Green Heat

I have always loved my open fire, not only for the atmosphere that it creates but also it’s ecological benifits – though it has to be said that untill a few years ago I had no idea that my love of it made me green. I grew up in the country were we burnt 90% of our rubbish and when in time I married and had my own home I insisted on an open fire and too continued to dispose of all my paper and card rubbish not to mention all the stuff people have become incesant on shredding in this manner.  At christmas time we burn great smelling woods along with coal which enhances the whole aromatic theme of the season, at this time more than any there is a huge excess of paper rubbish with all the wrappings and cards.

Image by net_efekt via Flickr

Whilst it is great rubbish disposal, the problem with paper as a heat form is it quick burinig rate. Now there are log makers to aid the effectiveness of this free heat.  The fairly small and very easy to use apparatus is quite cheap and each log offers around 20 mins of free heat rather than the 2mins of a torn or screwed up sheet of paper. It works by simply compressing paper maiche into blocks (the best ideas are always the simplest). It is obviously possibly to do this by hand by squeezing the maiche into balls.

      
I recently purchased one of these tools now readily available from places such as Amazon and a wealth of other internet shops and have found that not only am I building up a pile of free heat paper logs ready for winter I am enjoying fresh air whilst preparing them in the garden on the patio.  I have found that when they first come from the log maker they are still very wet and a little floppy, so wrapping them in a full double page newspaper sheet holds them nice and rigid while they dry which takes around a week in a wram and ventilated area.