Green Dragon fuel vs smokeless fuel vs hardwood logs

For those who don't know, Green Dragon fuel is a "bio" solid fuel, formed from the byproducts of rapeseed (RS) oil production. (Why, oh why can't we have a better name for this plant?!?)

The stems, ie. the left over bits, have a calorific value (they burn). When crushed and compressed they are formed into "logs".

Since RS is grown throughout the UK and is, by all accounts, a rapidly growing plant, the byproduct fuel; bio log, is a truely renewable fuel. Unlike traditional timber, it does not take years to form. Trees require at least 10 years (hardwood) before they reach harvestable girth. Most readily available pre-bagged logs are either too wet to burn correctly due to little knowledge on the forecourt of how to store them or of so poor a quality that they do not burn efficiently.

The best true timber will always come from a good tree surgeon; one who knows how to season and store timber. Even so, the seasoning process takes 18 months minimum.

The next commonly available fuel is prepacked smokeless fuel. The process to form smokeless fuel is basically processing coal; burning it under pressure. This removes the deposits and dirt and a lot of heavy carbon, but where does this "dirt" go to? The hint is in burning. Sometimes a chemical process may be used. But chemicals will eventually need disposing.

Thus, is processed smokeless fuel "good" for the environment?

So, we now have the question regarding what's best to burn, smokeless fuel, hardwood or Green Dragon Fuel.

I know what I burn regularly. One thing is sure, humans want to stay warm. Use an earth resource such as smokeless fuel formed from coal, hardwood which takes a long time to grow or a fuel that has its source effectively replenished within months; not years?

You can find full details of Green Dragon Fuels here, or email me and I'll willingly take you through it.

Better still, BUY SOME here. Try it, believe it, help save our precious planet and money!

Green Dragon Fuel

We are proud to announce that we will be stocking solid fuel manufactured from sustainable sources.

I'll let Green Dragon explain what and who they are. All copyright and source materials are used with permission from Green Dragon Fuels. All rights reserved.

What is Green Dragon Fuel?

Green Dragon Fuel is a totally new and unique solid ‘green’ fuel made from the by-product of Phoenix Fuel’s bio-diesel process. It can be used on boilers, stoves and open fires instead of wood or coal and burns three times longer than logs, giving off twice the heat!

• The solid ingots of the bio fuel are actually GREEN in colour as well as truly green in credentials.
• Formed from the remnants of Rapeseed which has been grown and harvested for it's oil, the stems and husks are processed to form a solid fuel block (ingot).
• This block is dried and contains a significant calorific value (it burns well!).
• Producing TWICE the heat of traditional wood, each 2.5Kg ingot can burn for up to 3 hours, drastically reducing the refuelling rate of your appliance.
• Each block is hexagonal in shape, each ingot can easily be split into four quadrants if you require a smaller "log".
• The shape of the ingot makes stacking of the product exceptionally easy, no more logs rolling off onto the floor!

There is the option of buying the ingots in 1.25kg (half ingot) form either individually or in box quantities. However, we suggest that you keep up your green credentials and buy the fuel loose; why have a box when you can simply carry the product in a re-usable bag?

Full details of Green dragon can be found here - http://www.greendragonfuel.co.uk/gdfuel.htm.

We are proud to announce that we are both a supplier and distributor of this wonderful new fuel. Our website http://www.hwood.co.uk/ will carry full details soon.

On a personal note I have tested this product fully at home, the video link here shows a 1/2 ingot burning ... in my humble opinion and I have burnt a full ingot ... 1/2 is more than enough for the average room!

My stove delivers 6kw at maximum burn. I do not have the tech to say what the stove is delivering when burning a 1/2 ingot, all I can tell you is that the heat is awesome ... way in excess of any wood burning or smokeless fuel burning that I have tried.

Living with a multifuel stove

They say a picture can say a thousand words. I'll set the scene, raining, dark, cold, central heating turned off.

Sounds miserable? Indeed it does.

Unless you have a multifuel or woodburning stove!

I'm lucky enough to have the fantastic Firebelly FB1 multifuel stove installed from our range of stoves. I installed it with my engineers (check out http://www.hwood.co.uk/).

I light it every night when I come in from work (5 ish), once lit and working (after 1/2hr ish) the living room is lovely and warm.

Our heating does not need to be on after that point... so for the rest of the evening the warmth from the stove permeates around my ground floor (some 720 square feet), it trickles upstairs ... the flue (chimney) naturally passes through my eldest daugthers room, this naturally warms the room.

So ... for the past four week since installing this stove I have not used my gas heating (high efficiency band A boiler) at all during the evenings.

We burn seasoned timber from managed sources and now ... well now, we have just found a fantastic supplier of biofuel logs form from the remenants of rapeseed oil production.

More about the biofuel in the next post.

The enclosed picture is untouched, enjoy :-)