Eco Sawdust Heat Logs - How Safe Is Smoke?

WhatRecovery

These burn out a bit too quickly but we find them useful for reviving the fire quickly when its been lit for a while, just wondering if anyone knows how'safe' they are ,fumes wise, compared to say , coal or coke?

Thanks

Greenfires

If they're decent ones, there's nothing in them except wood (no glues, binders, preservatives, mdf, chipboard waste etc) so the smoke is no different to what you'd get from traditional logs. You'll probably get less though - as they're way drier than any logs you could buy.

Some customers have reported funny coloured ash or odd smells from some imported briquettes - that's another reason we only deal with UK manufactured ones - we can go to the factory at any time if we had any doubts about what's going into them - which we never have had by the way!

WhatRecovery

Yes, it glue i was worried about as we had this problem before. The ones we have now dont seem to have any glue, but what about the dust when clearing the fire out etc (packaging says theyre carbon-neutral etc which is great, but nothing about safety - the dust is clean but looks like fine white sand or cement- just wondering.)

Greenfires

As above really - there shouldn't be anything other than wood in them - it's the lignin in the wood itself that actually "glues" them together. Do you happen to know what types you've been using that you think have been glued together?

As far as the ash goes the only real concern would be the ash from rice husk briquettes - which I don't think you'll find for sale here - that contains a lot of silica which isn't the best material to be breathing in. You shouldn't really be breathing any ash in of course, but wood ash isn't the worst stuff in the world. Wood ash can go in the compost bin or be spread on the garden.

Just as an aside, if you burn old treated timber like fence posts and so on that were treated with the original tanalith formula, which was based on a copper/chrome/arsenic compound, then these nasties tend to get concentrated in the ash. There's no place for this sort of stuff in a domestic stove - it really needs to be incinerated - where the much higher temperatures will break down the toxic compounds.