Kudos to Member Village Idiot

Yea

BrotherBart said:

Nine miles South of Manassas. If Tractor Supply puts them on sale I could pick them up for not much more than making the haul down South. I met up with Village Idiot at I-95 and Route 234 for the transfer of the ton.

My concern about the run to Doswell is the age of that 21 year old truck and the problems it is finally starting to develop.

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Yeah, mine's only 19 years old. New clutch this week, should be set for another 215k!

Brotherbart- I would be terrified to load up the stove with so many bricks! Even tho I appreciate that pushing the coals to the back ensures things take off very slowly- and packing the bricks really tight will too.. But given that my stove needs no encouragement to burn hot, and every encouragement not to, I think I would be sweating blood with such an experiment. So my questions are ...

Did you try a more low-key interim experiment before you did that first chock-full overnight burn?

Did you sit with the load until you were convinced it would burn safely, and how did you know?

Do you have to load up to the very top, so that the flames don't reach over the top and ignite the full load from there?

If you're loading bricks really tight, is there any cause for concern over the pressure the expansion of the bricks will exert on some of the innards of the stove?

I have been experimenting with the Liberty Bricks as well and from what I can tell, they do not expand very much. With the exception of last night, I have mostly used them to fill in the gaps when I reload to increase my burn times. So far so good. BrotherBart's description of them as a lump of hot sawdust is good. They remind me of a lump of steel wool that has been lit with a battery.

Last night I lined up a row of 10 bricks on the bottom of the firebox and stacked wood on top as I normally would. This morning I came down to a warmer fireplace and a much bigger bed of coals with a bunch of little coal soldiers lined up still glowing.

Soon I want to do some burn runs with just the bricks. I am a bit nervous. From all my reading here, I have come to know that you need to respect the energy in these bricks and don't want to overload my fireplace. After seeing the space the row of 10 bricks takes up, I could easily fit 60 in my 7100 without touching the burn tubes. Not going to do that though. I have no desire to burn the house down.

(On a side note, my kids think the unburned bricks look like Spam that has been plopped out of the can. I agree.)

Edit: My daughter snapped a picture of the Liberty Bricks.

Village Idiot said:

I have been experimenting with the Liberty Bricks as well and from what I can tell, they do not expand very much. With the exception of last night, I have mostly used them to fill in the gaps when I reload to increase my burn times. So far so good. BrotherBart's description of them as a lump of hot sawdust is good. They remind me of a lump of steel wool that has been lit with a battery.

Last night I lined up a row of 10 bricks on the bottom of the firebox and stacked wood on top as I normally would. This morning I came down to a warmer fireplace and a much bigger bed of coals with a bunch of little coal soldiers lined up still glowing.

Soon I want to do some burn runs with just the bricks. I am a bit nervous. From all my reading here, I have come to know that you need to respect the energy in these bricks and don't want to overload my fireplace. After seeing the space the row of 10 bricks takes up, I could easily fit 60 in my 7100 without touching the burn tubes. Not going to do that though. I have no desire to burn the house down.

(On a side note, my kids think the unburned bricks look like Spam that has been plopped out of the can. I agree.)

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Ha! I agree about the spam!

I'd love to hear how a full, tight load of bricks behaves (I'll pray for you!). I've only burned four at a time in my F3.. that alone can give me hours of meaningful heat and will keep the stove warm overnight if I load them in after 9 pm.

YES! These things are great. I still have about 4 packs of 10 bricks left from my first pallet with a second full pallet in the garage. I never put more than 7 bricks in at a time since i have a small stove (F3). From a cold start, i do it just like they show on their website and when reloading i tightly stack a row of 4 on bottom with a row of 3 on top of that. Granted this winter has been relatively mild with only a few nights in the teens so far and no single digit nights, I am super impressed that I'm going to make it through winter with only 2 pallets. I'd wager my heating load is about 80-85% stove and 15-20% heat pump. definitely going this route again next year.

Can you describe how you control the burn with a 7 brick load - I mean in terms of air control? My F3 would get too hot with any more than four...

what is too hot by your definition? I also think it depends on the size of your house and what inside temp you want to achieve, draft, and length of the desired burn time. I'll run it in the 450-550F range on the regular. Start with the main air control and ignition air control wide open. once it gets started good, close the ignition and leave the main control wide open til the stove heats up. I'll damp it down in the upper 400s and it'll creep up into the 500s but that's still a safe temp. I believe 650F is the highest temp before risking over-firing the stove per Jotul.

EDIT: just consulted the manual. they don't mention a maximum safe temperature, but they do recommend the 400-600F range. Also want to stipulate just in case there was confusion that I ONLY burn the bricks. I don't mix in with cord wood.

I had good results with a full pack of 12 plus wood the other night, I wedged the bricks on top of the wood. The only difference is I have a cat stove so I can throttle my primary air down to nothing to let the cat eat the smoke, my stove ran for 18 hours and still had tons of coal left, I couldn't believe it, and it was cold yesterday!

This is what mine look like, can someone get a shot of the liberty bricks in real life? I agree with them looking like spam.

mellow said:

This is what mine look like, can someone get a shot of the liberty bricks in real life? I agree with them looking like spam.

