Anyone with determination can split kindling

The question made me realize some questions, or rather answers to questions, need to be specifically geared for women … although most of our library at HomeTips4Women.com is useful to women and men. It was rather fun researching this answer as it involved talking to several women, including one woman builder. Please share your ideas too for similar Q&As (just leave a comment below) as we will all benefit.

Home Owner Question

I can’t pick up my husband’s heavy power tools, let alone learn to use them safely and comfortably. What “female friendly” tools can I use to cut smaller wood pieces into kindling for my wood stove?

Before getting into the “technical answer” let me suggest that learning a new skill takes the right tools, practice and patience. If you don’t have a lot of time, you should ask for help learning how to use a new tool, as most people learn faster when they get simple tips from listening/watching others do what they want to learn. Maybe you have a friend or neighbor? There are also handyman services (some owned by women, i.e. Marie Leonard, Marie’s Home Improvement offers this option and Judy Browne teaches Workshops for Women) that are willing to teach you how to handle typical jobs around the house yourself. With a little help, you will gain more skill and confidence to get the job done.

At the same time, there are very few professionals who will do everything themselves. My first recommendation is to invest in the right tools and learn how to use them for those chores you’ll be doing many times over the years you own a home, i.e. patching holes and prepping walls to insure a great paint job are good skills to develop where learning to hang sheet rock (also called drywall), tape and mud it is probably a once in a lifetime event. Listen to yourself tool, as some jobs are better left to the professionals.

Home Professional’s Answer

You have several tool options depending on what type of wood you plan to use for kindling. We don’t think buying kindling is necessary.

• While most guys are comfortable with a chain saw, women find them heavy, awkward and don’t like using chain saws.
• You can use an ax or hatchet to split firewood and make smaller pieces for kindling. You’ll also need a wood base, i.e. a tree stump, underneath the piece of wood that you’re cutting.
• A kindling maul is similar to an ax and the end of the blade is rounded (not pointed) to help when you need to rock the blade back & forth to extract it from wood.
• A safer alternative is using an iron wedge (like the blade of an ax) and a sledge hammer or mallet to avoid having to swing a sharp object.

The best tip of all is a great source for kindling wood. Look for old pallets (Craig’s list or FreeCycle recommended), as these will be easier to break down and cutting these wood strips is a good source of kindling.

You’ll need to use a small power saw and here are 2 from Black & Decker that the women I spoke to recommended. The first one shown is a Black & Decker Power Saw, #PHS550B, and it weighs only 8 lbs. Below is Black & Decker’s Handisaw, #CHS6000 and only 3 lbs, but it has the strength to cut kindling.

Note: Unless you are really handy, with the strength and stamina to cut your own wood, you should buy one or more cords of wood several months before you need. Later in the season it becomes more difficult to find quality wood and it needs time to dry out after delivery.

In all cases you want to focus on safety. Wear safety glasses in case wood goes flying, heavy duty gloves as long as you still have a good grip on the handle of your tool and steel toe boots are also a good investment.

Fireplaces used to heat our homes and cook our food but today, fireplaces are more about creating an environment for relaxing at home. Strangely fireplaces aren’t very good at heating a house because most of the heat goes up the flue, and draws more of your furnace heated air up the flue too.

Today’s fireplaces are more efficient but wood stoves are better at heating your home. The National Association of Home Builders says a fireplace is one of the top three features home buyers want so lets look at the many different ways  fireplaces have been integrated into our homes and lifestyles.

Fireplaces and History

Fireplaces became popular during the Victorian era as people felt they added a touch of class while making homes cozy and quaint. Fireplaces became more sophisticated over the years, changing as housing and available technologies for manufacturing fireplaces improved. Today’s fireplaces are made in 2 parts, the insert and surrounding trim. The insert where the fire is burned, is made of cast iron and often decorated with tile. The fireplace surround includes the mantle and sides and these are constructed out of wood, marble, granite or even  iron.

Fireplaces are so popular that in the early 1900s it was common to create faux fireplaces that looked real but weren’t. For example, my handyman technicians transformed a faux fireplace (made with red, 3-dimensional brick paper) with a gas insert fireplace and trimmed the insert to match the existing mantle and decorative trim (photo above).

Today’s Fireplace Choices

Today it’s easy to add a fireplace to an existing room. Fireplace inserts can improve the efficiency of existing masonry fireplaces, and new options for venting gas fireplaces provide flexibility in where you place your fireplace. Where it used to be that fireplaces had to be installed against an exterior wall or traditional chimney (direct-vent fireplace), they now have ventless fireplaces that don’t require any outside ventilation.

People are getting more creative about where they install a fireplace, i.e. bed and breakfast inns have made bedroom fireplaces popular. Here are other ides for your fireplace fantasy:

• Fireplaces that open into multiple rooms, i.e. kitchen and living room.
• Fireplaces in dining rooms, place so everyone at the table can view the fire.
• Fireplaces in a bathroom, for a cozy bath on a cold evening.
• Fireplaces in bedrooms, from the master bedroom to children’s and guest rooms.
• Outdoor fireplaces are gaining in popularity from more traditional fireplaces to ground level fire pits, round like a Mexican chimenea or square like Japanese kotatsu.
• Fireplaces in entryways, libraries … or anywhere you can imagine!

Share your favorite fireplace ideas and photos here.

Photos from Sabina DeShazo’s blog and John Morris Architects.