Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
 Solid and suprisingly effective February 10, 2008
jeremy gauntlet-gilbert (Wiltshire, United Kingdom)
97 out of 99 found this review helpful
I've used this gadget to make a few briquettes, and I'm pleased. They are currently drying next to my wood burner, so i can't yet comment on their potential as fuel. A few plus points; (1) decent sized, solid, chunky briquettes from unremarkable amounts of paper - it's not like the paper disappears to nothing and you end up with a rubic's cube's-worth. A newspaper goes a long way! (2) soaking the paper doesn't have to be too arduous, paper was ready for squashing overnight with a bit of bleach to help it along.
On the other hand, if you don't have an industrial sized shredder, be prepared for the fact that ripping the paper up takes a while. I found that soaking the paper first, then ripping, then putting into a bucket with bleach was easier on my wrists. Of course, if you're buying this gadget you are probably braced for a bit of effort in your recycling. It's certainly more fun than filling the council's black bin.
Fantastic for recycling April 15, 2007
O. McCartan (UK)
168 out of 174 found this review helpful
I bought this item just over a month ago and it has been in use ever since!
The briquette maker is very sturdy and even though it has made over a hundred logs so far, it is good as new.
Its great for getting rid of old newspapers and junk mail. I just put it through the shredder, soak it, and make the logs.
Because its made of metal I thought I might take a bit longer to be delivered to me, but it arrived as promised within a few days.
All in all, I'd say this is a good investment and well worth the money.
Easy as one two three March 27, 2008
Agnes Nutter (Salem)
75 out of 78 found this review helpful
ONE :Just dip each sheet of newspaper in water for five seconds
TWO: Scrunch up the wet paper and press it in the Briquette Maker
THREE: After a few weeks drying the Briquette burns as good as wood in my log stove.
A brilliant product that is saving me money and helping the environment.
Great Value For Money! May 10, 2008
G. Powell (Channel islands)
28 out of 29 found this review helpful
1 year on and 800 bricks made - photos available on request
Our bricks are a composite of wood shavings and newspaper, well soaked and mashed before being pressed. This year we are using more newspaper and less shavings to make the pulp more compressible, and also these bricks seem to have a more dense and solid feel to them.
We have performed only two modifications to the brickmaker:
1) Adding padding to the handles to make the palm of the hands more comfortable during pressing.
2) The addition of a metal strap to the underneath of the brickmaker, attached using rivets (see photos). This was necessary because after about 750 bricks, the sides of the brickmaker tended to 'part' during pressing, and the 'u' shaped cradle would fall through the bottom by approximately 5mm. The strap now stops the sides from parting.
Quite a bit of corrosion has occured as you can see from the photos, but this has not been a problem, and we expect to be able to make many more bricks with the device this year. The corrosion may have been partly due to the fact that we originally added bleach to the pulp mix, however we realised after the first hundred or so bricks that this was no longer necessary.
All in all, a great product - easy to use although some experimentation is necessary to obtain the optimum preperation of the paper pulp and shavings mix. We now add dry newsapaper and shavings, layer upon layer until a plastic dustbin is filled. We then add water using a hosepipe, and let the mix settle for a few hours. Afterwards, we reduce the contents of the dustbin to a pulp using a hollow metal pole.
This seems to be the optimum process for us. Once again, well done for designing a super product, and I hope you find these photos and notes useful.
Great Product: the heart of a recycling industry November 27, 2009
Amadeus Shiftwood (Scotland)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've had one of these for five years now, and as long as you look after them, they're really great. Getting used to the handles can be a bit of a pain (I wear padded gloves), but at 2 hours work a week our household has managed to halve our (northern scottish) heating bills for the winter. The logs DO take a long time to dry out, so this is best done in the summer in preparation for the winter; using your winter central heating to dry them out is, after all, somewhat counter-productive. There are products that make dry bricks, and those are useful but lack the density and long burning qualities of the wet bricks that these things make. For those with some DIY skills, I found that jerry-rigging a solar-powered fan so that it blows air across the bricks (inside a ventilated plastic box) not only dries them out MUCH faster, but acts as a great (and very eco-friendly) air-conditioning system for those who (like us) have hot summers as well as cold winters. Double the bonus!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
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