Hey Jason it's Dave, calling to see how many tons of ENVI8 blocks you are looking for next year. He proceeds to tell me that he contacted the warehouse in March as “the Bug” started and was able to secure X amount of the ENVI8 blocks/bricks. When I didn't respond to his mailer that I never received, he called. I do like him. He's been really good to me over the past 5 years. Well this is where "The Wood Pile" comes in. As I've mentioned in my plan, I ordered 2 tons for the coming year as I have roughly 4 cord ready to go into the shed once built and another cord to go outback on pallets. I told him that I'll be phasing ENVI8 blocks out over the next 3 years. Which he completely understood. He did say that mixing them makes for a better situation. What he means is two fold. One is that mixing the ENVI8's with cordwood will help keep your chimney clean due to the low moisture content of the blocks. They will offset the higher moisture content of the cordwood. Second, let's face it, he makes no money if I am not buying anything from him. To his point about lower moisture levels, I'll be buying 2 tons this year and next and 1 ton the third year. After that I'll be strictly on cordwood. At least that is the plan. Which I believe should not be an issue. Jason from RI
I'm not sure mixing will help much. If the wood is not dry, it will cause creosote. If it is dry, it will burn nicely. I think most folks who use those things are probably using them to help spread out or make their firewood last longer rather than trying to keep things clean. I have nothing against them but also have never used them. All I've ever burned is wood and in over 60 years it has served me very well.
I tend to agree. 1ton = 1 cord. The wood I'll cut now will not be dry enough and I expect a much large than usual build of creosol. Not like the days I burn blocks will amazingly clean the flu. Unless of course I intentionally burn off the chimney. Which is not a practice I do anymore. Bottomline for me is that 2 tons of the blocks will give me 2 cords and the 2 cords of wood I add will total 4. Which is what I expect I'll need in a normal winter. This year was less than 3 ton.
A friend of mine has been using the blocks for several years. He likes having a fire in his wood stove, but is unable to deal with cordwood. So, having pallets of blocks delivered and moved into his garage gets the job done for him.
Backwoods Savage i ran low on wood this past February some wood I had was close but not there yet!! So 3 bricks and fill an IS it worked. Chimney clean so it might be avg moisture per load..
Me too. It’s taking me longer than before to get it CSS.. and our shoulder seasons seemed exceptionally long last 2 years.. stacking more this week should be back on 3 year plan
My brother sells ECO bricks, so I have played around with them just to see what all the fuss was about. I personally don't care for the way they burn when using 100% bricks...but they do seem to work pretty well when mixed in, as was mentioned. The chimney might not be as clean as burning 3 year (+) CSS cordwood, but it does pretty well...I think the big gain is in just being able to keep the fire burning well once the air is turned down. About the only time I use them anymore (still have a few left) is when I have a load that for whatever reason doesn't want to cooperate very well (which happens less and less these days...pretty darn infrequently really, especially since installing the Kuuma furnace) I'll throw 2-3 bricks on top of the wood and let it char while the firebox comes back up to operating temp...things generally burn pretty well after that...getting those bricks off-gassing/burning right up their close to the baffle/secondary air tubes makes it pretty easy to keep active secondary flame going, which then burns off most of the smoke that is created by the wetter wood in the load...and by the time the bricks are kinda "used up" the rest of the load has baked dry...not perfect, because there's still moisture going up the stack that wouldn't be there other wise, but if you can burn the smoke particles up, you limit the creosote buildup.
