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It's still mid-February and depending on where you live, you may be wondering if winter will ever end.
What can you do in these chilly times?
a) Hibernate
b) Get treatment for S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder)
c) Book a trip to a warm beach (not a bad option)
d) Curl up in front of a toasty fire
But if you do choose Option D (which sure beats lowering your metabolism and curling up in bed for a few weeks, IOHO), why not try to choose an eco-friendly fire option.
Sure, some of you lucky enough to live in rural or suburban areas may have some wood just lying around from a tree-trimming or fallen log. In which case, we say "Waste not, want not."
But in our apartment, we don't have any spare wood lying around. (Of course, we don't have a fireplace either, but that's a whole 'nother ball of wax.)
If we did have a fireplace, we'd want to use the most eco-friendly firewood substitute available. After all, why cut down a tree for firewood if you can use a Green alternative that burns just as nicely - and probably more easily - with less mess and less fuss?
Here are three options that recently came to our attention:
1) Duraflame Stax -- With its rectangular shape, Duraflame claims that Stax is the first stackable firelog. Indeed, the directions on Stax say that you should start your fire by stacking two Stax on top of each other lighting them both. Duraflame also says that Stax is the first commercial firelog that can safely be burned in a woodstove.
Duraflame says it has recently switched from using petroleum-based wax to using 100% renewable bio-wax. Instead of cutting down trees to make its logs, Duraflame claims to recycle 50,000 tons of commercial wood waste and agricultural biomass (i.e. nut shells, fruit pits) each year in producing its firelogs.
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2) TerraCycle Fire Log -- I used to think all cardboard was recyclable, but according to TerraCycle, wax cardboard (which Internet research indicates is used to protect shipments of perishable foods from moisture damage) cannot be recycled and does not readily biodegrade in landfills. Accordingly, TerraCycle has taken that wax cardboard and transformed it into a fire log that it claims will produce little ash or smoke.
3) Pine Mountain Firelogs - Turns out that dust is nothing to sneeze about. Pine Mountain takes the sawdust from furniture and flooring manufacturers, combines it with all-natural wax and recycles it into firelogs. According to Pine Mountain, its firelogs not only burn six-times longer than firewood (pound for pound), they also generate 85% less carbon monoxide and 76% less creosote build-up in the chimney.
ITRW Experience:
Over two days, we tested all fire logs from all three companies.
Ease of lighting - Both TerraCycle and Pine Mountain were a cinch to light. We had a bit more difficulty with the Duraflame log. Ultimately, the Duraflame log ended up catching fire at just one end and then slowly burning down to the other end in a linear fashion. We'd have to say that our experience with the Duraflame log was a bit lopsided.
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Burn time - Pine Mountain and Duraflame Stax both burned themselves out in about 2 hours, although they kept glowing for another 30-60 minutes. TerraCycle lasted a bit longer, providing perhaps 3 hours of flickering flames.
Aesthetics - We tended to like the TerraCycle fire best, finding that it generated a nice warm fire and cozy fire for practically its whole run time. Pine Mountain burned a bit strongly and hotly at first, but then settled down to burn away quite nicely. The Stax fire was the smallest and bluest (although in all fairness, the Stax suggestions called for burning two Stax logs at once and we only used one firelog in our test).
3/11/09 update - Duraflame representatives note that Stax "has been specifically formulated so that more than one log may be used at a time....The logs have less energy per pound than traditional firelogs, but because more than one can be burned at a time, Stax logs put out more heat per fire." It's a fair point.
Cautionary suggestions - Read the directions on all the firelogs carefully. Never leave a fire unattended. From what we understand, you should not attempt to toast marshmallows (or engage in any other open-flame cooking) with any manufactured firelogs.
Where to Buy:
Duraflame says that Stax is sold at both Kmart and Target at an MSRP of $9.99 for a three-log pack and $19.99 for a six-log pack. Find other retailers using the Product Locator.
TerraCycle also says you can pick up a 4-pack of its Fire Logs for $15.99 at select Target stores.
Use the Product Locator page on Pine Mountain's website to find a retailer near you where you can pi
ck up the firelogs for an MSRP of $2-3 per log.
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