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Heat logs / Briquettes - best ones

The logs we had delivered over last winter were a mixed bag. First load were fantastic and well seasoned, 2nd load not too bad and the 3rd load were awful. They were too wet to use last year but hopefully will now be seasoned enough for this winter. Rather than take the risk of another dodgy delivery of logs we thought we might buy a half palette of heat logs / briquettes. There are so many varieties on the market though. What are people's opinion of them and does anybody have a recommendation for which ones to go for?

Thanks

Comments

  • Greenfires
    Greenfires Posts: 635 Forumite
    Hi Clare,

    Your story is one I hear all too often I'm afraid!

    I've been dealing with briquettes for a good few years now, and have tried most of the varieties currently available. One thing they all offer is consistency - as briquetting machines simply don't work if the feedstock isn't just right. However, there's a big difference between good ones and bad ones! Some are made in machinery adapted from other industries - and whilst these machines are available for just a few grand, the briquettes they produce are generally small and relatively soft. This results in a very short lived fuel - even if the "ingredients" are just right - and whilst they may appear to be cheaper per bag or per tonne etc, if they last a third of the time, they will almost always work out to be more expensive as you'll use three times as many.

    A proper wood briquetting set up can cost well over £100k - but will produce vastly superior briquettes.

    Generally speaking - almost all the solid cylindrical briquettes will tend to expand once alight. You need to bear this in mind if using in an open fire as escapes are possible! They also tend to collapse into a pile of hot sawdust if poked or disturbed. Both of these things result in a decreased burn time. Heat output is good in the early stages, but falls off fairly rapidly once the flames have died down.

    The other type of briquettes are produced by a screw extruder - and these don't expand or collapse, but form proper embers instead. These have a longer burn time and generally speaking a higher heat output for a longer period, as they still have a lot of heat to give out after the flames have gone.

    All briquettes are much drier than any logs - even kiln dried ones, and so will have much more energy available as heat, as very little is wasted in driving off moisture. Good ones will contain up to around four times as much heat energy as the same weight of logs. This is why most average customers will find that a single pallet will last them a whole winter or longer. Compared with average prices for seasoned logs around the country, good briquettes will almost always work out cheaper in energy terms.

    The other thing to bear in mind is that many of the briquettes offered for sale are imported from eastern Europe, or even further afield. The quality is okay usually, but I'm not comfortable promoting these as a green fuel if they've been shipped half way round the world to get here.

    As far as I know, advertising here in the open forum isn't allowed, but if you send me a private message I can give you more information.

    Hope that helps!

    All the best,

    Andy
  • Thank you Andy - I have replied now.
  • savemoney
    savemoney Posts: 18,125 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    Greenfires please dont use this forum for advertising via post or PM I have reported you to abuse. If its advise then post it on here you give good advise no need to do it via PM which is probably trying to promote your company
  • Greenfires
    Greenfires Posts: 635 Forumite
    Point taken guys - but I'm in a bit of a spot really! It's a bit hard to advise people of what's best without that actually being advertising of sorts or sounding like it anyway - so I thought it would be more appropriate to do it "out of the public eye" as it were. I apologise if this is/was the wrong thing to do.

    I only base my advice on my experience, which as far as this area goes is quite extensive. As a supplier of briquettes, which I've been for a good few years, I've tried almost all the ones commonly available, and am often asked to trial new ones by companies new to the market. Some are good, and some not so good, and the only reason I sell the ones I do is that I've yet to find a better one. Woodfuels is just part of my business - I make most of my income from working as a chimney sweep, and to be honest, if you knew how much profit there was in selling firewood briquettes, you'd probably wonder why I do it! And that's basically down to the fact I think they're a fantastic fuel and good for the environment too - as all the ingredients would have ended up being buried in a landfill otherwise. We still bury tens of thousands of tonnes of this material in the UK every year. They also outperform traditional logs in every aspect, apart from not looking as attractive stacked by the fire!

    Hopefully my posts will have helped people out in some way, but you will appreciate that it's kind of difficult when someone asks about briquettes for instance, and when I've tried almost all of them at some stage, to give them an answer at all without sounding like I'm just trying to flog something! I burn nothing else at home either I should add.

    If you could advise me of the best way to help without breaking the rules, I'd be very happy to hear from you.

    Cheers,

    Andy
  • welda
    welda Posts: 600 Forumite
    Greenfires wrote: »
    If you could advise me of the best way to help without breaking the rules, I'd be very happy to hear from you.

    Cheers,

    Andy

    Seems to me, your damned if you do, and your damned if you don't, especially when the "don'ts" mean you cant get a structered sensible reply over to a poster!

    I also find it a bit bizarre to find your surfing actions cut and paste, for the world to see :think: MSE Stasi???

    :beer:
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