Fuel from sawdust

slowburner

It's getting near time to think about firewood!:(

There are commercial/industrial machines available for the large scale production of briquettes from saw dust.
I'm just wondering if anyone has tried it themselves on a DIY level with any degree of success?

Failures are every bit as interesting

William Powell

Why not burn the sawdust as it is and not go to all the problems of making briquettes?

Our local Hardware was selling them last year and a chippy I know has one in his workshop and swears by it.

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/steel-workshop-stove.html says more than I can be bothered to write , but search around if your thinking of buying.

You'll get even more info and ideas if you google for IMAGES sawdust stoves.

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

Why not burn the sawdust as it is and not go to all the problems of making briquettes?

Our local Hardware was selling them last year and a chippy I know has one in his workshop and swears by it.

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/steel-workshop-stove.html says more than I can be bothered to write , but search around if your thinking of buying.

You'll get even more info and ideas if you google for IMAGES sawdust stoves.

Some tidy looking stoves there
I have a home made stove in the workshop - made it out of a beer keg :rolleyes:, it burns sawdust quite merrily. The problem is that I don't need to run it in the summer but I still produce lots of sawdust over this period. I compost most of the dust, but I wonder if there was a way of making briquettes using home resources - then I could store them more easily as a fuel source.

Coriolanus

Seems to be definitely viable, with a little bit of work to get the kit together.

Just from a very brief google search, here's two.

http://pfiddle.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/paper-and-sawdust-briquette-maker/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9XZTsi-_8U

slowburner

Great links - just wish I had a fly press .

...........now where did I leave that cider press?

GY A1

slowburner wrote: »

Great links - just wish I had a fly press .

...........now where did I leave that cider press?

did you have a go at the saw dust with your press,
looked at the saw dust and wood chip extruder briquette press's aswell but their serious money :eek:

how do these paper and saw dust briquettes soaked in water turn out,
surely they need good airing and drying to reduce the moisture content back down

slowburner

GY A1 wrote: »

did you have a go at the saw dust with your press,
looked at the saw dust and wood chip extruder briquette press's aswell but their serious money :eek:

how do these paper and saw dust briquettes soaked in water turn out,
surely they need good airing and drying to reduce the moisture content back down

The home made press has been busy extracting juice from plums over the past few days - the juice is now fermenting quite happily. It's going to need some modification.
Next project is to build a tin shed for drying firewood - then i have to get the firewood in :rolleyes:. Some day I'll get around to having a go at making briquettes. I'm thinking I might try it first with chainsaw shavings.
I guess the paper pulp and sawdust briquettes need as much drying out as fresh logs - maybe less.

GY A1

looked into the briquette press cause i have dry wood chips, 1-2 inch in size down, very little saw dust tho.
machine is way to dear so just burning the wood loose in a stove with turf,
2 briquette machines on donedeal for 15000 and 40000 :eek:
saw your post on the plums in homebrew alright, what did you do with them

slowburner

Pulped them in the press, added sugar and yeast and left them to ferment. Don't really know what it's going to turn out like - the juice tasted nice though

homebrew.ie

i dont go for saw dust but i have been making Eco Briquettes from news paper and they are great they burn for 2 hours each and take about a week to dry out.

here one for 30euros http://cgi.ebay.ie/Eco-Briquette-Maker-Reusable-Fire-Fuel-/170678702587?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item27bd3e51fb

i have cheated on the drying time do i have a stove so while im burning some im drying the others on top of that :-)

Slowburner are you making plum wine or cider or brandy?

slowburner

Don't know :eek:
It seems i used the wrong sugar as well - I used jam sugar which has pectin in it. Maybe I'll end up with a big vat of alcoholic jam.
Using my remarkable powers of deduction, I notice from your name that you might know a bit about the matter. The liquid (plum mash, water, sugar and a bit of yeast is now in a plastic fermenting barrel. It's bubbling away.
How long do you think I should leave it in the barrel before decanting?

William Powell

slowburner wrote: »

Don't know :eek:
It seems i used the wrong sugar as well - I used jam sugar which has pectin in it. Maybe I'll end up with a big vat of alcoholic jam.
Using my remarkable powers of deduction, I notice from your name that you might know a bit about the matter. The liquid (plum mash, water, sugar and a bit of yeast is now in a plastic fermenting barrel. It's bubbling away.
How long do you think I should leave it in the barrel before decanting?

Your problem is that too much pectin will stop the wine clearing so even after years in the bottle (as if it will last that long) it might still be cloudy. If its still bubbling then keep it going and producing more alcohol :pac:.

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

Your problem is that too much pectin will stop the wine clearing so even after years in the bottle (as if it will last that long) it might still be cloudy. If its still bubbling then keep it going and producing more alcohol :pac:.

The 2011 vintage; a cheeky wine, brown colour, hints of foetid plum on the nose.:pac::pac::pac:
My guess is that it's at about 12% by volume after about 5 days fermentation!!

