How to Make Lint Firestarters
Have you ever needed a firestarter and didn’t have anything on hand? A few years ago I figured out a simple project that helps make our life a little warmer. I created some simple fire starter tubes for our wood burning stove that we have in our out-building. These lint firestarters are a simple project but great for reusing some things that typically get tossed in the trash.
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How to Make Lint Firestarters
You know that experiment where I have been trying to figure out how much toilet paper does a family need for a 30 day time period? Now that I have collected all these toilet paper tubes, I decided to use them to create lint firestarters.
These aren’t a beautifully packaged gift, but they are an extremely useful product to have on hand in the cold winter months. Now when my husband heads out to the building to do some work he will have a quick little firestarter to help get the wood burning in our cast iron stove.
Collect the Toilet Paper Tubes
Melt the Wax in a warmer
You can use a simple candle warmer or old pan on the stove to melt the wax.
Pour the Wax in the bottom of the tube
Stuff the tube with dryer lint
Dribble some hot wax on top
You need enough wax on the end to form a hard seal for your lintstarter.
Store in a Water-Proof Bucket
Use for your next fire
What do you use for easy firestarters? Got any great tips? I’d love to hear how you use stuff that most people throw away to create something useful.
Looking for other things that you need to pack in a family go bag?
I use dryer lint and paper from the paper shredder inside the toilet paper roll, then seal the ends with wax from old candles. I stack several in a closable plastic box in the camper and use for our campfires.
are these used for indoor fire places?
I have always used these for my outdoor wood burning stove so don’t know how they would do indoors.
Can you also put the used dryer sheet in with the lint? Only for use with a fire pit not for cooking .
I have done this in the past as well. When the firestarters are not for food/cooking, they are fine in my experience.
I think the dryer sheet would probably work for a fire pit as well but would not use that for cooking either.
I use old candles to make these! I use cooking wax (gulf wax) for half of them and label them for food fires! The dryer lint has all burnt away by the time you’re ready to cook and you don’t have to worry about your hot dogs having a lavender taste 😂 they are great for camping trips!
I make these with saw dust and a wick for outdoor fires. I fill it with wax but all the wax burns away. Good idea to use lint–and less messy!
That’s a good idea to use the saw dust and wick too.
I also like the addition of wax, melted from old candles (especially those in a jar); I add sawdust or wood shavings to the wax, which adds dense material to the tube, making it not only burn warmer, but slower. I also wrap the toilet paper tubes with wax paper to keep the wax from contaminating my backpack (I keep several in my backpack for emergency use).
I’ve found that using the cardboard tubes from paper towels is handy. I may put the longer tube, filled only with drier lint, on the bottom of a kindling pile, in between the logs in a fireplace, to first ignite the fire and put one or two tubes filled with sawdust and drier lint, their ends filled with wax, between the logs toward the top of the fire. This seems to create much hotter spots of radiant heat in the early stage of the fire lighting. The tube sealed with wax (and wrapped in wax paper) seems to stay dry longer when the fire is built outside, very useful when it’s raining.
I take the lint which collects at the front of my tumble dryer and use it to stuff in the toilet rolls. I don’t seal it in with wax though,. Works a treat and totally free.
Squash the toilet roll flat, fold in half, make nine and interleave them into a block and insert into the tenth tube. makes the perfect slow burn for lighting smokeless fuel or a large log instead of kindling.
doesn’t the wax melt and make a mess in your fireplace? Can you use something else to seal the lint in?
Most wax will burn away completely. You just need a thin layer to keep the lint in.
Where is the lint trying to go….
I put a dryer sheet in the bottom and it holds the wax in
If I used these in a wood burning stove, I would be concerned about what the wax was doing to my stove pipe and chimney.
I don’t use wax. I just use a piece of masking tape to hold the lin tin