We often hear people say, “My stove installer says I can only burn logs in my stove, so I can’t use briquettes”.
This isn’t true. Because wood briquettes are made only from pure wood sawdust, it is perfectly safe to burn briquettes in a wood burning stove. A wood-burning stove is an appliance that cannot burn coal-based products – it is able to burn wood briquettes well.
Why can’t you burn coal on a wood-burner?
Coal burns much hotter than wood, so coal-based products can damage a wood stove. Wood stoves are not designed to burn as hot as multi-fuel stoves (ones which can burn either wood or coal). Wood briquettes burn hotter than logs but as not as hot as coal, so they are perfectly safe in either a wood-burning stove or a multi-fuel stove.
In fact, wood briquettes are generally better for wood-burning stoves than logs are.
That might sound strange, but because wood briquettes are much drier than logs, they produce less tar to clog up the flue, less ash and fewer pollutants. Kiln-dried logs have about 12-20% moisture content, while briquettes are 4-10%. Moisture is what causes smoke, pollutants and tar. Ash comes from the bark of trees, which is high in silica. Briquettes generally have most of the bark removed, so their ash content is much lower.
