What are Liberty Bricks made out of?

Liberty Bricks are made from scrap wood chips and sawdust. The amount of wood chips in the bricks and the source of sawdust will change the appearance somewhat, but all bricks will burn about the same.  They are made of wood.

How much ash is there?

Liberty Bricks make much less ash than cord or split wood.  There is no bark in our bricks, which is where most of the ash in cord or split wood comes from

What holds the brick together?

The natural resins in the wood hold the particles in the brick together. The tremendous pressure that is used to press the bricks into shape also creates mechanical linkages so that the fibers “knit” together. We add no glues or binders to our bricks to hold them together.

Why don’t they light with a match like DuraFlame logs or other starter logs?

Ambiance logs are made to burn one at a time to look pretty. They are held together with wax and sometimes contain used motor oil to make them easy to light and to make them burn one at a time on a fireplace grate. They are essentially soaked with lighter fluid. Because our bricks don’t have any petroleum added, they require a small amount of kindling, tinder, or paper to start, just like dry, cord firewood.  The advantage is that they get going faster than cord wood.

How do you get them started?

Bricks start easily if they are stacked in a little teepee around a few wads of newspaper. The heat from the newspaper gets trapped well enough in the top of the teepee to start the wood on fire and then within a few minutes all the bricks are started from the inside. It will be very difficult to light only one brick in your fireplace with out any additional wood or paper.

How long do they burn?

The time they burn depends on how much air they are given. In an open fireplace, they will burn for about 90 minutes.   In a wood stove stuffed to capacity and damped down, they will burn all night.

How much heat do they give off?

Like other dry wood, they give off 8000 BTU’s per pound.

How does it compare to other heat sources?

One ton of bricks contains 16 million BTU’s. With heating oil, you need 115 gallons to get the same amount of heat. With propane, you need 170 gallons. With natural gas, you need 160 CCF. With electricity, 4800 KWh.

What kind of wood is used to make them?

The wood sources are not separated, but they average about 75% hardwood and 25% softwood.  However once the softwoods go through the compression process, they are just as dense as a hardwood.

How much wood is in a ton of bricks?

There is 2,000 pounds of wood in one ton of bricks.  One ton of bricks is equal to about a cord of wood.  That brings up the question "how much wood is in one cord?"  There is no right answer to that question.  A cord of wood is 8'x4'x4', but how well is it stacked?  What is the density of the wood?  Is the stack of wood exactly 8'x4'x4'?  Some people claim that a pickup truck load is a cord.  All we know is that our ton of bricks is 2,000 pounds of wood, it takes up half the space (4'x4'x4'), and can be stored inside or out.

What is their environmental impact?

Most of the raw material we use would have ended up in a landfill or an industrial boiler. So in terms of resource conservation, this is a perfect product; it is sustainable and conserves land. It burns much cleaner than firewood   because it is drier and more uniform, so the fire burns very efficiently and cleanly. There is essentially no sulfur in the wood and it burns at too low a temperature (compared to petroleum and gas) to make much less nitrogen oxides, so it doesn’t contribute to smog or acid rain.

The net carbon emissions are zero, because the raw material would decompose and form the same amount of carbon whether burned or not. Regarding greenhouse gases, burning bricks does not emit any methane, but decomposition in   a landfill creates lots of methane, which is 23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.