Best eco/heat logs?

Suki is right - housecoal has no place in a stove - you'll make a real mess of your chimney if you don't block it completely for starters. And much as I support woodburning on ecological grounds, having a burn of smokeless now and again can help to keep a chimney cleaner.

The reason for not burning wood and smokeless together, as far as I understand, is that moisture coming off the wood ( remember that even kiln dried logs are around 20% moisture content) can combine with the gases coming off the smokeless (smokeless can be quite corrosive as far as emissions go - that's why liners for smokeless fuel are a different grade of steel) and form acidic condensation in the chimney which will shorten it's life, whether lined or not. Bear in mind that smoke/gases in a stove chimney are moving way slower than an open fire chimney. and so have more chance to condense. Briquettes are probably less of a problem - being a fraction of the moisture of any logs at around 3 -5% but I'd probably avoid burning both at the same time for general use. Also of course, wood and smokeless fuels like different treatment. Wood likes to burn on a bed of ash with air from above and smokeless likes a clean grate with air from below - so using both together is always going to be compromising one of them.

The logs vs briquettes debate is an old one. Briquettes always look expensive on paper, but in terms of heat they generally work out cheaper than logs. Most of our regulars (and we ourselves) will easily get through a whole winter on one pallet full - there's no way you could do that with logs. Briquettes are always completely consistent from load to load and year to year, and you always know exactly how many you're getting as we don't sell by "the trailer load" or the "dumpy bag" which could be a whole range of sizes. Buy a full pallet and you'll always get 1000 briquettes and they'll always be 3-5% moisture. Kiln dried logs are fairly reliable, but they stick a big premium on for the kiln dried label, and the majority of them still average 20% - which in a good year is more than the logs from the old boy down the road who seasons properly - but who doesn't stick the price up!

Incidentally, if you want to try some out, I can sort you out with a sample pack if you like - they do work out a lot more expensive per pack because the carriage is pricey on small heavy consignments - but personally I'm always happier if people try them first so they know what they're getting before committing to a bulk order to get a better price. Just give us a shout if you fancy giving them a go!

Well as usual you're talking nonsense.

I stand by it because I AM a chimney sweep and I sweep hundreds of chimneys every year. Perhaps if you'd actually read the thread instead of just jumping in and mouthing off, you'd have noticed that we were talking about burning housecoal in a stove - and if you do a lot of that, your vast experience should tell you you'll have problems. As well as practically filling a liner with thick fluffy soot, you'll often find the mesh on the cowl gets filled up, effectively closing off the top of the chimney. Did you never wonder why almost all stove manufacturers say you shouldn't use housecoal? Or are you a stove manufacturer who knows better than the rest of them as well?

You also need to make up your mind as to whether you're a sweep or not - it wasn't so long ago that you were on about selling your chimney sweeping business for a huge amount of cash - remember? Anyone else who knows you from old will remember that you've dished out some truly awful "advice" on here over the years.

As for the air question - well you're just wrong again. Wood on a bed of ash will create it's own coalbed beneath it. Wood on an open clean grate will often just lose all the heart from the fire and you'll end up with charred lumps that end up going out. If you burn decent quality wood in a stove with half decent controls - then it will perform much better in the way I mentioned - and yes, it DOES make a difference. Perhaps you need to go back to stove school and start again....

Can I jump in here?
I had an old Parkray solid fuel roomheater for quite a few years, I burned smokeless coal like, Sunbrite, Phurnicite, Homefire, all the usual sorts that were available at the time.
I've never had a flue liner and I swear to you that all the time I was burning smokeless, over 20 yrs, I only had the chimney swept once.
I just didn't need it. So if it works OK, leave it alone.

I now have a wood burner and for the first 2 and half yrs was mixing wood with house coal. I don't use the coal anymore because I have had to sweep the chimney 4 times in 3 yrs.

The stuff that came out from the sweeping was like black flour, really fine particles

I am still burning the wood but now mixing it with Briquettes or Heatlogs, which are much cleaner than coal, with hardly any difference in heat output.

So, no more coal for me.

I don't assume anything of the sort. The majority of the stoves I sweep are fitted to lined chimneys, but not all. I don't fit stoves, and I have never advised anyone that a stove MUST have a liner - just that there are a number of benefits from doing so. That's not "industry myths" - that's just fact. And I've seen plenty of cases to prove the point thank you. I've also advised plenty of people that they don't HAVE to have the installation done by a HETAS fitter - I don't have any hidden agenda for making an extra buck.

As for blocked cowls - the vast majority of the stoves I look after have cowls on the chimneys - that's just the way things are in this part of the world. And I've seen a few blocked as a result of burning housecoal - not many I'll freely admit - but it's not many because very few of my customers do it - and the ones who did and who blocked their cowls don't do it any more!