Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Green winter goodness

For me winter goodness comes with a good fire in my fire place but burning through half a forest per season has never really appealed to me. Knowing that the natural wood logs burn with lot's of smoke and create an environment not exactly friendly to our lungs we have for years burned mostly man made logs. It has helped without question to control our youngest son's asthma as well.


These faux logs have improved a lot over the last years and now we have a wide range of choices.
As much as we might think otherwise, burning wood is not at all better then to burn those fire logs we can find in the local super market. I educated myself on different websites and one of the most informative is the one I quoted below!



Duraflame switched from using petroleum-based waxes as a binder, to vegetable paraffin. The vegetable paraffin is used to bind wood sawdust and recycled biomass (like nutshells and unprocessed fibers from food production) so that waste is being put to use rather than out to pasture. The resultant tube is a highly efficient burning log with a much cleaner burn. In terms of duration, a 6-pound Duraflame lasts 3 1/2 hours, which a company representative says is the equivalent of burning 30 pounds of firewood. Since so much less smoke is produced, artificial logs are being recommended over wood logs by many clean air agencies.

Read more:
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/greenest-fire-logs.html#ixzz1DWGUsANZ

There are a few more green fire log option out there, they can be bought through amazon or eBay, they are a little different composed the the Duraflame fire logs. Prices differ as well.


One of the hottest fake logs on the market is the Java Log—made from old coffee grounds. The manufacturer gets the old grounds from companies that make instant coffee, as well as from a few coffee houses, diverting 20 million pounds of coffee waste from landfills. Natural vegetable wax is used to hold the grounds together. Coffee has a higher heat density than wood, so these actually burn hotter than wood logs.

Most supermarkets in our area sell a variety of brands, look what's available near you!

So, if you next time around crave for a fire on your crate, think of these faux logs as real winter goodness!
Who knew coffee burns so well?


XX
Victoria

6 comments:

  1. javA logs very cool....i miss having a fireplace.

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  2. VICKI Dearest!!! You know what I do? This is certainly not as WARM, but just as enchanting with the dance of light. I put battery candles in my fireplaces, or twinkling lights wrapped around birch logs. IT LOOKS FABULOUS!!! Not smell, no worries. We can fall asleep and no worries. In my fireplace upstairs, I have a table chandelier with crystals and light that up with flicker bulbs and you should see the dance of light there. Try it!!!! Anita

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  3. Pamela:I think often it's such details which are overlooked when trying to live green!
    Shellie: It is, and they smell good too. You can actually drop a few drops of some lavender or cinnamon oil on top before burning and it fills the room with that scent!
    Anita: That's another great possibility and I know lot's of people do this as well.
    We need our fire place for warmth, my husband's office has no other heat!
    But a chandelier in the fire place - That is grand! : ) !!!

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  4. So many Green options out there now. We only have gas and electric fireplaces.

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  5. Great tip! Lovely to hear that they are green! Have a beautiful day, Kellie xx

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