Northern Idaho energy logs

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freddy

freddy

Member
Jan 23, 2008
80
Portland, Oregon
Had to try these due to all the good reviews. I can put three in on a bed of coals and easily able to restart in the A.M. 8 hours later. Just wondering if anyone has put in more than 3 at a time in their stove? They recommend no more than 2 but I want more heat output. I imagine I can probably do it by shutting the air down early but not sure that's the best way to burn effeciently.

Thanks for any input and advice.
 
What do you have for a stove? personally I've never put more than 3 in my stove and it put plenty of heat out, I did throw a few splits of oak in with the NEIL's.
 
freddy said:
Had to try these due to all the good reviews. I can put three in on a bed of coals and easily able to restart in the A.M. 8 hours later. Just wondering if anyone has put in more than 3 at a time in their stove? They recommend no more than 2 but I want more heat output. I imagine I can probably do it by shutting the air down early but not sure that's the best way to burn effeciently.

Thanks for any input and advice.
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I would not burn more than 3 at a time unless you have a Blaze King. Non cat stoves combust the wood quicker and cannot control that kind of btu load. The Blaze King is the only stove I know that can do it in a safe controlled way.
 
weatherguy said:
What do you have for a stove? personally I've never put more than 3 in my stove and it put plenty of heat out, I did throw a few splits of oak in with the NEIL's.
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I have an Osburn Matrix. Think it is 2.1 size box. I think I'll just play it safe and stick with 3.
 
I put nine, yep 9, in my Non-Cat Kuma Stove once while experimenting. I used those the year I moved into my current house since it was December and I didn't have any cord wood. I got about 30 hours of burn out of them with plenty of coals left for the next load.

While I would not recommend that you put nine in your own stove, what I noticed was the need to shut the air to the stove off much sooner than with cord wood. I believe the lack of moisture in the NIEL, at least half of what's in most cord wood, caused an acceleration of the 1st burn phase where energy is typically used to drive out moisture. Knowing that, and shutting the stove down earlier, I didn't have any trouble.

I wouldn't recommend burning more than 3 at a time. Maybe 3 of them and a couple chunks of cord wood.

Jason
 
I figured I'd put my thoughts here instead of starting a new thread. A quick background, my wife was on temp. disability for 8 weeks and we went through a bit more than twice the amount of wood this season compared to last. Mid january i'm down to my last seasoned wood and had to start burning my 2014-2015 supply ( around 25-30% moisture content). I feel like I'm just wasting good wood by burning unseasoned, plus I'm worried about the creosote build up so it was either figure out a solution or just let the oil burner go. I didn't want to have to spend money on my heating but we can't be sitting around in our winter parkas inside and I REALLY didn't want to pay somebody $300 for a cord of green wood so I decided to buy 1/2 a pallet (120) of these energy logs. Damn glad I did!

They are a bit hard to get started but once lit a single 8 lb log is giving me usable heat for about 6 hours, give or take. I lit one last night around 7PM and this morning at 5:30 the stove top was still about 200 F. They are a little expensive, about $1.50 per log but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a 100 gals of oil or a cord of green wood.

What I'd like to know is why aren't these more popular? I'm sure there are plenty of people who pay for a cord of wood and end up with unseasoned, poor burning results. Why not pay the same money and get something guaranteed to burn well?
 
kingston73 said:
I figured I'd put my thoughts here instead of starting a new thread. A quick background, my wife was on temp. disability for 8 weeks and we went through a bit more than twice the amount of wood this season compared to last. Mid january i'm down to my last seasoned wood and had to start burning my 2014-2015 supply ( around 25-30% moisture content). I feel like I'm just wasting good wood by burning unseasoned, plus I'm worried about the creosote build up so it was either figure out a solution or just let the oil burner go. I didn't want to have to spend money on my heating but we can't be sitting around in our winter parkas inside and I REALLY didn't want to pay somebody $300 for a cord of green wood so I decided to buy 1/2 a pallet (120) of these energy logs. Damn glad I did!

