Wood Briguettes

sweet-rasmus

Hi, I bought some ecoflame wood briquettes today from Woodies. http://www.greenerfuels.ie/briq.html They are made of compressed wood chips and sawdust. Woodies had a deal of two packs (of 16) for about a tenner (either €10 or €10.50 I think).

So to the point! Are many brands of such available in Ireland? And which are the best price/where available? I'm particularly curious about what's available in the Dublin/Wiclow area. I'd rather buy these instead of peat briquettes. The carbon cycle does not need a reintroduction of carbon which has been dormant for hundreds of years!

gerky

There's also these but I have no experiance with them so can't be of much help to you.
http://www.irishbiofuels.ie/Bio_HotNuts_Wood_Brickets.html

sweet-rasmus

Aha! They are the ones I saw when I was in a Supervalu in Galway... I'll have a read and send them an email about stockists perhaps... Thanks

MrsMcSteamy

hey sell these in the shop i work for in offaly. A bale of these work out at round 3.40, they are a good seller and customers say they provide great heat

sweet-rasmus

Thanks MrsMcSteamy It seems like a much better price, as they would be a 10 kg (presumably) pack as compared to 9.5 kg for €5.50.

pipsqueak

i buy fire logs and cut them in half, light just as well!!!

gerky

Hey sweet-rasmus, if you do get the briquettes from Irishbiofuels would you mind posting back if they're any good.
How do you find the eco-flame ones burn, do they burn very quick.

sweet-rasmus

Well, i'm not an expert on fires The heat out of them was much stronger than out of peat briquettes for sure. Burning time... I really didn't notice as I was glued to the tv

I was talking to a neighbour about it today and they complained that they burn fast. I supposed one would have to put one each of peat and wood briquettes on the fire and compare burning times But we bought the wood briquettes because we ran out of peat ones at home, so I won't be doing that test tonight!

I would say that the wood briquettes burn well and efficiently (as I mentioned with the heat output). You often find with peat briquettes that they have started smoking and you need to give the fire some encouragement/ move them about to get the fire going again. None of that hassle with the wood briquettes

I'm happy buying them for their carbon neutral appeal, so it doesn't matter to me if they don't last as long. I just want to find a better price for them!

gerky

Thanks for replying, if you had the space for storage and bought in bulk they'd work out a fairly good price.

sweet-rasmus

Yeah, i saw the bulk prices. But don't have a shed or anywhere to store! I shall continue to look out for outlets I emailed Irish Bio Fuels about suppliers and am waiting to hear if they can tell me who my local might be. But it's the holidays so I'll be waiting a while for a reply no doubt!

Alun

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

I'm happy buying them for their carbon neutral appeal, so it doesn't matter to me if they don't last as long. I just want to find a better price for them!

Surely they're only carbon neutral if the manufacturers are planting new trees / biomass one-for-one for every one they use to make the briquettes, otherwise it's just as bad as peat or coal? And even then we're not taking manufacturing and transport costs into account. Putting a "bio-" or "eco-" prefix on something is easy, doing it properly is another.

sweet-rasmus

But they aren't cutting down trees. they are taking waste wood chips and saw dust and making a product out of what otherwise might go to a bin.

Even if you were comparing knocking down a tree to getting peat - peat may have stored carbon for hundreds of years, whereas the tree has only been storing it for tens. This is the carbon cycle which I am referring to. Of course there might be more emitted for transport or manufacture... You can argue the same with any product sold for the purpose of burning. But I am just concentrating on what I am burning. I'm sure you could read more about carbon storage with a google about the net.

gerky

Alun wrote: »

Surely they're only carbon neutral if the manufacturers are planting new trees / biomass one-for-one for every one they use to make the briquettes, otherwise it's just as bad as peat or coal? And even then we're not taking manufacturing and transport costs into account. Putting a "bio-" or "eco-" prefix on something is easy, doing it properly is another.

As far as I'm aware most of these types of Briquettes are made from waste and leftovers such a sawdust, but even so in the case of these briquettes, is carbon neutral not just defined as that the carbon output of the product does not exceed the amount that the product has taken in over its lifetime?

