What is your preferred solid fuel?

[Ricco1]

I've been experimenting, this is what works for me:

 

I sometimes leave the boat for a day and although I leave a fire in it can be in the low 50's when I get back. Out with the firelighters, kindling, and a fairly small amount of petcoke. I find this lights very easily. Over the top of this I put some athracite which is the devil to light but once it gets going, burns nice and hot. An hour or so later the boat is toasty warm. I then use Burnwell, damped down a little on milder days and also overnight, so there's some warmth the following morning.

[canals are us?]

Bought some more wildfire today and thought I would try a bag of anthracite and have to say I like it.

Put some wildfire on first, then a layer of anthracite and it burned lovely for 6 hours, with air inlet 30% open. Should last at least 12 hours overnight if not longer.

 

Certainly lasts well and the heat in the rads was too much for me so I turned them off and got a full tank of hot water and that's on a non roaring fire!!

My wildfire costs £9.50 for 25kg and anthracite £10.25 for 25kg, so not much more.

I'm going to use both as wildfire is easy to light if not keeping in 24/7.

 

James

[Grace and Favour]

Bought some more wildfire today and thought I would try a bag of anthracite and have to say I like it.

Put some wildfire on first, then a layer of anthracite and it burned lovely for 6 hours, with air inlet 30% open. Should last at least 12 hours overnight if not longer.

 

Certainly lasts well and the heat in the rads was too much for me so I turned them off and got a full tank of hot water and that's on a non roaring fire!!

My wildfire costs £9.50 for 25kg and anthracite £10.25 for 25kg, so not much more.

I'm going to use both as wildfire is easy to light if not keeping in 24/7.

 

James

Anthracite is, of course, smokeless (and I agree with you - a decent anthracite is excellent)

Wildfire is not a smokeless fuel - - why not try using Excel, Taybrite, Homefire etc as a smokeless replacement for Wildfire

[canals are us?]

Anthracite will be my main fuel and wildfire to get it going when first lit. Even after it had died down and I put just fresh anthracite on it took lovely.

I have tried all the fuels mentioned but find I get more heat out of wildfire than the other and it lasts about the same. Homefire I quite liked the flames but didn't find any advantage in terms of cost as it was £12.50 for 25kg.

I found Taybrite created masses of ash and emptying the ash pan twice a day. Excel if I remember correctly had a funny smell out the chimney.

Wildfire certainly isn't a smokeless fuel but 10 minutes after refuelling the slight smoke has totally gone.

 

James

Edited December 4, 2013 by canals are us?

[QDos]

I have a small 3kw Glastonbury Griffin woodburner and use "blazers" logs - they say they are 100% sustainable and zero carbon footprint. Anyway they put out a lot of heat , can be broken by hand to fit the burner and leave little ash behind. I use 2-3 logs in an evening and the fire is still in in the morning (mostly) - Cost is £3.65 for a 10kg bag of 5 logs from a local fuel merchant. This set up seems to be working so far and the bonus is that I use very little gas as I can easily cook and boil the kettle in the evening. Downside is that it can get too hot.

 

Q

[Naughty Cal]

Diesel.

[snooky jo]

nice bit of seasoned horthorn, ash or oak, topped up with a bit of home fires coal to go through the night.

[junior]

I've just boat myself 50kg of ecoal50 for £25 in B&Q. I've not used it before but having seen only positive reviews on here I thought I'd try it.

 

I will report back!

[Doodlebug]

I've just boat myself 50kg of ecoal50 for £25 in B&Q. I've not used it before but having seen only positive reviews on here I thought I'd try it.

 

I will report back!

 

Tried it too, it works well and comes out the bags nice and dry. Problem is the pieces are quite big. I want stuff thats easier to handle in the small fire we have. I have to put the last few bits of coal in by hand and balance them.

[Mac of Cygnet]

Diesel.

 

Can you get solid diesel, then? (See topic title). Must be really cold in Yorkshire!

[MyLady]

I've just boat myself 50kg of ecoal50 for £25 in B&Q. I've not used it before but having seen only positive reviews on here I thought I'd try it.

 

I will report back!

That's what we burn (so far) in a pot-bellied stove. It stays in well overnight, or through a day's cruising. Our problem is the stove: the controls fitted have far less effect than the amount of ash we let build up! There's no built in riddler and with a poker, it can take quarter of an hour to clear all the old ash, but then we get temperatures up to 37 C degrees, or more, in the boat. More judicious poking gives reasonable boat temperatures. We bought a bag of, I think, SuperCoal. That was cheaper but in our stove, I had to get up 3 times in the night to keep the fire burning well enough to keep warm in bed (a warmer duvet may be a better solution). The Ecoal lights quite easily, a fire lighter, plus a handful of wood kindling almost always works well. Cost is about 4 quid (at B&Q price) a day to keep toasty warm. Again I think a better stove, with more control, should improve that.

