Cutting winter fuel costs

A lot of years ago i tried one of those make your own solid fuel logs out of waste paper,absolutely useless the arms bent when you tried to compress it to form a block,just too much mess and bother,one of the ladies at work has just had a solid fuel stove fitted and has been making her own logs,we get through a lot of industrial tape at work and she takes the cardboard cores home and just hand fills them with soaked newspaper,no machine or anything.
The other day she gave me a carrier bag full to try well i was surprised they did really well,would never replace coal or logs but there are times like the last half hour before you go to bed when two or three of these are just enough.
With this in mind i decided to google a bit and see if things have improved and found a pricey but nice paper brick maker,it may be something i look further into next year ready for my retirement which should mean more time and less money





[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Or you could go very low tech

This is something i have thought about for a while.

Like the first one Mike.
We had been thinking of building something along these sort of lines too.
We saw this one earlier this year.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Good design, that type certainly remove more moisture and compact more but i think i would look for a compromise between speed and efficiency,just the small lightly compacted ones we tried gave over 20 min.

Speed would not be a problem, it would give Mrs P something to do during the day. She is good at multitasking. Thats going to hurt!!!

Do you think they would be too compacted?

Phoenix wrote:Speed would not be a problem, it would give Mrs P something to do during the day. She is good at multitasking. Thats going to hurt!!!

Do you think they would be too compacted?

Could be a case of right for closed stove over night burning when you want a slow burn,but in the evening we use our stove with the door open as a fire so want to see a nice flame,this made me think less well compacted may suit us better.
I wont be spending a £110 so it will be the welder and a bit of steel room for fluid thinking no thats not doing it drunk

Fluid thinking Thats when our best plans are hatched.

We will probably be getting the welder out too to make something up. We do like the flames of an evening, but do try to keep them ticking over through the night.

Need some cut price fuel myself.
Courtesy of of a well known website I will be picking up 3 tonnes of anthracite for £400 later this week. Including incidental expenses that should come in to a price in bunker of about £550 to £600. It's not exactly the right size fuel, beans (10-22mm) rather than large or small nuts but will burn happily on the high load that winter demands.
My stove is not a woodburner or multi fuel stove so doesn't burn wood or similar well. In fact it leaks air and needs replacing so a high draught fuel like anthracite is ideal.
If anyone has access to cut price transport and some storage I can possibly pick up 8 tonnes of bean / small nut sized anthracite at £100 per tonne plus transport. Willing to split the fuel with person having above facilities.

The briquette makers above look very laborious. The best one I saw on You Tube was



though a bit of a pfaff with the clamp when a Mole grip or a piece of rectangular tube would lock the base.

As log burners now seem to have become a fashion accessory things may change but at this point joinery shops and wood yards still want rid of off cuts. So if you have a trailer then this would prove far more effective in relation to time expended to fuel gained.

Mr P seen from pictures you have a bit of space, if you have any out buildings you may want to fit a DEFRA exempt smokeless appliance (doubt your in a smoke control area) One of the industrial ones even allows you to burn rubber foam backed carpet as fuel. Heat and reduced waste charges how much better can it get. It's just a matter of piping the heat over to the house.
Exempt Appliances England [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Haat Pioneer ABl Incinerators models 12, 20, 28 and 36. (2) The fireplace(s) must be installed, maintained and operated in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions bearing the reference HAAT/2/CAA/10/89 Paper, cardboard, corrugated paper, office or domestic waste, wood, polythene sheet or foam, polypropylene, nylon, polyethylene, rubber foam backed carpet Incinerator SI 1990 No.345

Looks like the guy let loose his creative bent on that,yes it works but i would think you could produce two blocks in the same time with the first design due to quicker loading,while a more efficient fuel mix probably the extra time to prepare it would eat away the two block advantage,my guess would be in the end including the mixing stage the first one could be quicker.
Then you have the drying time the less water you put in the less you have to remove,for water removal the bottle jack takes some beating one chap put 3kg of wet mix in his bottle jack rig and got 2.1kg of water out but the time involved was ridiculous,my mind is working around two rigs one to produce high density slow burn blocks for night use and one for medium density blocks to use as an open fire.
Dont think the labour and time involved is always relevant take the chap in the green house he looked retired and has himself a task he looks to enjoy plus going around collecting the raw materials and at least his rig will be easy to mend,its not just winter though at the moment on the cool evenings in spring summer and autumn its not cold enough to light a coal fire so we use electric,a few free paper blocks one the stove would be a better option.
This year fellow forum members have covered my winter coal bill via my government winter fuel allowance which i thank one and all for but this looks like finishing soon.

The only real local off cut and dust supply i have is a shop fitting company,so most of the waste is MDF now i have the mask and saw for safe cutting and the stove will burn it but dont want the bother.

mike

Kevin this ebay bargain makes your fuel look stupidly cheap [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
My working out brings it to £1349.50 a tonne delivered

The easy way to use a standard fuel press

Can't understand why my gas bill has risen so much, we're on a fixed deal but it's still risen a lot. We received a statement that says we've used almost 50% more gas than the same period last year I don't see how when we've been away most weekends this year.

Wood burners are looking like an option here too.

Helen wrote:Can't understand why my gas bill has risen so much, we're on a fixed deal but it's still risen a lot. We received a statement that says we've used almost 50% more gas than the same period last year I don't see how when we've been away most weekends this year.

Wood burners are looking like an option here too.

Have you got a leak???

Caz1960 wrote:

Helen wrote:Can't understand why my gas bill has risen so much, we're on a fixed deal but it's still risen a lot. We received a statement that says we've used almost 50% more gas than the same period last year I don't see how when we've been away most weekends this year.

Wood burners are looking like an option here too.

Have you got a leak???

Don't all houses in Wales have those?

not now got new system and the rest put into the cowl

We don't have a leak so I assume it's due to the house being like Piccadilly station and doors always being opened and closed, I could do with revolving doors fitted the amount of through traffic we're getting

Helen wrote:We don't have a leak so I assume it's due to the house being like Piccadilly station and doors always being opened and closed, I could do with revolving doors fitted the amount of through traffic we're getting

Nothing like family and welcome guests especially at Christmas.

Maybe we should charge the unwelcome ones for the heating