To build a fire. As the first frost of Fall crisps the air, a primeval yearning is re-awakened within my soul; to feel the warm glow of the flames, to watch them leaping and dancing, to hear the crackle and snap; all become a clarion call to action. I cut and gather wood, split kindling, and stock the porch. I happily set about, for the first time this season, to build a fire.

As Jack London’s hapless protagonist learned in To Build a Fire, things don’t always go as planned. If you don’t feel ready to step up and confidently build your own fire, I offer these tips to surefire, fire building, success.

Of course, I’m referring to building a wood fire in a fireplace. If you have already opted, for perfectly valid reasons, to go with a wood stove or a gas fireplace, there will be something for you here another time.

Tip #1: OPEN THE DAMPER

Every indoor fireplace has one. The surest way to fill the house up with smoke is to get the fire going while forgetting to open the damper. There are several different types of dampers. Get familiar with yours and learn how it operates before striking a match.

Tip #2: OPEN THE OUTSIDE AIR INTAKE

All fireplaces today will have an outside air intake. A fire breathes air and it will suffocate if it doesn’t get enough. In a tight, well built, and well insulated house, the fire can’t draw sufficient combustion air through leaky windows and doors, so it needs a little help.

A masonry fireplace will have a little sliding door covering a pipe leading to an outside vent. A factory built fireplace will have a small lever to open and close the outside air intake. Check the operating instructions if you have a problem finding it. In an especially tight house, it might even be necessary to “crack a window”, as crazy as that sounds, to get enough combustion air to build a roaring fire.

Tip #3: WARM THE FLUE

This is not always necessary, but on a cold day, particularly if you have a chimney that is primarily exterior, it can help get the draft going. Since I still read print newspapers, I have plenty of handy material for this. I simply crumple up a piece of newspaper, place it in the fireplace near the flue, and light it.

Tip #4: START WITH GOOD QUALITY, DRY KINDLING

Kindling is small, dry, easily combustible, pieces of wood. If you live near a wooded area, you have a ready supply of this material, and gathering the sticks and twigs can be a pleasant part of the process. You can often just break the sticks by hand, but carrying a small pruning saw can save wear and tear on your hands, and allows you to control the length of the kindling, which makes for a neater and more orderly stack on the porch or in a kindling bucket.

Being a builder, I often have access to wood scraps from 2x4’s, cedar shingles, or oak flooring that make great kindling. I also enjoy cutting up fallen cedar trees (actually, Juniperus virginian or Eastern redcedar), and splitting them to one inch square sticks. They’re fun to split, and their bright red color and familiar aroma add to the aesthetics of fire building; plus, they add some snap, crackle, and pop to a lively fire.

The best kindling is fatwood. Fatwood is the heavily resin-impregnated heart wood of pine trees, usually gathered from trees that have died and fallen. The pine sap is concentrated in certain areas, such as the stump, and the knots formed by branches, and over time, it hardens. The sap contains a volatile hydrocarbon, terpene, which when lit by a single match, will burn like a torch.

In the old days, folks would gather the pine knots from dead trees laying out in the woods, and use them to start their fires. They also called them “lightwood”, or “pine knots”. These are rot and bug resistant, and you’ll see them still hanging on as the rest of the tree rots away. Pick one up and smell it, and you’ll recognize the pungent aroma of turpentine.

Although, you could gather your own, it’s a whole lot simpler, easier, and neater to buy it by the box. I get mine at the Plow & Hearth (www.plowhearth.com), a local Charlottesville store. You can also find fatwood on line from L.L. Bean, Amazon, and others.

Fatwood is valuable when it comes to fire starting, but way too expensive to use as your sole kindling. Just one to four sticks is enough to get the dry kindling you have collected burning briskly.

Tip #5: USE ONLY GOOD QUALITY, WELL SEASONED WOOD

That tree that fell on your house during the last hurricane may look like great firewood, but it is likely still way too “green” to burn effectively. Well seasoned means dry from the inside out. Well seasoned wood burns happily. Unseasoned wood struggles to stay lit.

It’s best to split and stack newly cut wood and give it at least six months to fully dry before burning it. You shouldn’t cover your wood while it is being seasoned. It’s better to let the sun and the wind get to it. Once seasoned, go ahead and cover it to keep it dry in that nor’easter that’s heading your way.

