As I have started working from home, I use candles to keep me at my desk and working. It is silly, but it works for me in some sort of weird Pomodoro type way. I refuse to leave a lit candle alone and I wait until the wax is melted evenly across before I blow it out.

With my new scented candle life, I have encountered problems I have never had before.

Tunneling

Candles tunnel when the wick is too short, the area is too drafty, or a bad pour. Tunneling is when the candle burns straight down leaving thick walls of wax.

Prevention

To prevent tunneling, always let your candle melt all the way across before blowing it out. The wax apparently has some sort of memory and will just burn the same pool size or smaller each burn afterwards.

An easy way to keep on top of this is to burn the right size of candle for how long you will be around. If you are only going to burn for a hour or less, use a votive. Leave the big jar candles for when you need to really sit down and work.

Fixing

To fix tunneling, you can dig a little around the wick to make it longer and have a bigger flame. This is more possible if you catch it tunneling early.

Or you can wrap a foil collar around the candle holder and squish it in a little. This will stop the heat from the flame escaping and melt more of the wax. This is DANGEROUS and you should be nearby whenever using this method.

The melted wax can flood the wick and extinguish the flame. To recover from that, you will have dig out around the wick before lighting. You can also pour out the extra wax or soak it up with paper towels. These are also DANGEROUS.

Wood wicks

I have never had a candle with a wood wick before. They crackle and have a nice flickering flame. It can be rather distracting or calming, it depends on my mood that day.

Lighting

The first burn of a wood wick is just like any other candle. Each burn afterwards is trickier. You have to trim off the burnt wick so the candle will light again.

You can use a wick trimmer, wire cutters, whatever you have. Or you can be like me and grab the wick with a tissue and break off the burned part.

Every day is better with fire.

• candles