They are a bit hard to get started but once lit a single 8 lb log is giving me usable heat for about 6 hours, give or take. I lit one last night around 7PM and this morning at 5:30 the stove top was still about 200 F. They are a little expensive, about $1.50 per log but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a 100 gals of oil or a cord of green wood.

What I'd like to know is why aren't these more popular? I'm sure there are plenty of people who pay for a cord of wood and end up with unseasoned, poor burning results. Why not pay the same money and get something guaranteed to burn well?
Click to expand...

I think your price of 1.50 per log is a great price considering where you live. We sell them for 1.45 each on small quantities here in WA state. 1.23 per log when bought by the pallet. They are a easy sell out here in the west when compared to our medium grade firewood. I would guess with your high BTU hardwoods not so much. Did you purchase the NIEL in a box of three with the Super Cedar firestarter included?
Thomas
 
How do they do with absorbing moisture? Would a garage be an ok storage location?
 
The garage is fine.
 
NWfuel said:
I think your price of 1.50 per log is a great price considering where you live. We sell them for 1.45 each on small quantities here in WA state. 1.23 per log when bought by the pallet. They are a easy sell out here in the west when compared to our medium grade firewood. I would guess with your high BTU hardwoods not so much. Did you purchase the NIEL in a box of three with the Super Cedar firestarter included?
Thomas
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It would have been cheaper if I'd bought a full pallet but I wasn't sure I'd like them and my truck only has a 1200 lb payload. My 120 where all individual, off the pallet and not in a box at all. I'm not going to burn them all winter but they are great to have for a back up or in a situation like I had this year.

An added benefit I didn't realize is how clean they burn, no smoke at all and very little ash left over.
 
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I would like to try them(NIEL'S) but can't find any here in western NY.
 
kingston73 said:
What I'd like to know is why aren't these more popular? I'm sure there are plenty of people who pay for a cord of wood and end up with unseasoned, poor burning results. Why not pay the same money and get something guaranteed to burn well?
Click to expand...

You answered your own question. It's cost. You can buy a whole lot more wood (volume) for less money and the sellers all say that it is seasoned, most buyers don't know any better.
 
Highbeam said:
You answered your own question. It's cost. You can buy a whole lot more wood (volume) for less money and the sellers all say that it is seasoned, most buyers don't know any better.
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They may cost more then what I pay for hardwood here but not having to be ahead two seasons would be nice.
They would take up less space and way more uniform in size and burn times would be a plus.
I put 3 cord in the basement every fall and have not really have a bug prob yet but you never know.
It cost be around 650 for wood but even if I had to pay around 800 for the NEILS I would be ok with that...way better then 2k for the heat pump and the electric furnace.

As it is I buy my wood stack it out back then bring the 3 cords I had from the previous year and move that to the basement..handling it twice.
 
Wood heat is not for everybody. Pellet stoves start looking more and more attractive if you don't want to deal with firewood.
 
Highbeam said:
Wood heat is not for everybody. Pellet stoves start looking more and more attractive if you don't want to deal with firewood.
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Bite your tounge! lol

I been doing this for over 30 years I'm not stopping now.lol.
 
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So, If one did not have a garage but just a partially enclosed carport/ woodshed (on a deep gravel pad), would there be a way to protect these NEILs from moisture?
 
Watchguy said:
So, If one did not have a garage but just a partially enclosed carport/ woodshed (on a deep gravel pad), would there be a way to protect these NEILs from moisture?
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Store them in plastic bins. They have 5% moisture so they are ready to suck it whenever they can!
 
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That's good price! The store around here sell 3 logs in a box for 10 in retail. 459+delivery fee for 240 logs. I like the logs but they are just too expensive.
 
2stoveshome said:
The store around here sell 3 logs in a box for 10 in retail. 459+delivery fee for 240 logs. I like the logs but they are just too expensive.
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Seems pretty high. I just checked at our local lumber yard and they were selling for $249.50 a pallet (240 logs).
 
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