There are a lot of different types of wood, and they have different burning characteristics. I burn all types. Dry is the key word. To produce heat and burn slowly, oak, hickory, cherry and maple are the woods I use most often, supplementing them with cedar, pine and poplar if I want a faster, livelier fire.

If you choose to buy your firewood instead of gathering it yourself, try to buy it well before you want to burn it, as vendors sell what they have, and it may not always be as well seasoned as you would like.

Tip #6: BUILD YOUR FIRE, SIT BACK AND ENJOY LIFE

I assume you have a grate in your fireplace, on which to set your logs. If not, go get one. That fire needs air, and it can’t get enough sitting on the floor of the fireplace.

I start with a piece of newspaper on or under the grate. I then place a couple of sticks of fatwood on the grate, followed by a small pile of the other kindling, stacked loosely in graduated order of size; small first, then larger pieces on top.

My wife likes to light the fire at this point, and nurse the growing fire, adding ever larger pieces, until it’s time to throw on (gently) a couple of logs.

It’s fine to do it that way. I like to set the entire fire at once, all stacked in ever increasing size, fatwood to kindling to log, somewhat askew, so that licking flames can find their way between the logs. Then I go ahead and light it. I can walk away for a few minutes and return to a fire, fully formed and blazing away.

One of my dogs, a mixed breed with an old soul, named Pearl, often stretches out facing the fire, resting her chin on her front paws, and watches the glowing embers and flickering flames.

I watch as well, and wonder if she conjures some archaic sense; a time when a man and a dog, not long from her wolf ancestors, gazed into a wood fire’s dancing flames, wisps of smoke and embers curling skyward into the speckled darkness, and wondered at it, each glad to have the fire and the companion.

Many thanks to those that Voted for us in Virginia Living! We are honored to have earned First Place as "Best Builder" for 2017.

We’re a small design/build company focused on just a few custom homes at a time. Your job will be a very important part of our total business volume. This is an intentional approach for Ron and Glenn, not an accident.

The owners, Ron and Glenn, will be directly involved with each job from start to finish. There’s no question of who to call when there’s a question or a problem – it’s one of us.

Ron and Glenn have been working together as a building team for over 35 years. We are passionate about custom building and value great design, well executed and managed projects, and no-questions asked customer service after completion.

Our building team is comprised of loyal and dedicated employees, a few with over 25 years with S&R, plus a stable of trusted, smart, and likeable subcontractors and vendors who understand and agree with our focus on high quality. Your home will have one of these long-term employees, along with Ron and Glenn, as project managers and on-site supervisors.

We will design and build to your budget and offer transparent line-by-line estimating to help you see where your house-building dollars are going. Our contracting fee will be fair, and negotiated with you, so that we all are satisfied and happy with the contract terms.

We have a long list of happy customers. They are our lifeblood and are very important to us. We view each new home as an opportunity to improve our clients’ lifestyle and create and nurture a new and positive relationship with each owner.

“...I simply wanted to thank you again for more than fulfilling our “vision” for the mountain house. I must admit that it still amazes me how well the house functions when we get three families together for food, fun and relaxing. I think back to the countless hours you spent refining the design and carefully listening to the intended uses of each part of the house. I chuckle every time a visitor asks which architect we used. Years later, I still very much appreciate your design ideas and attention to detail. The little things you helped us put into the design and finishes make our house the special place that we enjoy so much.”

Our goal for each new home is to provide a satisfying, rewarding, and fun building experience. We want our customers to enjoy the process, love their new home, and appreciate their building team. We’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. Bottom line – we design and build distinctive homes that please the eye and soothe the soul.

AS FEATURED IN: The Daily Progress article dated January 11, 1979, entitled Builders Home Reflects His View of Energy Efficiency

Glenn and Ron may have matured in 35 years, but they still walk the same talk as the original mission of their building company…

Glenn Robertson remembers a discussion not long ago on building a basic three-bedroom house affordable to the average working man. The figure of 1,500 square feet came up, but that wasn’t good enough for Robertson.

Getting more out of less now seems second nature to the builder of Energy Conserving Homes, a company he recently helped form with two other graduates of the College of William and Mary. Take the upstairs living quarters of his 900-square foot house, for example.

In the bedroom and bathroom, waist-high open shelves line the walls beneath the south-facing windows. They are not designed to save energy directly, but he has to agree that using space economically eliminates the need for extra furniture. That means less square footage, and therefore a decrease in the amount of energy he needs to heat and maintain the home.

