# Hot Bricks in the stove?



## fatjay (Nov 18, 2014)

First off I want to say that I'm in no way affiliated with any of the products I mention below, just sharing my experience.

I primarily heat my home in the winter months with my claw foot cooker stove. It's a Cawley/LeMay 400, and puts out good heat. I have a box fan next to it that blows across and up the stairs into the kitchen and circling the rest of the house. Has a dial on the front to control heat, and depth for 16" logs.

I keep 2 pots of water full on the top at all times to keep moisture in the air. I have a stove top thermometer that tells me the temp(it reads low because it's on the edge), and one of those thermal fans that operate by turning heat into electricity. It's a gimmick and couldn't blow out a candle, but I thought it'd be fun. I've found it has another purpose, though. Based on it's speed i know exactly what the temperature is and if I need to add fuel, from glancing across the room or from another room.

I initially was taking delivery of pre cut wood and supplementing with whatever I had stored from the warm season. However I found that a lot were a bit to long and difficult to fit in the stove, and having to trim down every 3rd log you got gets old fast.

So I decided to order uncut. A 30 yard truck showed up and dumped about 10 tree trunks, seasoned as well as one could expect for uncut, which I cut up to make about 6 cords. I found this a bit easier as I could cut to my desired length of 16". I have a few splitting mauls paired with my husqvarna 455 rancher and stihl 170, I was in pretty good shape. Did that for 2 years, but it was incredibly time consuming and a lot of work, and working 60+hr a week when you get home it's hard to get motivated sometimes. I'd start cutting in the fall and get a cord or so head start, then continue through the season to cut as I need it.

Then a friend asks me what I think about pellet stoves, he for some reason is angry at LP which currently heats his home, and wants to burn something. I started looking into it and it seemed to be the next easiest thing to LP/oil, and fairly inexpensive. I liked the idea so much that I bought a ton of pellets and decided to make a pellet basket for my wood stove.

My local hardware store sells Hammer's Hot Ones, with .5% ash and all hardwood. Being a wood burning guy, I like hardwood, I know it burns hotter and longer than soft woods. They ran out a few weeks ago but now are getting some soft wood pellets in and they're more expensive than hammer's, so I'm not really interested in that. Soft woods create more creosote and don't burn as hot in regular wood, not sure about pellets though.

It worked well, I framed it out of 1/4" steel and wrapped several layers of steel mesh to make it. Then I used an old horse feed scoop to load and my little stove hoe to move the pellets around. I'd load about 1/3rd of hte bag into the basket every 8 hours or so. It's worked fairly well the last month I've been in production. I burn the pellets with the slider at 7-10 and it would sit at about 400-450F for a good 6 hours then taper off to 300-350F for the last 2 hours as it burned through the loaded pile.

Low and behold, a month into the season pellets are all but gone, and those that have them are selling them at a premium. The guys at my local hardware store where I got the pellets said they had these bricks though, essentially the same thing, however in brick form.

They sell these bricks at 6.99/pack for 15 bricks. It doesn't say the weight on the bag, but I would guess  maybe 40lbs? Pallet is 990 bricks for $300, 66 packs on a pallet, works out to $4 per pack, so there's a decent cost savings vs the individual price.

I loaded the stove with embers still hot from the pellets I loaded at 6am this morning, now roughly 8 hours later. Put in 5 bricks as an experiment. They're flaky on the outside, but have good weight, so I assume in the middle they're solid. They've been burning with the slider on 4 for 2 hours now and are at 550+F. I'll have to see how long this lasts, and may slide it down a bit.

I'd love to hear suggestions if anyone has them. Cheaper and warmer is the goal.

Here's the front of my stove. I like the dial much more than just a flue. Allows good precision control.






Here's a basket of pellets burning away:





Here's 5 bricks in the basket on the embers from this morning's pellet load.


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## begreen (Nov 18, 2014)

Greetings. We have several threads on compressed brick and log fuels. The more densely compressed products are pretty good as long as they are burned as directed.


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## bholler (Nov 18, 2014)

yes they work well i have the bigger version of your stove and i am curious what the angle bolted to the sides is about?  Do you not have the side burn plates in the stove if not you really run the risk of destroying the sides of the stove


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## fatjay (Nov 18, 2014)

bholler said:


> yes they work well i have the bigger version of your stove and i am curious what the angle bolted to the sides is about?  Do you not have the side burn plates in the stove if not you really run the risk of destroying the sides of the stove


I do have them, that's an insert I made that is wrapped in screen mesh to hold pellets. It sits on two bricks that sit on the bottom.

I really wish I had the 600, much more surface area and space. I've considered upgrading the stove, but have yet to see any other have the dial on the front, which is a feature I really do like to control the burn.


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## fatjay (Nov 18, 2014)

begreen said:


> Greetings. We have several threads on compressed brick and log fuels. The more densely compressed products are pretty good as long as they are burned as directed.


I searched around and only found one from a while ago. I figured my experience was unique enough and thought I'd share my experience over the years.


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