got 2 tons + a few more packages (maybe 6) before then. 1 ton contains 50 pkgs, each pkg contains 20 bricks (at 2lb/brick, that's 40lb/pkg, so similar to pellets really)fbelec said:spirilis said:haha wow, so after about 1.5hrs that mass of 5 woodbrickfuels was reduced to a semi-large mass of glowing embers. let it sit like that for a while at 1/2 air, just went back down and it was almost dark. opened it up completely, raked the charred sawdust and coals to the front and it's starting to ignite again with very hot glowing coals near the air intake, although it's well past halfway burned through. still though, that burned pretty fast with the better draft...
how many bricks did you buy? how much is left?
let me do a head count... looks like I have around 96 pkgs in the house between what's stacked in the garage and what's sitting in the coal buckets next to my two stoves. I only intend to burn this stuff as heating fuel when it's <40F out, especially at night. that won't happen for a while (we just had a cold snap last week, hence why I got to experiment a little but that cold snap is overwith now, it's supposed to hit 70 today with a low in the upper 40's so my heat pump is way more economical now)
I might add, though, that I wasn't burning them with longevity in mind when I did that fire last night... I kept the 5 bricks in a teepee formation where they burn super-super hot, and that seems to cook 'em quick (the temps on the flue collar coming out of the top casting actually read somewhere in the 700F vicinity... that might be considered overfiring). Normally I stoke the bricks and make them collapse into a pile of glowing/flaming/charred sawdust in the firebox, there they burn a little slower. I do the same thing with the Defiant... collapse them into a pile of "mashed potatoes" I guess (that'll be my new phrase, mashed potatoes lol), then add a couple new bricks on top of the glowing/flaming mass. I recall in another thread BeGreen tried out BioBricks and either he or someone else in that thread concluded that it's best to burn these bricks in a tight "mass" so you don't burn through them too fast; more surface area = faster burn, so packing them together makes them burn longer. The instructions on the front of the package actually say the following:
3A. FOR WOOD STOVES: Allow bricks to burn in this formation (the teepee) for 20-30 minutes. Then, rearrange to corner or back of stove. Place bricks together evenly in remaining stove area. DO NOT OVERFILL. BRICKS SLIGHTLY EXPAND DURING BURNING. DO NOT PLACE BRICKS AGAINST GLASS DOORS.
they also show a picture of the bricks stacked in front of a fire, and they're arranged as 3 stacks of 3, so packing them together in a nice mass.