I recently purchased a charcoal chimney starter, followed the
directions, and it basically did nothing. I stuck 2-3 pieces of wadded
newspaper in the bottom, filled the top part with charcoal (not to the
the very top), then lit the newspaper on fire in multiple places.
20-30 minutes later the whole thing was barely warm. The bottom
charcoals were barely warm.

What happened? Any ideas? I'm thinking that it may be the charcoal.
The kind I'm using is 60% bigger than Kingsford's charcoal which is
probably the standard size. Although, I really don't see how the size
of the charcoal would make that much difference. But, this year I've
had problems with the charcoal not getting hot enough with lighter
fluid. I didn't have this problem last year. When using lighter fluid,
I use two different brands and sizes of charcoal. But I still never
had this problem last year.