My own guess is that they probably aren't neutral when all aspects such as delivery and the likes are factored in but I'd still imagine they're a lot better than peat as the bogs act as a huge carbon store and apart from anything else peat is a fossil fuel and I believe we need to all we can to protect what's left of our bogs.

Nerin

We got a few into our shop before xmas,worked out the same price as normal briquettes,and similar if bought in bulk.

Main thing i noticed was the pack is 2/3s maybe less,the size of peat briquettes.

sweet-rasmus

so, what shop woud that be then?

Nerin

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

so, what shop woud that be then?

Builders providers,not a chain.

Danuogma

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

Hi, I bought some ecoflame wood briquettes today from Woodies. http://www.greenerfuels.ie/briq.html They are made of compressed wood chips and sawdust. Woodies had a deal of two packs (of 16) for about a tenner (either €10 or €10.50 I think).

€10 for 16 briquettes, Jaysus, what a rip-off.

I saw "eco friendly" firelighters for sale in Tesco a couple of weeks ago, four times the price and less than half the size of Tescos own brand!, lulz whoever buys them must have "mug" tattooed on their foreheads .

A drop of diesel and a ball of newspaper is the way to go. 1L of diesel will light fires for weeks and it costs around 95c at the moment, used cooking oil would do the same trick for free.

gerky

Danuogma wrote: »

€10 for 16 briquettes, Jaysus, what a rip-off.

I saw "eco friendly" firelighters for sale in Tesco a couple of weeks ago, four times the price and less than half the size of Tescos own brand!, lulz whoever buys them must have "mug" tattooed on their foreheads .

A drop of diesel and a ball of newspaper is the way to go. 1L of diesel will light fires for weeks and it costs around 95c at the moment, used cooking oil would do the same trick for free.

Her post says two packets of 16 for €10.

allthedoyles

gerky wrote: »

Her post says two packets of 16 for €10.

Yes you will get 2 packs of 16 ecoflame wood briquettes for 10 euro.
There is a special offer in Atlantic ( for over 65's ) one day a week .

BNM Peat briquettes also have 16 logs .... same as the Ecoflame wood briquettes from www.greenerfuels.ie

Try an ecoflame wood briquette under a shovel of coal and see a remarkable increase in heat output

jobrok1

There's a company in Little Island, Cork, called Ecofires who sell, well... eco fire places.
But they've recently started selling hardwood briquets.
There are 6 logs in a pack. About 3 inches in diameter and about 10 inches long. Burn well in open fires, and really well in stoves. We've been using them as a replacement for coal in our home for a while now, and I'm well impressed.
2 or 3 logs in our stove produces as much heat output as a shovel of coal.
I usually get them from the local garage in Fermoy as they sell them for about €4.50 a pack, but I've also seen some places sell them for €5.50 - €6.00 a pack.

You can also buy direct from Ecofires themselves who will sell you a pallet load of 96 packs for around €360, if I remeber correctly. That's what a buddy at work did recently, anyway. Works out at about €3.75 a pack.

wazzoraybelle

I've been testing different wood briquettes in my stove over the last two winters and I would have to say I find the ecoflame ones the best. However last winter they were selling for 4.20 a bale(16) (9.6kg) and this winter the price had risen to 5.50 before falling back recently to 4.95.
The briquettes produce a lot more heat than peat but burn a lot quicker which makes them more suitable for a stove than an open fireplace. Another advantage is that there is hardly any ash from them and what little there is can be composted unlike peat and coal ash.
Because of the huge price increase in the briquettes this year I've switched to Eco Fire Logs made by Mcmahon eco fuels in limerick. They sell a 25kg bag for 12 euro in my local coop. The logs themselves are similar to the irish biofuel ones. While they are not as good as the ecoflame I'm finding them to be better value for money.
I have made several enquiries to ecoflame about bulk purchase but they don't seem interested.

cilldara34

i buy them off a guy in kildare they are hardwood briquettes 12 in a pack like big wheatabix 4euros a bale or if you buy 10 you get one free has a deal for pensioners but dont know what it is