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Liberty bricks are the same general concept as what you've got there although liberty bricks are lighter (which could simply be the type of wood the sawdust came from) and those look less dense like they weren't compressed as much as a liberty brick. I think one liberty brick is 2lbs.

I think a lot of the bricks on the market are essentially created the same way just some machines can press the briquettes into different shapes and sizes with varying amounts of pressure. Liberty Bricks is just a brand/company name.

Village Idiot said:

I
(On a side note, my kids think the unburned bricks look like Spam that has been plopped out of the can. I agree.)

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Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam (Monty Python)

bwells794 said:

what is too hot by your definition? I also think it depends on the size of your house and what inside temp you want to achieve, draft, and length of the desired burn time. I'll run it in the 450-550F range on the regular. Start with the main air control and ignition air control wide open. once it gets started good, close the ignition and leave the main control wide open til the stove heats up. I'll damp it down in the upper 400s and it'll creep up into the 500s but that's still a safe temp. I believe 650F is the highest temp before risking over-firing the stove per Jotul.

EDIT: just consulted the manual. they don't mention a maximum safe temperature, but they do recommend the 400-600F range. Also want to stipulate just in case there was confusion that I ONLY burn the bricks. I don't mix in with cord wood.

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I would define 'too hot' as over the recommended range. But with my setup I haven't been able to get a cruising temp much below 600 with four bricks, I used five once and it hit 700 and looked like it would stay there a long time so I opened the door to let it cool down. Hence my nervousness with trying to burn larger loads of bricks.

BrotherBart said:

I have found that the best way for loading the bricks for the night burn is like member agartner advised. Push the coal bed to the back of the stove across the back. Pack a two row stack of bricks tightly up against the coal bed and another two brick row in front of that. Leave the door cracked long enough for the burn to start in the back. About 20 minutes later the fire will have crawled over the top of the stacks and down the front of the first row. And from there the load of bricks will burn from front to back.

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I guess I'm officially too scared to try it.

FionaD said:

I would define 'too hot' as over the recommended range. But with my setup I haven't been able to get a cruising temp much below 600 with four bricks, I used five once and it hit 700 and looked like it would stay there a long time so I opened the door to let it cool down. Hence my nervousness with trying to burn larger loads of bricks.

I guess I'm officially too scared to try it.

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that's really hot... you have an F3 right? you sure it's not sucking air in somewhere and feeding the fire? I could hit 700 with 7 bricks if i wanted to but id have to leave that bad boy wide open the whole time

EDIT: what temp are you measuring? just to the left or right of the top flue exit? or the stove pipe or flue gas temps inside the stove pipe?

I'm measuring to the right of the top flue exit. My setup has always been a hot burner it's got a strong draft. I've tested for leaks with incense and a light inside the stove in a darkened room. Gaskets all seem ok too. It's been checked over by a professional too, he also thought it was all OK, although he reckoned I might benefit from a damper to slow down the flue draft a little, especially on windy days. He suggested I sit with that for a month or two before deciding and I'm just about to do that - your reaction is helping me how to decide too!

I guess my line of enquiry here is more in relation to really stuffing the stove with bricks as its so counter all the advice I've ever heard from brick manufacturers, until recently that is.... Over here all the info on brick packs clearly says put way fewer in than you would splits.

FionaD said:

I'm measuring to the right of the top flue exit. My setup has always been a hot burner it's got a strong draft. I've tested for leaks with incense and a light inside the stove in a darkened room. Gaskets all seem ok too. It's been checked over by a professional too, he also thought it was all OK, although he reckoned I might benefit from a damper to slow down the flue draft a little, especially on windy days. He suggested I sit with that for a month or two before deciding and I'm just about to do that - your reaction is helping me how to decide too!

I guess my line of enquiry here is more in relation to really stuffing the stove with bricks as its so counter all the advice I've ever heard from brick manufacturers, until recently that is.... Over here all the info on brick packs clearly says put way fewer in than you would splits.

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I think that's for 2 reasons. They are far lower in moisture content than split wood and they have a tendency to swell a bit so it could be a recipe for disaster if you aren't careful.

I make the springs squeal with my ranger when I load it up. If I had a place to put it, I'd definitely get a trailer. No problem hauling that weight with even a cheapie HF...

begreen said:

Yes, that is. Locally UHaul is $19.95/day. I think they are .89/mile here. Too much for me, otherwise I would probably head up to Ferndale, WA and get some cubits of Home Fire Prest-Log rejects. They're much too heavy for my 1/2 ton Ranger.

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Been following along because I've considered trying these for my insert. As far as the haul, and this will sound absurd, I'm a big fan of a website called uShip. You can request quotes, for free from shippers for any load you can imagine. We bought a really nice lightly used elliptical from northern Georgia and we got it shipped to Buffalo, NY for $310. Now how the heck am I doing that 1600 mile round trip myself for less than that then you figure in gas, tolls, food, lodging, and miles on my truck. Never mind the value of my time. That was 0.38 cents a mile (they only look at one way) and that elliptical was big and bulky. They'll be a guy with room in his truck or trailer for that load of bio bricks and he'll bid and others can bid too it's a competitive bid process. I'd say give it a shot. Especially if you're time flexible you can list a big time window and once you nail it Down with a shipper you call ahead and buy the bricks over the phone .