What is your preferred solid fuel?

[Captain Fizz]

What the title says really, what are peoples favourites and why?

[tillergirl]

Exel or Supertherm is our stoves preference..............doesn't seem to like anything else

[W+T]

Aslong as it cheap and gives heat i am not bothered.

[system 4-50]

Steak & chips.

[Theo]

Wood.

 

As long as I can salvage it from the towpath.

[Biggles]

LPG. Don't come much more solid than the bottle.

 

Why?

 

More heat per kilo than all the rest. No ash, instant and controllable, constant quality, easily transported, less polluting, no smell to neighbours. to name a few.

[Dovetail]

Yes wood either saved from work, salvaged or glorious logs of various timbers and best of all free......... but then it gets really cold and then its wood coal combination.

 

The only problem with coal it bumps up the heating bill to around the £120 mark.

[Paul C]

Oak, seasoned for 4 years and chopped into various sized logs for fast/slow burning (why do people think that all same sized logs is a good thing?)

 

And for keeping the fire in overnight, Taybrite.

Edited September 28, 2013 by Paul C

[Dovetail]

Oak, seasoned for 4 years and chopped into various sized logs for fast/slow burning (why do people think that all same sized logs is a good thing?)

 

And for keeping the fire in overnight, Taybrite.

You are so right regarding the size of logs it can become a real science

[matty40s]

Found a new favourite last year after years of taybrite until it became too dusty and then excel. Ecoal50 burns longer and stays in better than anything else I have used on the squirrel and although it costs slightly more initially, lasts long enough to cost the same in the end.

[GUMPY]

Phurnicite in the stove on the boat and the multifuel in the house.

Logs in the woodburner in the house.

Both multifuels stay in overnight with ease.

Logburner is always out in the morning.

[canals are us?]

For me last winter wildfire.

 

Excellent heat output and stays in overnight, all day with ease on my woodwarm stove. Nice flame too.

 

Wood I find excellent and burning logs atm and love the far, far less ash and the wonderful curling flames of the secondary combustion. If money was no object then it would be wood only.

 

 

James

Edited September 28, 2013 by canals are us?

[Boaty Jo]

Found a new favourite last year after years of taybrite until it became too dusty and then excel. Ecoal50 burns longer and stays in better than anything else I have used on the squirrel and although it costs slightly more initially, lasts long enough to cost the same in the end.

 

One site I looked at says that Ecoal50 burns 38% hotter than house coal which is getting near the heat output of petrocoke I would have thought. The instructions on our Becton specifically warn against burning petrocoke as it's too hot. Presumably you don't have problems though?

[comfortably numb]

We haven't been living aboard long enough to suss out which is best for us, but once when we couldn't get anything else we bought an unbranded bag from a petrol station and it spurted a horrible grey liquid out of the chimney and was the devil to get off the paintwork. I think somebody on here said that the cheap ones add cement to the coal so it may have been that.

[rgreg]

I find Pureheat is a good option; good heat and burns for ages (fire in 24/7 over winter). I pay around £10.50 for 25kg.

[Jambo]

There was a good discussion about this last winter:

 

http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=51616

[fudd]

For me last winter wildfire.

 

Excellent heat output and stays in overnight, all day with ease on my woodwarm stove. Nice flame too.

 

Wood I find excellent and burning logs atm and love the far, far less ash and the wonderful curling flames of the secondary combustion. If money was no object then it would be wood only.

 

 

James

Secondary combustion What's that? I'm new to stoves.

[Grace and Favour]

Anthracite (Black Diamond is the preferred) in small and medium sizes (10mm & 20mm) for the day/eve to keep stove at maximum output

Supplemented with the occasional hardwood pieces/logs (when available) during the day/eve

 

Excel or Supertherm to keep the stove in overnight

 

We never, ever burn housecoal/green timber - (it's smoky, is not pleasant for neighbours, its caustic for our flue/chimney)

[canals are us?]

Secondary combustion What's that? I'm new to stoves.

 

All explained here:

 

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/cleanburn-cleanheat-stove.html

 

James

[NB Alnwick]

I have been an adherent of burning Anthracite for many years because it is clean, low in ash, and does not produce excess tars and pollutants to ruin the boat's paintwork.

Anthracite is also a cost effective solution for those of us without the time to hew and dry hardwood.

 

There are very few manufactured fuels that are satisfactory in a small closed stove such as the ones we use on boats. Most produce huge quantities of ash which is undesirable because this sort of ash is often toxic and needs to be disposed of responsibly. Of all the manufactured fuels, 'Phurnacite' is probably the best. It was originally produced in South Wales as a Second World War economy measure to use the dust and small particles from Anthracite and steam coal that would otherwise be wasted. It was used successfully by the Great Western Railway and, later, the Western Region of British Railways as steam locomotive fuel - a direct replacement for Welsh steam coal. It is available in handily sized ovoids and the railwaymen had a nickname for these which today might be deemed as racially insensitive.

[mrsmelly]

Homefire.

 

Tim

[Ally]

Excel, and off cuts of oak and iroko from work, iroko burns wonderfully!

[Kae]

Four or five handfuls of cut-up pallet wood for a short, quick fire to just warm the boat up (think cold morning but expecting a nice day later on).

 

Otherwise Excel stays in wonderfully both during a full working day and overnight - both times I want to have a fire that will stay lit for up-to 12 hours without attention and it does (I think the longest I've had the stove going was 20 hours on one load of fuel)!

[fudd]

Four or five handfuls of cut-up pallet wood for a short, quick fire to just warm the boat up (think cold morning but expecting a nice day later on).

 

Otherwise Excel stays in wonderfully both during a full working day and overnight - both times I want to have a fire that will stay lit for up-to 12 hours without attention and it does (I think the longest I've had the stove going was 20 hours on one load of fuel)!

Have you got a back boiler and rads?

[Kae]

Have you got a back boiler and rads?

 

No, stove mid-saloon and an Alde gas boiler feedings rads - but this is far too expensive on gas!