Smokeless fuel / logs - where to buy

[all_star]

Anyone know the best place to buy smokeless fuel or logs? So tired of paying ?5 for a tiny bag of sodden briquettes or logs from the petrol stations.

(And how come if logs are on sale if they are illegal to burn in the area?)

[Nero]

Why not get a briquette maker for ?15 and recycle your paper?

[all_star]

Seen those many times in the back of the sunday papers - do they actually work?

[Nero]

Dunno. But they will be covered by the Mail order protection scheme - Mops - so I reckon even if they do not work you will be covered. I would get one if I had a fire. Cd get ur or friends' kids to make them.

[batdog]

all_star :

Well DONE , keep burning wood and ... destroying the planet... GREAT (td)

[all_star]

how do you keep warm batdog? at least logs are from a sustainable source, unlike the oil and gas that most people use to run their central heating...

[QZ]

Those paper things do work but can be a bit of a faff :)) ..if someone has small children with an entrepenurial (sp!!) streak they could be on to an absolute winner! (see me for hire of paper machine haha ;-) )

Wood is fine to burn as it emits white smoke - it is dirty smoke that is the problem, or so the chimney sweep who came here in December told me.

Cheap coal doesnt really exist. A recent trip up north and the bags at petrol stations were the same price. More jumpers is the only answer

[Quaywe]

I don't think that's true or we would all be burning wood in our fireplaces still and there wouldn't be smoke restrictions in central London. You can get smokeless bricks and coal at Dulwich DIY for pretty cheap.

[Domitianus]

I have always been a bit suspicious of this smokeless fuel malarkey. If there is no smoke how do you know when they are alight, eh? You could pick one up and get a nasty burn.

[Townleygreen]

They tend to glow red when they are alight!

[spadetownboy]

QZ Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Those paper things do work but can be a bit of a

> faff :)) ..if someone has small children with an

> entrepenurial (sp!!) streak they could be on to an

> absolute winner! (see me for hire of paper machine

> haha ;-) )

>

> Wood is fine to burn as it emits white smoke - it

> is dirty smoke that is the problem, or so the

> chimney sweep who came here in December told me.

>

> Cheap coal doesnt really exist. A recent trip up

> north and the bags at petrol stations were the

> same price. More jumpers is the only answer

the problem with that is every time you burn one the catholics think a new pope has been elected.

[j-mo]

Hey - after getting really fed up with buying small bags for lots of ?, or those strange paper wax parcels that you burn all in one, we did an online seach and came up with these guys: http://www.onlinelogs.co.uk/

They are realiable and cheap and it is mostly good wood. They do kindling too. We were advised that it is fine to burn wood - its only coal that you can't burn these days.

We have taken to using smokeless coal too, although its a bit rubbish - takes ages to heat up and then lasts all night and I worry we're going to burn the house down. Think we get that from the shop at the Goose Green end of LL near to the bookies - Mr Mo always gets it cos the bag's a bit heavy for me...

[all_star]

cheers j-mo - just what I was looking for :)

[Jo]

Thanks for the link to the online logs place. Since we had our fireplace put back in before Christmas I think we've saved money through not having the heat disappearing up the open chimney - and no, I don't know why the people who owned the house before us thought it was a good idea to have a big hole to the sky in the living room. There's no draught and we can keep the heating lower in the rest of the house because we only really need to heat the one room.

The other thing to say about burning wood is that you should only burn older, dry wood. Young wood and wood that's damp smoke a lot more. And a bit of smokeless glowing well under the log means you tend to use fewer logs but get decent heat. it's not quite the same as a coal fire (I grew up with them) but it does. And you can have marshmallows :)

[Domitianus]

Nice to see how TownleyGreen picked up on the tongue-in-cheek element of my posting on smokeless fuel....not!