Burning Briquettes

[windfall]

Hi All,

 

I have bought 20 bags of Kiln dried Briquettes to see how they burn and what my clients make of them. Plan is to dish 10 bags out to see what peoples views are of them.

 

However, I have not burnts Briquettes before so i was looking for some tips, guidance and advice really.

 

For example should i be just burning briquttes or should i get a good fire going first? etc etc.

 

Thanks in advance.

[County4x4]

What type of briquettes are they? If they're cylindrical - 3-4" diameter and look a bit like a packet of squashed biscuits, then they'll expand when burning so don't overfill the stove or fireplace. They'll also tend to collapse into a pile of hot sawdust if poked or disturbed, or when fresh ones are added to the fire. The expanding also means that burn time is shortened as the exposed surface area increased as they burn. If they're the small cylindrical ones about 2" diameter (what I call garden centre specials) they'll generally burn very quickly and you'll go through a bag in no time. These are generally very soft and low density compared to a decent briquette - several of my customers have tried them in the past and when asked what they thought, they said "they were exactly how you said they'd be - rubbish"!

 

A good many of my customers, and me personally just burn briquettes and nothing else as they are so handy and reliable - though the ones we sell are a little different and don't have any of the problems I mentioned above. All wood based briquettes should light easily with a handful of kindling or a firelighter as they'll generally have about half the moisture content of kiln dried natural logs.

 

So basically - a lot depends on the briquettes themselves - there's as much difference between good ones and bad ones as between ash and elder. Our stove has easily gone through 15 kilos plus of poor ones in an evening - compared with probably slightly less than half that amount of the ones I deal with now.

 

Only other thing to say is don't burn them, or any other wood fuel, at the same time as coal or smokeless fuel - this can produce sulphuric acid in your chimney which won't help anything!

 

Andy

[windfall]

Cheers for the reply Andy.

 

The ones i have are kinda brick shaped, kiln dried not sure what wood went in them to be honest. I am paying £2.50 for a 10kg pack of 12 bricks.

 

As i got no replies i figured id just wing it. I used a firelighter and small pile of kindling, sitting two of the bricks on top. They were soon burning well, i gave them a prod and they settled down to the grate and really got going. Temp at this stage was only 200. After the prod they did loose a bit of their shape but really started burning well, but still only 300. So i stuck 2 more bricks in and oh yeah, 500 in no time so i throttled the stove back and the temp sat at 400 for an hour before starting to look as if it needed another brick on top.

 

All in tonight i have only burnt 5 briquettes from 7:30 till 10:55 (and its still at 400 with at least another hour to run), so trade cost is £1.20 for a nights warmth and retail cost £2.50.

 

I am very impressed!

[gensetsteve]

I sell the hotmax ones because they are only a couple of miles away. I like them for fast instant heat. I would not put them on my own stove if I had fully seasoned beech next to them. They are ideal for people with 6 inch stoves. I use them in winter to start my stove in the winter for an hour then let it go out till evening. Some of our customers take 1cu metre of logs and 15 bags of hotmax.

[windfall]

Mine are called Warma Briquettes, stove was still hot this morning when i came down.

 

I am thinking they would be ideal for clients with stoves running back boilers that they want to keep ticking over.