What to feed your fireplace in an eco-friendly way?
We, at Designer Fireplaces have been in the fireplace-industry for years and we share a few interesting facts around the different types of fuel used for in-house heating purposes. Please note, for the best advise on the type of wood to use in your own uniquely designed Designer Fireplaces, please speak to one of our experts.
There is nothing quite like lazing in front of a friendly fire on a cold evening. But is your fireplace on an eco-friendly diet or will it leave your inner environmentalist out in the cold?
An eco-friendly fireplace relies on two things: structure and fuel. Now that you’ve got a superior, masonry structure fireplace what should you feed your fire? In South Africa wood, charcoal and gas are at the top of the menu.
With wood, green is bad. Green- or unseasoned wood has a lower heat output and its high moisture content causes more particulate smoke and creosote. Seasoned wood simply means dry wood. You can season store bought wood yourself. Simply stack it in a dry place away from the elements for a good long while. If your logs foam when burned, season them longer.
Hard, dense woods like the local Kameeldoring and Rooikrans are perfect although Eucalyptus and Black Wattle are more readily available. Avoid soft woods like Pine, which burn away too quickly.
As with anything being burned, carbon emissions become a factor. Wood, it can be argued, is carbon neutral. It releases only as much carbon as the parent tree absorbed during its life and would release if left to decompose naturally. Burning closes the carbon loop, allowing new trees to absorb the released carbon, contributing to the increase in carbon by zero.
Being a wood product, charcoal attempts to make the same claim. But most charcoal contains artificial additives like coal, borax and sodium nitrate, adding to carbon emissions and particulate pollution. Lump charcoal (made solely from whole pieces of tree) is an improvement. But as with all charcoal, the energy expended in baking the charcoal into useable briquettes must also be weighed and invariably end up unbalancing the eco-scale.
Gas would seem to be a cleaner alternative, emitting only moderate amounts of carbon and with none of the messy clean-up. But gas is a fossil fuel, therefore not a renewable resource. This also means there is no balance to the carbon emissions and any emission at all is a NET increase. In addition, the cost of production and transportation (in South Africa – where gas is not piped directly to our homes) enlarges the carbon footprint, putting is square in the NET.
Bioethanol presents a break from traditional fossil fuels. It is an organic, alcohol-based fuel distilled from biomass, such as sugar cane, corn or sweet sorghum. But feeding your fire bioethanol means taking food from the mouths of famine struck countries, which is just one of many critiques.
Electric fireplaces almost don’t deserve an honourable mention in South Africa, where availability is eskom-ordinarily uncertain. Unless your household draws its electricity directly from a hydro dam or wind farm, you are almost certainly contributing to the inefficient energy conversion from coal or diesel.
Firelogs are a relatively new arrival to the scene. Recycled newspaper and sawdust are compacted into log shapes or pellets. They are naturally dense and burn well and as long as a natural- as opposed to a petroleum binding agent was used, they are environmental gold. An enterprising Canadian company has even started compacting used coffee grounds into firelogs.
Appease your inner environmentalist by feeding your purpose built, eco-friendly fireplace a sustainable diet.
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