Compressed Cardboard

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realstihl

Minister of Fire
Dec 4, 2007
525
eastern kansas
I work for a large school district and have an abundance of card board. I wish there was some way to compress this stuff and make it burnable. It would be free heat if it was possible. Would it wok?
 
It will burn, but it would not be a good idea. IMHO. Burn to hot, to fast, and is a screen clogger. Stoves, and Fireplaces are designed to burn cord wood, not cardboard.

Shawn
 
shawneyboy said:
It will burn, but it would not be a good idea. IMHO. Burn to hot, to fast, and is a screen clogger. Stoves, and Fireplaces are designed to burn cord wood, not cardboard.

Shawn

Re-read my post. I'm talking about (compressed) cardboard. Like a Bio brick or something similar. Thanks!
 
realstihl said:
shawneyboy said:
It will burn, but it would not be a good idea. IMHO. Burn to hot, to fast, and is a screen clogger. Stoves, and Fireplaces are designed to burn cord wood, not cardboard.

Shawn

Re-read my post. I'm talking about (compressed) cardboard. Like a Bio brick or something similar. Thanks!

I think he read your post correctly..... Still cardboard.....
 
realstihl said:
shawneyboy said:
It will burn, but it would not be a good idea. IMHO. Burn to hot, to fast, and is a screen clogger. Stoves, and Fireplaces are designed to burn cord wood, not cardboard.

Shawn

Re-read my post. I'm talking about (compressed) cardboard. Like a Bio brick or something similar. Thanks!

I read it correctly and my answer remains the same. I would not do it, but that is me.

Shawn
 
Oh well. It's a shame cause we litterally throw tons of it away each week. Some of it gets recycled supposedly. Lots of btu's getting tossed.
 
I'm sure somebody could find a way to process it into burnable fuel, but I think a better use for it would be to recycle it into more cardboard and use wood chips and sawdust for making compressed fuel.

Are they really allowed to just throw it away? There would be heavy fines for doing that where I live. Recycling is mandatory here.
 
Somewhere I saw some high density fiber logs. They looked like a lot of shredded cardboard that was packed very tight. After all cardboard is made from wood fiber just like MDF boards. Perhaps you could find a way to grind it up with water and press it into blocks or bricks.
 
what about the adhesive used inside the carboard plys, wouldnt that be bad to burn?
 
That last 2 chimney fires that happened amongst my friends/family were as they were burning cardboard in their wood stove.

Stuff burns hot and fast. If there is something that will ignite in the pipe, it will find it.

pen
 
My wife once filled a cereal box with magazines and tossed it in the fire. It didn't burn. There wasn't any air inside the box to combust. Think of it like stuffing a too large round into the stove.

Matt
 
There was a member named Dylan that seemed to exclusively burn cardboard. IIRC, his stove was pretty eaten up, but I don't know if that was from burning cardboard or not.

Matt
 
Envirologs are compressed food grade cardboard logs, made out of produce cartons. I burned them last year. Upside, they produced heat, but not enough to use them exclusively. Downside, a ton of light fluffy ash that pretty much got everywhere.

That being said, if you can find a way to produce some kind of fuel from it, give it a go. I think your best bet is to shred, wet, compress, dry, and burn.
 
agartner said:
Downside, a ton of light fluffy ash that pretty much got everywhere.

Most commercial paper products have a certain percentage of clay fines and other inorganic material added as binding and toughening agents. In some products this can be as high as 30% by weight. No idea about cardboard, but I'm sure it has more than wood has, even more than bark like ash and locust has. No wonder about all the ash you see when you burn paper and cardboard.
 
get that cheap pellet mill from china off of ebay, and then add your cardboard pellets to your regular pellet supply if you burn pellets, since you burn wood you would need to get a pellet basket for your stove and put the cardboard pellets in over the fire. there is a company or two who make pellets out of just cardboard, everyone says they make tons of ash and not much heat, however added to your regular supply they might help without too much trouble.
I would love to find cardboard pellets for cheap and throw a bag or two in every hopper full on my OPB, ash is not much of an issue on my OPB, compared to the indoor space heater pellet stoves
 
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