Diary of a Wood Burning Stove!

This past week has seen some more experimentation with different fuel types.  We've also put some more of our 'damp' logs on after moving them to a drier spot in the garage rather than on our front porch.  It seems that perhaps they were seasoned after all but had simply got rather wet in the rain!

In terms of the alternative fuels, we firstly tried some compressed hardwood waste Eco Logs, which are about 20cm by 15cm in an oblong shape.  These we used exactly as you would a piece of wood and they burned in a similar way.  A good alternative to logs.

The next product we tried was called Blaze, a small briquette about the size of a large piece of coal.  These are described as being very heat efficient but we were a little disappointed.  They seemed to die down quite quickly and weren't quite as good as the Homefire briquettes we mentioned in our last post.

The only other incident of note this week was the appearance of a bird in the fire!!  Fortunately the fire wasn't lit at the time and we managed to assist the little fellow in flying back outside.  Hope that doesn't happen too often though!

All in all a good week and we've barely used the central heating this autumn yet.  Admittedly it's been pretty mild, but there have definitely been evenings when we would have flicked it on had we not had the fire. (And if you're wondering, no, I havn't tried lighting the fire myself again yet!  I must have another go before we get some really cold weather, though).

PREVIOUS DIARY ENTRIES

14th November - Trying out some different fuel

7th November - Warming the house

31st October 2011 - Cosy living room

12th October 2011 - Where to keep all that wood...

19th September 2011 - The first lighting of the season!