Quick Review : Bear Mountain "Bear Bricks".

I love Bear Bricks. I live in an apartment and have limited storage space so these were perfect in that respect. My mom bought the first 24 bricks for me to try, thinking that they would burn easier in my smaller apartment sized fireplace. She was so right!! I started adding them to my regular wood fires a couple of weeks ago and now hardly use wood except as starter. They burn so hot that they easily warm my living room without using conventional heating. My only problem is that I live in the Seattle area and have yet to find a dealer, so I've contacted Bear Products. Worse comes to worse I'll drive to Vancouver/Portland area and purchase a ton. These will definitely help out (and I can stay home) when we loose power this winter.

Since I see this here - has anyone ever heard of Liberty Bricks? They sell them near here, and you can get a ton of the seconds (chipped bricks or something) for $135. I was thinking it might be nice to have some of these on hand in case our fairly meager load of seasoned gives out once we actually get a stove rolling. Plus I am assuming it's from one of our local paper mills which is interesting to me to know if these are used much, or if they are any good.

http://richmond.craigslist.org/grd/1441302805.html



They are certainly uglier than the bear ones!
Sorry if it's not cool to post a different brand here on your review. But your review got me much more interested in these because the prices you were mentioning were way higher - this guy sells the seconds at $135 a ton. Interesting!

BeGreen said:

I haven't seen those before. They look like compressed newsprint. How do the burn?

Click to expand...

You mean the liberty ones? They are wood/wood fiber.
http://www.libertybricks.com/
Supposedly burn a bit hot. I am assuming that one can make adjustments so as not to overfire? But I don't know. Do people who use these things mix them in with cordwood or burn just one or the other I wonder?

Stop tempting me to the dark side.

Since these things apparently burn a bit hot, are there ways to use them where they will not damage the stove? What kinds of adjustments might you make for the burn? Or would it just work to mix the bricks with hardwood, would that keep the temps more at the expected levels? I'm interested in getting some of those Liberty bricks perhaps since our wood supply is a little low and we haven't gotten started yet. But I don't want to get them if we (not knowing what we are doing) might damage our stove.

I've tried Woodbrickfuel and BioBricks. Personally, I preferred the BioBricks, they seemed to burn better. I mixed them with hardwood last year when I had less than well-seasoned wood. For $135 a ton, I'd definitely try them. They run $250-$285 a ton here in Mass, which is why I just use them as a supplement. They also work well as a kind of quasi-kindling. Since they burn hot, they get the fire going really quickly. And they're short, so I can load them north-south in my little Vista. I use them in a modified top-down start, putting two larger splits east-west on the bottom, two Biobricks north-south on top of that with a Supercedar between them, and some smaller splits or kindling on top with a piece of newspaper to start the draft. Light it all off and in a half hour or so I've got a hot stove and a good bed of coals on top of the bigger splits on the bottom. I can then add more wood or just let that cruise, depending on how mcuh heat I need at that point.

I started a new thread yesterday about our product, Liberty Bricks. I do not want to divert this thread about Bear Bricks. We almost bought their machine last year when we were anxious to get started and we had to wait 16 weeks to get our new machine. All of us are trying to determine what we can do to make the best value product. I would like to know how you like the packing of bricks into flats, particularly regarding how much sawdust sheds from the bricks and whether they swell and get "oatmeally" when it is humid. I saw the picture of the bricks in the garage. Were they restacked? Did the pallets get delivered with a shroud and stretch wrap to stabilize the load?

Also, we were similarly frustrated by the suggestion to make a teepee. With bricks it often ends up as a "tippy" that falls over and smothers the fire or goes out before it gets going well. We discovered that some sort of stack works best. Are people interested in starting a thread about easy ways to start a fire in different types of stoves? Bricks are easy to start and because they are so consistent, once you figure out what is best, you can get a good fire every time. I use newspaper as tinder in the middle of a stack with relatively small gaps between bricks to hold the heat and never need any kindling.

We are seriously considering offering Liberty Bricks in “beer trays” made of cardboard like Bear Bricks does. Although the trays are a little more costly than shrink wrap, they are less labor to pack, so we would offer them at the same price. We might pay a little extra to get a tray with tabs that does not have to be glued or stapled. This would make it better to either recycle or burn. Nearby customers could even return trays for a discount on another ton. What do you who use Bear Bricks do with the empty trays? They look to be glued or stapled. Would you prefer trays that unfold?

How do you like cardboard compared to shrink wrap? Dust is probably be contained better in a tray than a bag. It will not protect the bricks from humidity, so they probably should not be stored as long outside, even under the pallet cover or a tarp or shed.

Should we print anything on the sides of the tray when we pack whole tons for sale?

Would you prefer 35 pound trays to the 24 pound trays made by Bear Mountain?

This thread came up on teh google when I was searching bear bricks. There is a place here selling them $350/ton and they are saying 1 ton is = 2 cords of firewood.

The Bear Brick site says one 3 lb brick is 8,200BTU, so a ton would be 5.6 million BTUs. Cord of birch is around 23 million.... Hmmmmmmm.

To equal one cord of birch I'd have to buy almost $1500 of those bricks.