UK Heatlogs

LisaLou1982

I'll cross post this on the bargain buys board but for anyone who has a stove give these a go!

I bought some from Aldi last year for £2.99 a box (10kg) and absolutely love them!

Ive just had a look on the website and if you order before 31st August you get 20% off the total order - 900kg is £345 before any discount so a great deal!

Hope that helps someone! x

Greenfires

We sold these as an economy alternative to our usual ones a couple of years back. They're okay, but none of our regulars bought them a second time - they all reckoned the usual ones, though more expensive on paper, actually worked out cheaper in use as they lasted so much longer. We've only stocked the one type since, which we use ourselves at home as well. If you do buy this type of briquette, please bear in mind that they expand quite a lot when burning (which means they burn quicker) and they're also quite prone to soaking up atmospheric moisture if kept in a damp atmosphere like a garage. The extruded ones which we deal with don't do either of those things.

alleycat`

That's weird. If my math is correct that would make them work out at £3.06 a box (after discount).

So the bulk order is more than Aldi were selling them at for individual boxes (i admit that was 9 months ago).

It'll be interesting to see if they get carried by Aldi again and at what price.

Greenfires

My guess is that it would have been one of those loss leader things mate. I can't remember the exact figures, but I reckon £2.99 a box would be less than normal trade price, never mind retail. Though of course Aldi might have a *bit* more "buying power" than we do!!

Generally speaking, for a re-seller there's very little margin in briquettes - and in pure business terms they're probably not worth the effort. There's probably a bit more return if you're buying in by the container load from the Baltic, but it's always been about more than the money for us at least.

alleycat`

Fair point.

I suppose if Aldi commit to buying x number of pallets and they make a small profit on each box then UKheatlogs would stand to lose a certain amount.

I suppose that UKHL would weigh that off on the chance of new business / new orders over the next few years.

I myself tried them last year and found they expanded too much to be used as they were presented in the box, for my stove anyway.

However breaking them into half again they worked out ok, so long as i didn't touch them once burning.
If you touched them they turned into a big pile of dust.

I compared them to the Hotties and found that, based on burn time, they worked out about the same price wise overall.

As you've said before, initial outlay is more but the amount needed to get the same burn time is less.

On that basis if the UKHL came up again at that price i would buy a few boxes as backup / spares.

I wouldn't buy them as my "main" type (purely on the basis you need to store more, and i'm somewhat dry space limited).

I suppose if you've got the space it looks more impressive to have 900KG rather than 500KG.

Skulls

I got a 1000kg pallet of UK heat logs last November and it lasted until April, it cost £290 delivered. My log burner is the only heating I have in my 2 bed house. May try the Durham heat logs this year as they are only £200 a ton and are just smaller versions of the UK heat logs.

alleycat`

Skulls wrote: »

I got a 1000kg pallet of UK heat logs last November and it lasted until April, it cost £290 delivered. My log burner is the only heating I have in my 2 bed house. May try the Durham heat logs this year as they are only £200 a ton and are just smaller versions of the UK heat logs.

I had noticed the pallet size on quite a few of these has reduced.
1000Kg is now 900Kg for some.
One of the ones advertised on here was for 8KG bags rather than the more normal 10KG.
So instead of the 1/4 pallet of 250KG, it worked out at 200KG.

Seems that the heat log industry is getting into the food industry size shenanigans.

Greenfires

Generally speaking you'll find that smaller briquettes are shorter lived - they have more surface area relative to their volume so more air can get to them. Cheaper on paper isn't always cheaper to use as many of our customers have found! I have several who have tried this type and they all told me they wouldn't buy them again. Don't be taken in by lines like "100% Oak!!" either - if they're small and soft it doesn't matter what they're made of - they won't last long!

Not sure why so many manufacturers stick less than a tonne on a pallet. I know in some cases it's because of the total volume the product takes up - a less dense briquette that's not a stackable shape takes up a lot more volume and there'll be limits on how high you can stack the pallets.

Hotties for the record are a very dense briquette, so they put a full tonne on a pallet - and they'll also go on a Euro size pallet rather than a full size 48x40.

aelitaman

I bought 20 boxes of these at aldi last year and for me they were good for getting my stove up to heat. Then I put logs on.

At the end I was splitting them with a chisel to use as kindling and that worked really well. I think you get more in weight in a box of these at 2.99 (last years price) than kindling at 3.50 per bag.