Heat Logs £2.99 for 8 @ Aldi

alleycat`

art_for_arts_sake wrote: »

Nothing cheaper than free wood. Neighbours and friends have kept me in firewood for the last 2 years. It's not very moneysaving if you're buying fuel that's as dear as gas to burn.

I don't have the stove to be money saving.
I had it fitted when we did an extension as the house lacked any sort of individual stamp or character.
At least now it isn't just another "box". I fully accept i'm lucky to be in that position.
I do have access to a certain amount of free wood but it was never going to offset a mains gas central heating system.

As to these logs.
As promised i've now trialled them against the hotties and this is my general impression.

Hotties are much denser and weigh at least twice as much as the "aldi heat logs".

Burn time on an indivudal hottie is about 2 hours.
Burn time on an individual "heat log" is about 40 to 50 minutes.
(both done starting the stove from cold and using the same air vent settings).

Both produce an equivalent amount of heat output (according to the stove thermometer when using the same "settings").

Cost of an individual "heat log" is 37.5p
Cost of an individual hottie is 50p
(both based on a single pack purchase cost and not on a pallet load).

The hottie holds its shape very well and doesn't fall apart when poked.
The heat log expanded from the original shape and size to almost 12" long in my stove. It also "unscrewed" to form a very odd shape.
I also found that touching the heat log at all made it fall apart and it had very little structural density once "hot".

The two things i will give the heat log over the hottie is that it gave a better "flame picture" and it made a nicer "bed" for a new set of wood to be placed on.

Both burned down to very little ash.

Overall the hottie appears to be a better proposition based on my very limited trial data, and works out somewhat cheaper based on life expectancy.

I certainly wouldn't use the "heat logs" on any sort of open fire based on their characteristics.

Overall, i'd use the heat logs again, but i find myself agreeing with andy/greenfires customers that the hottie appears to be the more sensible purchase. It would be the one i'm inclined to purchase in bulk going forward.

art_for_arts_sake

I came close to buying the Aldi logs this year but a neighbour's just come to the rescue with several trees worth that have been felled a while so are nicely seasoned. We used to have an open fire just to burn offcuts but took the plunge with a log burner after having a couple of "accidents" from logs spitting.

Skulls

Alleycat, how many Hotties are there in a 10 Kg pack? Are they the ones with the hole in the middle?

A._Badger

I must have missed the point somewhere - can someone please explain why they are buying these as opposed to seasoned wood? Are they cheaper to use?

savemoney

They give off more heat calorific value than seasoned logs. Still expensive to use than say seasoned logs but factor in how much extra calorific value they give as it doesn't seem quite as bad although for me still more than my bulk buy of logs I get

I use them to boost the log burner if I want more heat quickly

A._Badger wrote: »

I must have missed the point somewhere - can someone please explain why they are buying these as opposed to seasoned wood? Are they cheaper to use?

A._Badger

savemoney wrote: »

They give off more heat calorific value than seasoned logs. Still expensive to use than say seasoned logs but factor in how much extra calorific value they give as it doesn't seem quite as bad although for me still more than my bulk buy of logs I get

I use them to boost the log burner if I want more heat quickly

OK, thanks. I'd be interested to see a reliable price comparison given the way log prices are going.

alleycat`

Skulls wrote: »

Alleycat, how many Hotties are there in a 10 Kg pack? Are they the ones with the hole in the middle?

10 in a pack, weigh about 1kg each as best as i can work out.
Yes they have a hole in the middle.

alleycat`

A._Badger wrote: »

I must have missed the point somewhere - can someone please explain why they are buying these as opposed to seasoned wood? Are they cheaper to use?

I'm trialling them as a replacement / alternative to the smokeless i use.
I'm limited to about 2 to 3 cubic metres of storage for seasoned wood (log store wise) and some of it is never "ready" in any given year.

I figure a pallet of hotties (or a.n.other) is just the same as a pallet storing the smokeless (space wise).

At the moment i think the smokeless is going to work out at better value for money than the heat logs but it isn't as "clean" in the house and it is more of a pain to move about.

That is my motiviation anyway :-)

Skulls

And much easier to store.

I lit the fire tonight at 4.30 only using one fire-lighter and 2 small slices of a heat log roughly 1 cm thick and put rest of the log on top. Topped up with another split into 2 at 5.30 ish. Currently the lounge is 23 degrees in the coldest corner roughly 6 m from fire and at a guess there's about an hour of burn left, it's now 6.50 pm.

Looking at all info so far I think I'll end up with a combo of Hotties and Heatlogs.

Are we able to post video clips?

Greenfires

Badger - you may like to have a look at this page for comparisons.
http://www.bridgebrooke.co.uk/hotties-versus-wood-logs.html
As far as price goes - our biggest local supplier is currently doing a special offer on kiln dried hardwood at £135 a cube. If you can figure out where in the tables that fits then you should be able to get some reasonably meaningful comparisons. The figures in the tables aren't my work by the way - they're from an independant source. And to be honest, I don't really need any more convincing - I wouldn't go back to logs unless they were free - and that's from someone who spent about 15 years working as a forester, so I've done my share of them!

As well as storage - there's also consistency as a plus point. There's no wondering if the next load will be dry enough - they're always exactly the same year in year out so you know exactly what you're getting rather than taking pot luck to some extent.

Edited to say that I'd slightly disagree with some of the moisture contents quoted in that table. "Kiln dried" means little more that the logs have been in a kiln and are drier than when they went in - 20% is the figure most companies quote when they're trying to sell to us by the container load. In a good drying year, the naturally seasoned logs from Old Bob down the road may well be sub 20% - but he won't stick on the hefty premium that "kiln dried" stuff has!