using newspaper as fuel - briquette maker?

grahamc2003

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Heard that too much paper on a fire plays havoc with the chimney and leads to increased soot.

Soot is produced from smoke, so if the stove is hot enough to burn all the smoke, then there'll be no soot. That's why I said burning even glossy mags in a (hot) stove operated correctly has had no dertrimental effect on my stove, or chimney, after 3 years. An open fire, where the temperatures are much less, wouldn't completely burn glossy paper imv, so I wouldn't attempt that.

As to how long the twisted pages I make burn for - that's hard to answer, since it is always an addition to wood. But I certainly extract all the heat from whatever I burn, so it'll be quite a bit more than the equivalent made into a brickette, simply because my newspaper is very dry, mwhereas a bricket would contain much more humitidy, even thouigh appearing dry. The water has to be boiled off before it can burn, which wastes heat of course.

The thing which harms chimneys, by depositing soot and tar, is choking off the air supply (for instance, to make a slower burn, or an overnight burn). That cause unburnt gaseous fuel to be exhausted up the chimney, where the cooler temperature condenses the tar and deposits soot.

EdinPheonix

You can buy paperbrick makers from www.wikanikoproducts.org.uk we bought one about 6 weeks ago and it has been great.