Hardly no heat coming from those bricks and burning them up like newspaper practically

Thats what I have heard of Bio-bricks, You have to use a ton of them to act as a load of wood.

That's disappointing. It will be better for everyone if companies can come up with a plentiful, reliable, slow-burning, high-btu biomass brick.

That must be frustrating. Do you have any sawmills near you? If so, give them a call and see if they sell their ends and scrap. You should be able to get seasoned ends and scraps that you could try mixing with the bricks to get more heat. Good luck.

That very disappointing to hear woodsie8. Did you try putting 1 in and topping it off with a couple pieces of that apple you cut back in May? If you can keep the stove top temp at about 450+ and you see no smoke from the chimney you might be good to go burning like that.

I'm having pretty good luck with Biobricks by loading just a few (6 or so) and going for a small/hot fire. Able to maintain good secondary burn that way but the downside is feeding the stove every few hours.

As an experiment try loading only 1/3rd the normal number of bricks. I bet you'll get a good, hot fire that will last longer than 1/3rd the time of the full load.

woodsie8 said:

We broke down and bought a ton of the bear bricks, since our wood is not seasoned well. We are going through at least 24 a day, and barely can keep it at 65 degrees. We are putting them close together like in a brick, as instructed to. Putting them on coals and after they are lit well, cranking down the draft. When we use our wood, not so seasoned wood, it is almost 80 degrees in here. Any suggestions??? We are thinking that maybe just need to put 12 in at a time, and see if they will last 12 hours, but I doubt it, I think we will just get more heat, but then go through even more bricks.

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I regularily get 10 or more hours of good heat output with 15 or so Biobricks(tm). http://biopellet.net/data.html You will do better with a convection fan accross the stove and a ceiling fan to distribute heat.... Use no less than 3-4 briquettes for the most part.... 6 briquettes provide about half the burntime as 12 - all else being equal

Haven't check in a quite a while. I have been through almost a ton of the bear bricks now and really like them. In fact, I quit burning the cord wood outside - I have gotten lazy..

From your original post it sounds like you are trying to save fuel and get more heat at the same time - you can't have both... Give it more air and feed it.

Based on my experience with my relatively small stove - I will go through about 2-3 "flats" of bricks in a day (24-36) And yes, the temp is slightly lower, but longer burning than cord wood - the biopellet web site has nice plot showing this data. You can get the stove temp up by turning off the fan and adding air until you get things moving. I have turned up the air the last few days and let the stove get up to 600 or so - burns hot and clean. Glass completely clean after all is done...

I put 13 bricks in my jotul 450. It is a relative small box - I put 9 bricks across the back of the box - a stack 3 wide and 3 high with the "bear logo" facing outward towards me. Then add 4 more (2 left and 2 right) - this leaves a pocket at the center front of the stove where I push the hot coals from the "teepee fire" that I initially built to warm the stove...

jeff

The Bear Brick website indicates each brick can produce 16,000 btu's. I'm troubled by the word "can" as opposed to "will." It might actually produce less. http://www.bmfp.com/bear-bricks/bear-bricks.html

16,000 btu's is about the heat content of a very well-seasoned log (8-10% MC) which weighs just 2 pounds. I have 3-year, woodshed firewood, (very dry) and I grabbed a piece of aspen (popple), just about the lowest heat content per volume wood around, and a split of a 4" branch, 16" long, weighed 2 pounds. This means that 4" branch produced 2 splits, equivalent to 2 Bear Bricks.

24 Bear Bricks/day, assuming 16,000 actual btu's/brick, works out to 384,000 gross btu's, and assuming a 65% stove efficiency, 250,000 available btu's, which is 10,400 btu's/hour heat output.

If you use the Hearth.com heat loss calculator, a 10' x 10' x 8' single room (100 sq ft), one exterior wall (assumed standard room), has a heat loss of 5,050 btu's/hr. Based on this calculation, 24 Bear Bricks per day would heat about 200 sq ft of living space. https://www.hearth.com/calc/roomcalc.html

Obviously, this is a very rough calculation, but it does start to give an idea as to how many Bear Bricks a person might need to heat a house. Do the heat loss calc, and that might explain why so many bricks are being burned.

Also be sure to compare cost with current cost of other fuels or electricity.

The calculation I mentioned assumes efficient burn of the stove. Use whatever advice is appropriate to make sure you are burning your stove efficiently. You also can change the variables, for example, if your stove is more efficient, to better fit your situation. But in the end, you can't get anymore btu's then your fuel source has. There is no blood in a turnip, and a Bear Brick with 8,000 btu's will not produce 10,000 btu's of heat, no matter what you do.

jebatty said:

The Bear Brick website indicates each brick can produce 16,000 btu's. I'm troubled by the word "can" as opposed to "will." It might actually produce less. http://www.bmfp.com/bear-bricks/bear-bricks.html

16,000 btu's is about the heat content of a very well-seasoned log (8-10% MC) which weighs just 2 pounds. I have 3-year, woodshed firewood, (very dry) and I grabbed a piece of aspen (popple), just about the lowest heat content per volume wood around, and a split of a 4" branch, 16" long, weighed 2 pounds. This means that 4" branch produced 2 splits, equivalent to 2 Bear Bricks.

24 Bear Bricks/day, assuming 16,000 actual btu's/brick, works out to 384,000 gross btu's, and assuming a 65% stove efficiency, 250,000 available btu's, which is 10,400 btu's/hour heat output.

