Coal prices

smallblueplanet

Interesting about these pressed briquettes. What is the difference between pressed and extruded?
We have a small open fire as a decorative secondary heat source, I like to see things burn, lol! But the cost of smokeless briquettes has rocketed they're something like New Flame = £21.50/bag (50kg?) delivered by the coalman.
What do these burn like on an open fire we currently burn some logs on a bed of smokeless coal (don't like burning 'ordinary' coal because of the smell)?
Thanks.

Greenfires

Pressed briquettes often look like a pack of biscuits from the side. Each "biscuit" is the material compressed by one stroke of a piston. Extruded briquettes are formed by a screw forcing material through a die in one continuous length. Pressed briquettes will expand when burning, which increases the surface area open to air, so they burn quicker. They also tend to collapse into a pile of sawdust if disturbed, or when more fuel is added on top. Extruded briquettes don't expand or fall to bits - they form proper embers instead - exactly the same shape as the briquette. So they tend to give off heat for a much longer period, not just in the initial "flames stage" We generally have enough life left in the stove to relight it in the morning, and we never fill it up at bedtime, or close the air controls down - it just gets left at whatever setting it was running on.

Extruded briquettes tend to be a bit more expensive - but we've sold pressed ones in the past as an economy alternative - and none of our customers bought them more than once as they reckoned the extruded ones were better value. Something might be cheaper per tonne on paper - but if you use twice as much in the same period, then you need to double the price to get a true comparison.

You'll notice a lot of cheap pressed briquettes are sealed in bags - that's often because they're so soft and crumbly that you'll get a couple of shovelfuls of dust in the bottom of each bag. Customer of mine tried some recently "made from 100% oak". Doesn't matter what they're made of - if they're dead soft and crumbly they won't last five minutes - he told me he certainly wouldn't be buying them again!

Briquettes will make a decent fire in an open fire - but be aware of them trying to escape if you use pressed ones which expand - but they're better in a stove where the air can be more controlled and this will get the best out of them. They're all a lot drier than any logs you'll buy so there's no energy wasted in driving off moisture. Even kiln dried logs will be around 18-20% moisture - briquettes are around 5% - so there's a lot more available heat in a tonne of briquettes than a tonne of logs.

smallblueplanet

Thanks a lot Greenfires.

Don't fancy trying pressed briquettes for sure! But how can you tell, if not by looking? I was thinking of those in the ebay link above, it doesn't seem to say. Should one assume if it doesn't say that they're pressed as you'd want people to know for certain that the briquettes were extruded?

Are ther any particular brands of extruded briquettes to look out for, I'd like to try some but a palletful is a few too many!

Greenfires

There are a lot more pressed briquettes around than extruded ones, basically because the machinery is an awful lot cheaper. You can be in business for less than £10k. A good screw extruder built for the job is likely to set you back something in the region of £160k by comparison!

Pressed briquettes are always solid basically - and extruded ones have a hole down the middle left behind by the extruder screw itself. It's not, as I've seen in at least one advert "an added hole so they burn even better"!!

A lot of pressed briquettes are made by small outfits using cheap machines - producing comparitively soft briquettes. As mentioned, if the briquettes are soft, it doesn't matter if they're made of the best wood in the world - they won't last long. We've had some on trial in the past where we could go through 15 kilos in an evening - whereas we use about 5 kilos of ours in the same period.

If you do go for pressed ones though - look for the ones about four inches in diameter - they'll usually last a lot longer than the nugget type ones which are about 2" diameter - what I call "garden centre specials" Every one of my customers who's tried these has said they were rubbish and they wouldn't buy them again. Personally I'd want to make sure they were made in the UK too - and not shipped in from the other side of Europe or even further afield - but that's just me.

smallblueplanet

@ Greenfires Ta. I think I'll keep an eye out for 'Polo' briquettes I can't be bothered wasting money on pressed ones that might jump out the fire!

SEE

smallblueplanet wrote: »

Thanks a lot Greenfires.

Don't fancy trying pressed briquettes for sure! But how can you tell, if not by looking? I was thinking of those in the ebay link above, it doesn't seem to say. Should one assume if it doesn't say that they're pressed as you'd want people to know for certain that the briquettes were extruded?

Are ther any particular brands of extruded briquettes to look out for, I'd like to try some but a palletful is a few too many!

I've been using my stove and fire for 15yrs and I can honestly say that what I have been getting off Ebay beats the stuff on the garage forecourts. I used to get dark brown hexagonal shaped blocks when running low on coal, they have a hole running through the centre. They burn exactly the same as the stuff on Ebay except those on Ebay are less than half the price. They do sell smaller bags if you wanted to try them, but I would never advertise anything that didn't personally work for me, it would be morally wrong. Also, dust in the bag is equivalent to dust in a coal bag, except these briquettes aren't saturated in water. My coal usually is, and just another reason I won't be using Coals2U again.

smallblueplanet

Thanks SEE. I'm sure I can find similar stuff locally, but I wanted to know what to look for as I know nothing about how they're made or even from what. They wouldn't be for primary heat generation just for our small open fire, so wouldn't need much quantity wise. We have room to stack about 1m2 of logs so I wondered if these briquettes might be better value.

Greenfires

Obviously I can only speak from my own experience, and what our customers tell us - but we have quite a few who have shopped around and tried other types, and they keep buying from us instead of elsewhere. Our narrowboat customers too tell us they've not been able to keep the stove in all night with other types of briquettes which they can with ours. To be honest, I don't think they'd thank us for selling some of the stuff we've been sent as samples!

Towser

Is this anygood? Is there a cheaper way of doing it?
We buy 20 bags of 20kg bags of boiler nuts coal comes to £161 in HP23 Herts/Bucks.

SEE

Towser wrote: »

Is this anygood? Is there a cheaper way of doing it?
We buy 20 bags of 20kg bags of boiler nuts coal comes to £161 in HP23 Herts/Bucks.

That seems an ok price. I'm in the West Mids with some of the highest prices in the country. Put your postcode in here to check their prices.

http://www.coals2u.co.uk/

If I purchased 500kg of Anthracite large nuts it would cost me £227.80 a saving of £6 because 10 bags would be purchased. Stoveheat would cost me £208.70.

I can't afford to buy coal any more. The company above has bought practically everyone out!