Being Green

Green fires

Why burning wood makes sense

We can't claim to be part of an environmentally-friendly market by design. We love woodburning open fires in the home. The warmth of the flame, the aroma around the house, the cackle as the splinters burn.

The realisation that burning wood as a means to provide heat in your room is vitually carbon neutral was a blessing. Now everyone has a reason of the head, as well as the heart, to have a real woodburning fire at home!

We're not going to wade into the detail on the subject here. Other people know more than us and have presented the facts better. Try Greenandeasy.co.uk. In short, wood is classed as a biomass fuel because it emits the same amount of carbon when it burns as it absorbed when it grew. If left to rot it will still emit the same amount of carbon as burning. In addition, it's usually grown, harvested, seasoned and burned within a small geographic area, so minimal transport is involved. More often than not it arrives loose in the back of pick-up, so it has virtually no packaging.

 

Open fires, convector fires, wood burning stoves

'In Praise of Ash' - we think it's the best wood you can burn

Camelots Thermovent fire uses a convector heat exchange design. It's more efficient than a freestanding open fire grate. They're not as efficient as a wood burning stove, because by design the fire is an open box which means you can't control how the wood burns with as much accuracy. The convector element of a Thermovent generates the movement of warm air around the room. We intend to test Thermovent in the course of 2010, but until then we cannot publish any comparative performance figures.

Choosing the right wood can make all the difference to the performance of your fire. This link gives an outline of the various types. Alternatively, look at this poem, called 'In Praise of Ash'. We believe it was written by an American called Bud Cottrill, from Kansas. It was often used as an aid to housewives, and husbands, to let them know which particular types of wood made for good burning:

Beechwood fires are bright and clear if the logs are kept a year.
Chestnut's only good they say if for long 'tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree, death within your house will be; but ash new or ash old, is fit for a queen with crown of gold.
Birch and Fir logs burn too fast blaze up bright and do not last, by the Irish 'tis said Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould e'en the very
 flames are cold, but Ash green or Ash brown
 is fit for a queen with golden crown.
Poplar gives a bitter smoke, fills your eyes and makes you choke, Apple wood will scent your room, Pear wood smells
 like flowers in bloom.
Oaken logs, if dry and old keep away the winter's cold but Ash wet or Ash dry a king shall warm his slippers by.

 

 

 

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