Firewood Warmth Worth Vs BioBricks
Firewood is the unique renewable gas and nonetheless getting used as the only supply of warmth for about 1.5 million houses. Just lately, an eco-friendly different to firewood has been launched to the patron below the model identify BioBrick.
In case you’re not aware of BioBricks, they are often described as a two pound, 2″x4″x6″ brick comprised of compressed sawdust – similar to wooden pellets. The bricks are stackable, burn clear with lower than 1% ash, and price round $300 for a 1,900 pound pallet. Whereas studying the homepage of BioBrick’s web site I seen an fascinating statistic used to qualify the warmth content material. Here is the warmth declare quoted from their web site:
“One pallet of our BioBricks(TM) brings as a lot warmth into your own home as one wire of wooden*.”
*(typical cordwood moisture content material of 21%)
What acquired my consideration was the 21% determine they supplied as the everyday moisture content material of cordwood. Any home-owner heating with wooden is aware of that firewood is not thought of seasoned except the moisture content material is 15% or much less. Perhaps the 6 factors separating the 2 examples would not sound like a lot, however wooden with 21% moisture content material is definitely 40% wetter than the 15% selection.
I do not assume the BioBrick folks have been attempting to deliberately mislead customers. It simply sounds higher from a advertising stand level to say one pallet of BioBricks delivers the identical quantity of warmth as cordwood with 21% moisture content material reasonably than a pallet of BioBricks delivers 94% of the warmth of correctly seasoned cordwood.
However what occurs while you examine the warmth output of BioBricks with nicely seasoned, 12% moisture cordwood?
For comparability functions I’ll use the Btu warmth numbers from a desk of “Wooden Heating and Weight Values” revealed by the California Power Fee. The desk lists the burden and Btu values for 39 kinds of firewood at 12% moisture content material.
Nonetheless, a wire of firewood not often consists of just one species which makes it tough to precisely decide the Btu worth. With a purpose to even issues out, I am going to examine the warmth worth of BioBricks to Ash. Ash is a center of the street hardwood and, warmth sensible, is midway between Reside Oak and Western Purple Cedar. The warmth worth for a wire of 12% moisture Ash with a median wire weight of three,000 lbs is 25 million Btu’s. This works out to eight,333 Btu’s per pound.
The producer’s warmth estimate for a two pound BioBrick is 17,000 Btu’s, or 8,500 Btu’s per pound – nearly equivalent to Ash. (By the best way, I picked Ash first and ran the numbers, not the opposite manner round). Though my strategies are hardly scientific, I feel it might be honest to say the warmth worth of BioBricks carefully approximates that of most firewood.
#Firewood #Warmth #BioBricks
Firewood Warmth Worth Vs BioBricks
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