 

Again from B&Q, HeatLogs give rapid heat when wanted (leave the door open to give air above the fuel for secondary combustion). They are cheaper per kg, but burnt away much faster. But beware, the bags of this I bought at Keighley, were 4 to 6 inches long, with little dust; the ones I bought in another branch were mostly 1 to 3 inches long, with lots of dust (presumably, they hadn't been handled so carefully) and gave inferior results. If your stove doesn't cope well with dust, wait until you reach a branch that 'handles with care'.

 

Speaking from less than a months experience,

 

Roger, (trying to work out how long a new stove, especially one with a back boiler, would take to pay for itself.)

 

Off a a tangent, our stove is next to our fridge, with only a fire-proof barrier that gets too hot to touch between them. Does a squirrel, with back boiler, run cooler at the back?

 

R

Edited December 30, 2013 by MyLady

[comfortably numb]

This is our first winter as boat owners and live aboards and after having read about the different coals on this thread and others on CWDF I plumped for Excel . I had tried various others to varying degrees of success but Excel seemed to have favourable reviews. I have been trialling it for a couple of months now and I'm very happy with it.

 

When we're out for the day or for overnight it stays ticking over nicely when the stove is set on low, and fires up well when I open the vent on my Godin stove (it's been alight continuously for 2 months now). I know we haven't had really cold weather yet so that will be the real test, but when it's been -2c it has kept us well warm.

 

It creates less ash than some of the others I've used. I buy the 20kg bags as they are easier to handle, and the small pieces of coal make it easy to tip from the bag into the scuttle.

 

I can see that some of the other brands mentioned have their merits, so each to their own as they say, but I'm happy with Excel and will stick to it.

[Flocal]

Been using Wildfire since day one.

My only gripe is it does leave quite a bad ash deposit but stays in overnight and easy to light.

[Grace and Favour]

Been using Wildfire since day one.

My only gripe is it does leave quite a bad ash deposit but stays in overnight and easy to light.

I think the only two slight disadvantages with Wildfire is that it can leave a deal of gunge in the flue, and it's not smokeless

[FadeToScarlet]

We're using Pureheat this year, having switched from No-Longer-Super therm, and are very happy with it- cheaper than Phurnacite but as good.

[GeoffS]

If anyone is interested I have summarised the average main components of the main brands that I have come across although each component can often be +/-10% or more. The rest is either made up of other types of coal, natural products and binders.

 

Brand Anthracite% Petroleum Coke %

 

Supertherm 45 45

Taybrite 70 20

Pureheat 60 25

Excel 25 70

Homefire Ovals 60 20

Phurnacite 75 20

E Coal 50 30

 

[b0atman]

I used excel last winter found it excellent But have moved from River Soar and not found anywhere stocking it in Banbury area

[canals are us?]

My stove manufacturer says not to use any coal with a higher petro coke content of 20%

Some of the fuels mentioned are very high.

 

http://www.woodwarmstoves.co.uk/_assets/manuals/new%20instructions%20fireview%20march%202010.pdf

 

What is the petro % of Wildfire? I use this as well as anthracite and sometimes Taybright.

 

James

[Grace and Favour]

James - Wildfire is not a smokeless fuel

[lexicon]

Ok stupid question about the different parts of the fuel.

Which is best for lots of heat? High petrocoke or high anthracite?

[GeoffS]

Ok stupid question about the different parts of the fuel.

Which is best for lots of heat? High petrocoke or high anthracite?

Good question. I started looking at the composition after reading that Petrocoke burns fiercely and can damage stoves or grates (I have some damage on an open grate at home since using Supertherm, but also generally using more coal than wood, so its not conclusive that its the type of coal). One stove manufacturer states not to use greater than a 20% content. But I have also seen Anthracite referred to as burning to wildly!

 

In a stove I have used Taybrite and Supertherm and both seemed to burn well and stay in. On an Open fire I have again used both and Supertherm seems to last longer and burn hotter although takes a while to get going.

[Shropshirecoal]

Ok stupid question about the different parts of the fuel.

Which is best for lots of heat? High petrocoke or high anthracite?

Petroleum coke burns hotter than coal.

 

Using raw petroleum coke or fuel with a high content will burn out your stoves internal parts. This is due to the fierce heat it burns at and also because it produces very little ash, which is what usually protects grates/ firebars.

[Mooresey]

Has anyone used the homefire hexagonal shaped fuel? It seams to be a bit more expensive than the pillow shaped type that you normally get. Is it worth the extra?

[bizzard]

Has anyone used the homefire hexagonal shaped fuel? It seams to be a bit more expensive than the pillow shaped type that you normally get. Is it worth the extra?

Years ago I used to burn it occasionally in a Torgem stove, ok but they are fairly large lumps and I think burn best in a large stove or open fire. Phurnacite was my favourite in those days.

Edited January 20, 2014 by bizzard

[Mooresey]

What about excel or newflame. I don't want to spend loads. Is it worth the little bit more?