Brazier Smokeless Coal - 10kg Bag

In Home Bargains today - picked up a couple of bags of smokeless coal. Can't (shouldn't) use anything else as we are in a 'smokeless zone'. Anyway each bag was £5.69 - which is a crazy bargain. Wilkinsons want £11 and Wickes £10 for the same.

I detect some profiteering going on here - given the massive increase in energy prices - the shops aren't daft - they know that people will this year have a renewed interest in their multi-fuel stoves/wood burners. It's also made in the UK

 

Even at £5.69 per 10kg bag that is close to £600 per ton! Money that is going up your chimney! If you go online and look at prices for buying coal in bulk you'll be pleasantly surprised. The only downside is that not everyone has the space to store a 1 ton IBC bag of coal for example.

However, I think I could jolly well come up with a solution given the savings to be made. Because even at £5.69 per bag you are well and truly getting your pants pulled down. All fuel suppliers are getting in on the act, it's scandalous.

 

Aldi and Lidl often have coal weeks during the winter. Lidl had smokeless coal last week but I don't know the price. Aldi's was £3.99 for 10 kilo bag (price printed on bag) last year - I have ...a few... stored in back of garage.

 

The people we purchased this bungalow from told me that the wood burner would heat the whole bungalow. It doesn't. They also said that they would leave all the logs in the garage. They didn't. I do like a real fire, but just to look at and to make toast. For heating I click on the central heating. I will nip into lidl and see what they have on offer

 

I have a bag of Aldi coal from last year - pricemarked £3.99. Not pricemarked on bag this year...but it's on sale at £6.99.

 

Often see logs for sale along side country roads, never really looked at the price but if its mostly for appearances you dont have to burn lots.

 

Lots of firms are offering free pallets, yes we have to chop them up but they burn lovely on our stove.

 

There is absolutely nothing more satisfying, especially given current energy prices, than heating your home for free!! It is an absolute no brainer that anyone with a wood burner take a bit of time out to visit local factories. There are always scrap pallets and odds and ends of wood that many places are glad that you are taking them off their hands.

I work at a place that generates more scrap wood than I could ever burn and all it takes is a bit of my time to prepare it.

Whether you go to your local garage, garden centre, supermarket or DIY store you can't escape these little bags of kindling and small logs everywhere stacked up on pallets, and the prices are astonishing, I shudder at the thought of people buying this stuff to burn on a fire.

 

We used to make up net bags of kindling to sell to the public, it was never a money spinner but it cleared out the off cut racks from time to time.
I had a mate at larger company where I worked and for 40 years he never knew what it was like to buy fuel for the wood burner he used to take large hardwood off cuts home when ever available.
I went over his place one day and he showed me his shed, it was full all neatly stacked and fitted in right to the door, it was solid.
He's retired now and has to buy logs.

We had a machine that used to make briquettes as well,from all the savings from the machines.

 

We get that much wood at work I can be selective and just take the cream. Pallet wood burns well, and hot, but it burns quite quickly too, so I rarely take pallet wood really, especially when there are these bad boys on hand, hundreds and hundreds of them. They are 4x4" lumber cut down to about 8-12" lengths. Slow burning, very hot....and FREE!! My shed is full of them.

Even when I retire in a few years time I'll still be able to go back to work and take my fill.

 

Sting in the tail here is that we are in a smokeless zone - so we can only burn certain fuels - wood is not one of them. Apparently some designs of stove are allowed to burn wood - but not ours.

I do see smoke belching out of chimneys round 'ere - you can't blame people trying to save a few quid on heating though.

 

As time goes by, and wood burners become more popular, sales are rocketing apparently, I can see the government bursting all our bubbles by increasing the amount of smokeless zones we have and/or putting some kind of special tax on wood burners because they're so ungreen.

They'll do anything to get more money from us.

 

I think they have already slammed wood burners as not green, at one time they were considered ok as they burnt a sustainable fuel but that was before the emissions thing really got going.

 

Next door have just got one of them squeaky clean brand new electric cars. It's quiet as a mouse and super environment friendly no doubt.

Does that mean I can double up on my wood burner usage to compensate for their cleanliness, lol.

I can't take any of this environment stuff seriously, not when the biggest polluter on the planet, China, won't even get around the table at these climate summits and such.

It's a joke.