EcoBricks - my small testing of them

[electiccottage]

Pallets stacked two high on the ground and a tarp over the very top of the wood stores it darn well. Don't want the tarp to go down the sides much if at all in order to let the sides breath and keep humidity from being trapped under it.

We will be building a wood storage area next year. We tried tarps for the stuff we've got for next year and the wind shreaded them. Gets blow-y up here with fields on one side and a lake on the other-our porch sounds like a haunted house more days than not, lol (from the wind blowing through the crappy window seals). Curious-why double stack the pallets?

 

[OH_Varmntr]

Curious-why double stack the pallets?

Airflow underneath the stacked wood. :msp_thumbup:

 

[ss~zoso~ss]

I'd be interested to see how the Eco Bricks compare to the BioBricks mentioned a few posts ago.

I've burned some of the BioBricks and wasn't impressed, probably because they're not 100% hardwood, looks like the eco bricks are so I imagine they'd burn longer and hotter.

The BioBricks I tried would burn rather fast and then there would just be a big block of ash sitting in the stove, which would crumble upon touching...

These things are good in a pinch, easy to store, but yes it does suck paying for fuel for the stove!

 

[Streblerm]

Around me you can buy ecobricks direct from the manufacturer by the pallet for around $160-170. A pallet is supposed to be the equivalent of 1 cord of hardwood or 1 ton of coal. At that price it is fairly competetive especially when you factor in guaranteed moisture content and lack of mess. The companies that make them make hardwood mouldings and use the left overs for the ecobricks.

I gave some thought to buying some. I tried some out and they did burn nice and make a lot of heat. In the end there is just too much "free" wood out there for me to pay for wood. If I buy wood then I might as well just burn electric/gas. If you were buying wood then I could see them being a good option, but not at $4.00 per bundle.

 

[ponyexpress976]

The bummer is that the brand we get here "BIOBricks" are made in my hometown (Berlin, CT), and you can't buy direct from the manufacturer. I would gladly take the "seconds" or broken ones for a discount...

any broken ones or seconds probably go right back into the front of the process and get "recycled".

 

[Felman]

So you can use the coals piled on top of freshly loaded wood to continue the top down burn process. I'm wondering how similar the burns would be (mainly burn time) doing the "traditional" coals to the front, wood to the rear vs top down with coals on top.

What is your stove & can you see the fire through glass?

 

[logbutcher]

" Bio" and "Eco" along with pellets are oxymorons for producing energy for heating. They have a very high cost in production ( some bright bulb here will do a Google on the BTU and fossil cost of production of these products).

Much better and free if seasoned firewood is unavailable where you are, would be to look for wood scraps. Every part of the world has construction sites, wood mills, flooring manufacturers, cabinetmakers, etc.....; all have cuttoffs or scraps from their work. How difficult is it to get hardwood and softwood to burn ?

JMNSHO:msp_thumbsup:

 

[dhopkins55]

I too bought a skid of Eco Bricks from TSC this past August. Had them set them aside for me when their first shipment came. Got a nice 10% discount from my store for buying in bulk. I paid about $215 for it in Escanaba, MI. Anyway, since I have a Yukon-Eagle Klondike wood/coal furnace, I bought the Eco-Bricks to see just how they'd perform in a whole-house furnace. They perform quite well, and they throw off a LOT of heat. I've got them stacked in my garage (don't want them to get wet, or else just like any other compacted sawdust product, they absorb water and fall apart) and now they are the "holy sh*t, I forgot to stack the night's supply of wood (or coal) by the furnace and I'm too lazy to go outside in the crappy weather to get more" alternative! :hmm3grin2orange:

 

[Dons kids]

"You don't want to do this. The ideal reload is to pull your coals to the front of the stove where the primary air hits them. Then you load your wood either N/S, or E/W depending on the stove. The splits will then catch from the hot coals in front. As the fire then burns, it should burn from the front to back. This will give you the longest burns, while producing alot of heat. I always wake to a good bed of coals in the rear of the furnace, with ash in the front of the firebox where primary air hits. I shovel out a couple times, rake the coals forward and reload and away I go. Works every time. " I am sure glad that this thread was revived. It gave me the opportunity to stumble on this post by Laynes69. I tried this method last night and never got more heat or a longer burn time from a load of cherry in my insert. It seems simple, but it works. Thank you.