solid fuel
Bigger Bear Bricks Available Soon
Great news from the folks at Bear Mountain Forest Products. They have been testing a new, larger Bear Brick that will be introduced soon to their dealers for immediate sale. The new brick is just over three pounds, versus the standard brick, which weighs just under two pounds. All the same performance characteristics apply to [...]
Cold Weather Energy Update
The process to upgrade our home for more comfortable, efficient winter living has been many years in development and will continue to develop as we refine the systems and our use of these systems. It has required a good deal of time and financial investment (which we’ll be paying for some time), but the efforts have been well worth meeting our goals: Use local, clean energy and far less of it; Increase the comfort of our home…
Bear Bricks Ablaze
For those who have been considering whether to use Bear Bricks because they are concerned that the look of the fire will not be quite as enjoyable as traditional logs, I am providing a series of photos showing the bricks burning at various stages. You can click on any of the images to see a [...]
Retrofitting for Wood Stove Heat
If you’re seeking to heat your entire home with wood, you would benefit most from a free-standing stove… A fireplace-inserted wood stove –like ours, which sits inside the fireplace, as opposed to in-front of it– will not effectively heat your whole house unless you have a centrally mounted fireplace and ensure that the insert is extending beyond the hearth…
Use Less, Savor More
This was a big week for the Towsey-French household as we not only completed the second phase of our heating system upgrade (the first phase occurring in 2007), but we also added a major insulating blanket directly above the majority of our primary living space. We hired a highly recommended firm, Air Tight Insulation, who [...]
Bear Bricks Back in Action
We’ve been burning bear bricks on and off for about two weeks now (mostly in the late evenings), so we were able to warm up most of the house to about 72 degrees today without ever tapping into our B100 biodiesel. This is fortunate because today is the day that we replace our furnace heater [...]
Spring Energy Update
The milder temperatures have certainly benefited us in helping reduce energy consumption the past couple of weeks. Regardless, we still want to make sure we have plenty of fuel on hand, so we made the decision to split a pallet of bear bricks with Keri’s dad, who also wanted to take advantage of those keen [...]
Home Heating Fuel Update
As posted on January 21, 2009, we’ve been using bear bricks as our preferred wood fuel since that same day. Since that date we’ve consumed 61 trays of bricks (12 two-pound bricks per tray). In 49 days we have used 732 total bricks, or approximately 1.24 trays (apx. 15 bricks) per day. As stated in [...]
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