The Beginnings
Hi. I’m Hugo and I am “The Kindling Kid”.
I am 13 years old and started The Kindling Kid in 2020 during the COVID lockdown when I was 10. It was a pretty difficult time for most Victorians. I wasn’t able to go to school for more than half of the year. Home school was tough, especially through the Warragul winter. I missed my friends and found that I was getting bored staying at home all of the time.
During a storm, a really big Cypress tree fell over across the road. It was close to 70 years old, so there was a lot of wood in it. Dad said that it wasn’t as good as hardwood for burning in our wood heater, but generally that type of wood made excellent kindling. I had seen bags of kindling for sale at the local petrol station, and started wondering if that was something that I might be able to sell.
With Dad’s help on the chainsaw, we cut up a couple of trailer loads and I started to cut it down to kindling. We heat our home with a wood fire, so I was able to experiment with different sizes to get kindling that was almost guaranteed to get a great fire going every time.
I started with just a small $10 hatchet from Aldi and some left over horse feed bags. During the lockdown I was able to produce more than 120 bags of kindling which I offered for sale to passing traffic out the front of our house. It was very successful and I was regularly running out of stock. I was able to save some money as well as buy myself a new bike!
From these humble beginnings, we have since moved Beaconsfield Upper and I have continued to grow my business. I have been working hard over the school holidays to make sure that I have good levels of stock ready for the coming winter. It has been hard work. All of my kindling is split by hand using just an axe. I am proud of what I have been able to achieve and look forward to being able to help keep my customers warm this winter!
Sustainability
All of the timber used by The Kindling Kid is sourced from what would otherwise be a waste product. I have collected timber from farms where the trees have fallen over and would otherwise be heaped up and burned in a bon fire.