject of fire starting, as someone else mentioned, pine cones dipped in wax works beautifully (we only used plant-based wax because I didn't want to get the parafin in the air we breathed). Those work beautifully. My children and I made an afternoon project of it back in the day. We spent time throughout the year collecting pine cones on all of our walks and hikes. By the time it was heating season, we had quite the collection and the cones had ample time to dry.
I also found a newspaper printing shop within 30 minutes from where we used to live where I would go to pick up their end roles. Those were some serious leftovers and very heavy! Plus each roll was about 3 feet tall which made for easy and efficient loading in the car and storing once home. I'd load up the whole back of my minivan with those (with all seats out) and slowly made our way home with the poor minivan sitting low and huffing all the way back.  I used those unprinted papers for not only getting fires lit, but also for covering the flooring when raising some young animals. Made for wonderful non-toxic absorbent material that was easy to clean up as well as easy to roll out fresh paper. Those were the days.

If you have a propane torch, my thought is you don't need paper. We use mail circulars and the potty paper that does not make it's way into the septic, but neither is truly necessary.
Your logger is leaving the fuel you need on a waste slash pile in the woods for a bonfire.
Not only are the branches close to the tree outstanding, dense fuel wood of apparently the correct RMH size, the ends/tips/smalls are outstanding, dense kindling that lights very quickly with a torch established draft. My Fisher is located in the center of the house with a tall insulated chimney, and it draws exceptionally well. Small wood/kindling, very dry between two smaller split pieces blazes off almost instantly. The stove drafts the length of the fuel.
A short, uninsulated chimney on the eaves of a house might not draft. Your situation might be very different than mine.
I fell/skid/haul/buck/split the trees. Lil'B helps the whole process limbing and cuttting a lot of the slash we would have left into valuable firewood/kindling. I used to leave most of it years ago, because I felt it did not take much less saw fuel to cut kindling/starter wood than it did to buck trees. A big Husqvarna is not the tool for  very small wood. Her 36v Makita chainsaw is solar charged fuel free, light, perfect sized, low vibe chain, and she loves the work.
Taking large trees, splitting them to small fuel wood/kindling, throwing away the ready made fuel wood, seems a bit reversed.
We go through about 1.5 little propane cylinders/yr for all our firestarting/local workshop type dense heat needs. Like 10USD, cheap.

Tommy Bolin wrote: the ends/tips/smalls are outstanding, dense kindling that lights very quickly with a torch established draft.

Yup, my little red dragoness has been busy creating a hoard of that stuff!

I think she's done rather well...

Burra Maluca wrote:[
Yup, my little red dragoness has been busy creating a hoard of that stuff!

I think she's done rather well...

Now you just need a miniature of Bilbo Baggins, sneaking away with a glow stick...

Mark Brunnr wrote:Now you just need a miniature of Bilbo Baggins, sneaking away with a glow stick...

Ah but dragons are such complex creatures...

They say fire makes a good servant but a bad master. Dragons are a bit like that, especially fire-dragons like Vermelha. But if you take the trouble to go deep into yourself and not only find but also understand and befriend the dragons you find lurking there, you may well find that if they learn to trust you they will gladly share their hoard with you. But to win their trust you will have demonstrate that you intend to use the spoils of that hoard for good.

I'm quite certain that at the right time of year anyone interested in learning how to light a rocket mass heater would be welcome to visit and that Vermelha would donate a few of her sticks and show them how to lay them in the burn chamber and huff on them to make them burn.

She's been out cutting more sticks.



There's a big heap of leaves that might end up getting used instead of paper for the initial fire-starting too. And some bigger bits that she can't quite bite through because he teeth are rather new. I think my other half is going to be presented with them for cutting up on the saw bench.

On the other hand, she seems to be in deep discussion with Rock, the Welsh sheepdog, about whether this heap of leaves would be better turned into a nest...



You never can tell with dragons...

Burra Maluca wrote:On the other hand, she seems to be in deep discussion with Rock, the Welsh sheepdog, about whether this heap of leaves would be better turned into a nest...

Are those Eucalyptus? I'd have thought those would be ideal for firestarting.

Nancy Reading wrote:Are those Eucalyptus? I'd have thought those would be ideal for firestarting.

No, they are oleander. Which as Harry Potter fans know is ideal for making wands. And as livestock owners know is highly toxic.

I'm trying to figure out if they'll be safe to use for lighting fires in case they give off any toxic smoke. I'm not even sure if they are safe to use as compost. I figure the bigger bits will be ok to burn on the rocket mass heater as they'll go on when the fire is already hot and the draught established so I suspect the toxins will be completely destroyed and discharged up into the air, not into my living room. But I'm not so sure about during start-up.

Vermelha seems to have declared them to be nest material (I guess dragons are immune to oleander poison?) and is busy chanting  "Nyth! Nyth Nyth!" to Rock, who seems to agree.

Though maybe just for a peaceful life as even he doesn't have enough energy to match our Vermelha...

Edit to add that according to the AI search bot

Dragon Vulnerability
Dragons are not immune to oleandrin.
The blue oleander, in particular, is specifically noted for its toxicity to dragons.

So now I'm not sure what to think - who do I trust? Vermelha, who is a dragon herself? Or the AI search bot, which tells me that dragons are not immune?

Decisions, decisions...

Maybe I should find her something else to nest in.

Thomas, i like corrugated cardboard. Best firestarter for me.

Dried orange peel - rich in essential oils, and fragrant too..