With large, reflecting eyes to the south, the rough sawn structure rises affably in a wooded spot of Albemarle County, not far from Stony Point. It reflects an eclectic and congenial mix of features that Robertson and his partners hit upon after years of studying other energy-saving structures.

Robertson is convinced that the essential element in planning an energy-efficient residence is placing it properly on a site. Getting a good wind block to the north and west is crucial for maximum protection from winter’s icy winds.

Consequently, a solid block of trees stands protectively from the house to the road. There are also shade trees to the south and the west, which is also recommended. Deciduous trees, like oak and maple, are the best trees to choose, because they shed their leaves during the winter, allowing the sun’s rays to filter through when you need them most.

Positioning the house so that the large windows face south, however, is only half the story. There must be roof overhangs for protection in the summer. Robertson laments the fact that conventional builders don’t make efforts to include such features in their most common home designs. He believes the features are simple, relatively inexpensive, and a real boon to meeting the demands of an energy-conscious world.

Robertson and others call such passive solar elements “solar tempering,” relying largely on a good deal of insulation and assuring that the house is tight and well-built, rather than concentrating on complex storage capacity.

Of course, one can always do more— Robertson says they lose a fair amount of heat at night after collecting it during the daylight hours. They could have remedied the problem somewhat by adding shutters, but in Robertson’s case, that would have meant the plants would have had to go somewhere else.

Robertson preferred a post and beam construction, thereby exposing the structural elements that are hidden in conventional designs. “It gives me a feeling of solidness,” the young builder explained. “I know this house isn’t going to be coming down soon.

“Why hide it? If you do a good clean job there’s no need to hide the work you’ve done,” he added.

To minimize heat loss, Robertson installed Thermopane windows and put foam insulation in each frame. He also caulked the sole plates (where floor and wall join) and created a vapor barrier with a four or six mill polyurethane skin all over the house before putting up the walls. “Air can go through two pieces of wood, it can go through wood itself, but it can’t go through plastic,” he said.

“Energy conserving homes should also be built with an eye to maximizing internal air flow,” he said. The open style of room design, particularly in the first floor living area, promotes good convection patterns that are the envy of any energy-conscious builder. Not only is the heat from the woodstove sufficient to warm the entire house, but the set-up is ideal for summer cooling – inexpensively.

In summer, Robertson finds that you don’t want to open up the house randomly. If you do, the indoor temperature will quickly match the outdoors. Consequently, he keeps a shaded north window open along with a high vent on the south, with virtually nothing blocking the flow of air in between. “It helps expel the hot air and not allow any in,” he said.

Robertson thinks his house cost about the same as a conventional house costs to build today. But there are advantages to his house. He has ended up with a custom-built, energy efficient home with all exposed wood, which he feels is a better investment in the long run than a conventionally built one.

He realizes that some people might find some aspects inconvenient. For example, when he runs out of solar-heated hot water, he must then turn on the water electric heater. Some people might not want to be bothered, but he thinks we’re coming to changes like that, and anything he can do to save along the way is worth the effort.

One of the most interesting features of all is something Robertson picked up from observing Scandinavian houses – a small 10 by 6 foot room intended as an “air lock.” It’s like a back porch, only this one is on the front, and is perfect for winter activities like discarding winter bundles. It contains cold air from that comes in when the exterior door is opened, rather than passing it on to the major part of the house.

Robertson has placed a small bench in his air lock, a perfect spot of removing muddy or snow-covered boots. His hot water heater is also located there, and there’s room for the washer and dryer, when he has them installed.

The thought of heating a 20 by 18 foot living room around the clock “to drink tea in once a day” really irks him. But he also realizes that not everyone would take to his own living room/dining room/kitchen.

“Some people might have a problem being able to see into the kitchen when sitting in the living room, but I like that,” he said.

He seems immensely comfortable, seated at the dining room table, surrounded by soft woods ranging from pine to rough-sawn hemlock. “I like the texture of rough wood,” he said. “The way it diffuses light appeals to me.”

His conception of the purpose of a house goes beyond mere protection from the elements. If anything, it is for him a symbol of harmony between man and environment.

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By Lenny Granger of the Progress Staff

“A farmhouse is the quintessential icon of American architectural culture; it embodies a style of living steeped in the timeless values that shaped the land and the families that called the farmhouse home. We were proud to learn that bobvila.com chose this farmhouse, designed and built by Smith & Robertson, as one of their 12 favorite farmhouses across America.” To view the link: Click Here

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