Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32 in Home Improvement
• Colour: Green
• Brand: eko-mania
• Model: E-M1001
• Released on: 2009-10-27
• Dimensions: 4.72" h x 6.30" w x 11.81" l, 6.61 pounds

Features

• Sturdy all metal construction
• Free heat from old newspapers
• New Improved Sieve Design for years of reliable service
• Easy and safe to use - just soak the paper, place into the mould and squeeze
• Logs will burn as well as wood for up to an hour at a controlled rate in a fire grate or woodburning stove

Manufacturer's Description
The average household throws out over 500kg of paper and cardboard each year. The eko-mania heavy duty log maker, with a new improved design for years of reliable service, enables you to recycle your waste paper into fuel, saving you money on your heating bills whilst conserving forests and reducing landfill. When paper is compressed into briquettes it can efficiently burn for hours just as good as store bought briquettes or wood logs.

Box Contains

Customer Reviews

Clever piece of kit proving very useful and economic
Our Briquette Maker has been in use for about six months now and is standing up to daily wear-and-tear very well. We are building up a huge stack of 'logs' which have cost us virtually NOTHING, which is great news considering how much all fuels now cost.
The Briquette Maker is extremely simple to use and produces neat oblong 'logs' which burn well once they have fully dried out. We use it to get rid of all our junk mail, newspapers, magazines, paperwork, envelopes and so on.
Normally we soak the rubbish for 24hrs; we don't use bleach (cos we're trying to be properly eco!) but leave the bucket in a warm place. Newspaper and white paper goes mushy very fast; glossy magazine paper and brochures take much longer to break down and benefit from 'dobbing' with a big stick. The best logs have a decent proportion of newspaper or similar in them because the more glossy stuff goes in, the harder it is to get them to burn.
We've left our logs for three months in a greenhouse to dry thoroughly: you also need to make sure that in wet weather they don't absorb moisture from the atmosphere!
Another tip: if your material is full of staples (like magazines often are) or plastic windows or glue/gum, then it's best to leave these bits out before you soak the paper. Any woodburner won't like getting lots of metal/plastic fed to it, so we try to weed them out as we go.
It make take a few attempts to get the hang of the maker, so don't be afraid to get a bit mucky (or buy thick rubber gloves), and learn how to use your feet to keep the frame steady as you extract each log!

This is a fab piece of kit; proving to be robust and it's going to save us a fortune in wood and heatlogs this winter.
8/10

Solid and suprisingly effective
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.

Consigned to tne next village jumble sale
I gave this product a lot of time and effort. I would sit down to rip and tear the paper into small pieces refusing to buy an industrial rather than domestic shredder as suggested by wife as then there would be no savings.
It was quite therapeutic and enjoyable stirring the mixture of water and paper in a large dustbin on a daily basis.
However the whole activity is a summertime activity due to amount of water that spills and oozes as the mix is moved from the bin to the maker, which needs to be on a stable support, and the water is compressed out as the log is made. I used to get quite wet doing this part - hence the need for a warm sunny day. Strong gardening gloves are needed to deal with the discomfort of the thin handles used by the log maker - especially as I pressed down hard to get really compact logs.
The 'logs' do take time to dry ( another reason why this is a seasonal activity)
With delight on sunny and breezy days, I would take my pile of 40 test logs to dry - and even though it was a typical rotten summer, they dried to perfection. I had even made different thicknesses of bricks but they all dried well.
The logs failed miserably when it came to them being used and tested by my wife in our open fireplace in the lounge. There was little heat and 'far too much ash'
I should stress that wife is very green and a keen recycler - so she took the remaining 36 logs (we had used 4 different sized logs in the trials) to the local recycling centre.
The product gets two stars for the idea, and some nice days out in the sun. Perhaps my recycled log maker will find a good home where the people find the concept and the effort all worthwhile