If you use the Hearth.com heat loss calculator, a 10' x 10' x 8' single room (100 sq ft), one exterior wall (assumed standard room), has a heat loss of 5,050 btu's/hr. Based on this calculation, 24 Bear Bricks per day would heat about 200 sq ft of living space. https://www.hearth.com/calc/roomcalc.html

Obviously, this is a very rough calculation, but it does start to give an idea as to how many Bear Bricks a person might need to heat a house. Do the heat loss calc, and that might explain why so many bricks are being burned.

Also be sure to compare cost with current cost of other fuels or electricity.

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Hey I didn't know there was going to be math involved with this whole burning thing! ;-P When you break it down like that it sorta takes the magic out of the whole burning equation doesn't it? So if you want to burn bricks regularly should you get a forklift or just a pallet jack?

So if you want to burn bricks regularly should you get a forklift or just a pallet jack?

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... or a very good price, or better yet, buy your wood in sufficient quantity so that you can be sure it is well-seasoned. I almost always burn 3 year wood (3 summers of drying, sometimes 2nd year wood). Remember, wood air dried, stored outside and open to the atmosphere, will end up with moisture content, depending on your area, of about 20-25%. If stored in a woodshed, with roof, and not exposed to rain or the elements, it likely will have a moisture content of about 10-18%, and if indoors, heated space, 6%. This varies with the season and the area where you live.

In addition to ambiance, enjoyment of radiant heat, and just the fun of it with a wood stove, heating is only about the math. As you all know, start with very good insulation and sealing all cracks and air leaks. There is no better return on the dollar than this. After that, deal with your heating system, looking for the best combination of price, availability, efficiency, and space requirements -- then factor in your guess as to future energy prices -- after that it's a crap shoot.

Those bio logs or bricks never impressed me. My experience was like yours, they don't seem to put out as much heat pound for pound as cord wood and don't burn as long. I say burn your wood with a little more air, check your chimney more often and sell the bear bricks or mix them in with wood.

I've never used those so I shouldn't be replying, but what I would try is cover the bricks with lots of scrap wood that will raise the temperature of the stove to a high level and then the biobricks should keep it hot. I do this sometimes in the morning if I only have one or two splits inside the house. After the stove is hot, those two splits on the bottom keep it quite warm.

Fuel is fuel - this fuel (bear bricks or eco-bricks, etc.) is very very dry. This means less steam and less draft. So, relative to cord wood, more air is required; But not so much that the stove loses it's heat up the chimney. The advantage here is that less of the burn is used to convert the moisture to steam - more net heat per pound of wood burned.

I monitor the stove temp with a rutland stove thermometer mounted on the top of the stove. Because of the density of the bricks - I will make sure the fire is fully involved and the stove has a good draft prior to reducing air. And I never reduce below 1/2 on the air control with the bricks and usually run 5/8 to 3/4. I also make sure that the stove temp is up enough for a very efficient burn.

Coastal Farm Supply has a deal where you can buy gift cards - spend $100 and get a $120 gift card - the gift cards are purchased now and have to be redeemed after dec 25. A ton of bricks is normally $250. If you buy two gift cards now - you can use them to get a ton of bricks for a net price $210 after dec 25.

jeff

p.s. every stove is different and every stove installation is different - this will change the operation. In my stove, it is designed for a front to back burn (air wash plus two "jets" at the center front of the stove. Also, I have a single story - so my flue is the minimum recommended length and do notice that I have more draft when outside temps are colder. Bottom line - you have to figure out what works best for you and your situation.

jebatty said:

The Bear Brick website indicates each brick can produce 16,000 btu's. I'm troubled by the word "can" as opposed to "will." It might actually produce less. http://www.bmfp.com/bear-bricks/bear-bricks.html

.

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I spoke to the bear mountain forest products rep via e-mail prior to purchasing the product so that I could "pencil it out" and make sure it made financial sense - relative to btu output he said :

Our BEAR BRICKS average 2# each, 12 per tray, 81 trays per pallet. In
all, 972 Bricks = 1,944 pounds. The BRICKS we have sent out for
independent testing have been showing BTU rates of 8050 to 8170 per
pound.

So they "can" produce at least 16k btus - including burning off the 6%-ish moisture contained in the brick. And this is verfied by independent testing. Just to double check things - I did weigh a few of the bricks and found they all weighed greater than 2 pounds.

It works out very well financially relative to hardwood cord pricing here - and the fuel is much more consistent (moisture content is low). I did get alot of wood for free last year and this, of course, is the best price - I kind of cringed when spending money on fuel (bricks) this year - but I feel much better giving my money to a company that is local to me versus NW Natural Gas who buys their fuel from some other huge corporation...

jeff

I dropped in the local stove shop to drool on the cast-iron top loaders, and picked up 4 flats of Bear Bricks just to try out. So far, not so exciting.

The Bad- Hard to light. They don't burn well unless a lot of surface area is exposed, and there's tons of air, but that's the opposite of what you'd want for a long burn. Not much heat unless there's a minimum of 8 bricks in my stove. Then you can get reasonable heat for about 3-4 hours, but you have to watch the air control. I'm guessing a minimum of 24 bricks a day. This doesn't stack up against gas or harvesting your own wood around here.

The Good- Clean burn, little ash. Easy storage and handling. Nowhere near as messy, or as much work. The price is not bad against C/S/D wood, at this time, especially considering the above qualities. A pallet could last a month.

I won't be using this product, but if I were not physically able to process my own free wood, or couldn't store cords, I'd go this route. If it were buying cords vs. bricks, I'd buy a little of each. If I had no seasoned wood, and no other heat source, these would be great.

I'm curious about the size and shape, too. Clearly, the "brick" shape is easier to store and use than the traditional "presto" log shape, but why not a larger brick, especially since everyone suggests packing them tight to limit surface area? A brick twice the size would still allow some flexibility in load size. Do they become too fragile?