We bought a box of duraflame logs from Costco and they just don’t burn right. They smolder for hours and hours, but never flame up.

Before you send me a boilerplate response, please understand that I followed the instructions meticulously, especially after the first one in the batch just sat there smoking for 16 hours or more.

This last time I tried to blow on the log and I could get one area to glow brightly, but I never coaxed a flame out of it.

The chimney is clear and drawing fine; other things burn well, and the copious smoke from the Duraflame logs does go up and out.

Right now it’s approaching 14 hours for the most recent log, and it’s still in there, making smoke but accomplishing nothing else.

I looked to see if there was any sort of expiration date printed on the log wrappers and didn’t find anything, but one possibility I considered was that these are old, out-of-date logs that Costco dug up.

What can I do? This isn’t so much about the money spent on logs as needing to consider a better alternative for our fireplace.

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Note: this is almost exactly what I sent, but I fixed one awful spelling corrector substitution.