Morden Manitoba has a place that collects kiln-dried oak offcuts from local cabinet shops, and flails then to bits. Then they run them thru an extrusion machine that compresses them into what they call fuel pucks. They come in either 2" or 3" diameter, your choice. The pucks run between 2 and 4 inches long.The smaller ones are slightly easier to transfer into my basement, but the larger ones I can scoop more product into a shovel.
Last year I burned 12,000 pounds in my basement hot-water boiler, which then gets distributed to radiators in the living areas. The bottom of my boiler, where the ash collects, is now full, and when I dig it out, it will not fill a 30gallon garbage can. It kept us roasty-toasty,last year, in a 1905 2000ftsq,wood siding house (gutted and insulated to R 19 walls), and also heated my approximately 400 sq.ft shop.
The pucks are sold by the ton, and come in bags of 950 to 1400 pounds. The cost with 13% tax added was $198 per ton last year, plus delivery . This year they upped the price to $452 all taxes in, plus delivery.. Guess what I told them; hyup no thanks, electricity is cheaper and I have no delivery costs, and even less ashes,lol.
That's too bad, it was a great product.
Sorry, my recently built small shop has a water heated floor. It's fabulous.The warm floor makes it possible to be able to work in there,down to about 55*F with just a light jacket on. After that my fingers get a lil fat. 60*F is better.
My neighbor added hot-water floor heat to his shop, by pouring a new floor over the old. He uses a small residential hot-water heater and a pump. The buy-in was a bit pricey tho.