GY A1

homebrew.ie wrote: »

i dont go for saw dust but i have been making Eco Briquettes from news paper and they are great they burn for 2 hours each and take about a week to dry out.

here one for 30euros http://cgi.ebay.ie/Eco-Briquette-Maker-Reusable-Fire-Fuel-/170678702587?pt=UK_Hand_Tools_Equipment&hash=item27bd3e51fb

i have cheated on the drying time do i have a stove so while im burning some im drying the others on top of that :-)

Slowburner are you making plum wine or cider or brandy?

http://www.donedeal.ie/find/all/for-sale/Ireland/briquette%20machine?source=all
would need a mountain of saw dust for these machines

William Powell

GY A1 wrote: »

http://www.donedeal.ie/find/all/for-sale/Ireland/briquette%20machine?source=all
would need a mountain of saw dust for these machines

Thats the major product of some of us woodturners

btbh we heat only with solid fuel and during the summer I spend a day a week for two months collecting cutting and storing enough wood to heat the house (and heat water +cook) for the year and there is no way I could get the same sort of results for the time expended on sawdust and I can get wood chippings by the cubic metre for free from a sawmill.

GY A1

how do you burn the wood chip

William Powell

GY A1 wrote: »

how do you burn the wood chip

I don't, I either compost it (with chicken manure), dump it, we have a very large garden, use it as a mulch or use it as animal bedding. It really is too much hassel to do anything else with. If I created more and had a closed workshop (I often work in a pole barn) I would get one of the stoves I linked to and use the sawdust to keep the workshop warm.

A mate did burn woodchips but he mixed them with used cooking oil (collected from the local chippers etc) and rammed the mix into washed out and dried cardboard milk cartons, stinking fire but free and cheap.

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

I don't, I either compost it (with chicken manure), dump it, we have a very large garden, use it as a mulch or use it as animal bedding. It really is too much hassel to do anything else with. If I created more and had a closed workshop (I often work in a pole barn) I would get one of the stoves I linked to and use the sawdust to keep the workshop warm.

A mate did burn woodchips but he mixed them with used cooking oil (collected from the local chippers etc) and rammed the mix into washed out and dried cardboard milk cartons, stinking fire but free and cheap.

WP, do you turn on a pole lathe? Would love to hear more about this.

William Powell

slowburner wrote: »

WP, do you turn on a pole lathe? Would love to hear more about this.

Sorry no, its just that the only space (the final frontier) that I have for the lathe is out in the pole barn, the lathe just a cheap Record thing which if I use a bit more I might be able to justify upgrading. I keep all the chucks etc in another shed when not in use so if the lathe was stolen it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I do most work out in the barn, making small sheds, kennels and chicken arks and move expensive tools out there as I need them and then lock them back up at night. I was thinking of making a shed within the pole barn to store stuff in but as its not my pole barn I've not got round to it yet.

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

Sorry no, its just that the only space (the final frontier) that I have for the lathe is out in the pole barn, the lathe just a cheap Record thing which if I use a bit more I might be able to justify upgrading. I keep all the chucks etc in another shed when not in use so if the lathe was stolen it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I do most work out in the barn, making small sheds, kennels and chicken arks and move expensive tools out there as I need them and then lock them back up at night. I was thinking of making a shed within the pole barn to store stuff in but as its not my pole barn I've not got round to it yet.

You're a hardy man - or else you get no work done in the winter . I think that you might be right about the relative value of effort to heat in making briquettes from sawdust. My own beer barrel stove works well enough burning uncompressed dust. Maybe you should make one for your pole barn (only takes a couple of hours) - you could always incorporate it into the shed within the shed whenever you get around to it. Best be prepared: I think this winter is going to be even more severe than last.
Excuse my ignorance, but I haven't heard of a "pole barn" before - what is it?

BTW, the 2011 vintage is coming along nicely - smells very good indeed

William Powell

Pole Barn - Maybe a UK term. Often a corigated iron roof on tall telegraph poles but usually with no sides, used to be used for storing square bale hay and straw you definitely see more of them in the UK than here. Mine is a roof on top of 8 old railway tracks and is enclosed at the South end so has some protection but a wet windy day and you get wet. It belongs to my Landlord (he stores some junk in it up at the enclosed end) and I've slowly taken it over but don't want to go to push my luck.

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

Pole Barn - Maybe a UK term. Often a corigated iron roof on tall telegraph poles but usually with no sides, used to be used for storing square bale hay and straw you definitely see more of them in the UK than here. Mine is a roof on top of 8 old railway tracks and is enclosed at the South end so has some protection but a wet windy day and you get wet. It belongs to my Landlord (he stores some junk in it up at the enclosed end) and I've slowly taken it over but don't want to go to push my luck.

Must be a term from across the pond then.
Maybe he wouldn't notice if you push his junk to the exposed end very gradually.

Coriolanus

Didn't think this needed a thread of it's own. But, here's another thing you might find a use for your sawdust!

http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/09/14/someone-shaved-my-seat-tonight/

bazmc35

stumbled across this link

bazmc35

here's that link again

http://www.youtube.com/user/mladenkorotaj#p/a/u/0/paiMr-s8jBk