I have been offered a load of plywood and MDF to burn on my log-burner, but was a bit concerned.

Not sure if MDF burns and if it does is it toxic. A quick search of the inter-webby thing tells me that MDF is compressed wood dust along with some resins and that it does burn (apparently quite well). DEFRA seem to put no restrictions on burning it in a normal wood burner, and most people who say no just seem not to actually know why they say no.

Is there anyone on here who actually does know what the ins and out are?

MDF Contains formaldehyde, which is bad, no idea how much it gives off when burned though. I’ve burned a small amount in a wood burner and it goes up very well but not sure I’d put more in.

I never burn MDF in there’s too much rubbish in it to clog up your flue.

the fumes that are given off when burning Laminates burn exceedingly well and will elevate the stove temperature to potentially damaging levels if you burn alot of it.

Do you have a stove thermometer on your flue – its quite interesting what your stove gets up to through its different cycles.

Since i got an ecofan ive paid a bit more attention to flue gas temperature ecofans are quite sensitive to this and can be damaged easily by overfiring.

Plenty workshops that use MDF burn the remnants to heat them but no idea about special measures to be taken in a domestic woodburner. I’ve got plenty of scrap MDF I could burn but elect not to simply because my stove is pretty small and it is relatively low density and fast burning with lots of ash making it a pain in the arse.

Ply ripped into thin sticks makes great kindling.

p.s. mdf has a bad rep because the old stuff (a chocolate brown colour) had a high level of formaldehyde. Much lower now. MDF dust is a carcinogen but then again most fine dust is with dust from hard woods some of the worst and suposedly a lot worse than that from MDF.

Thanks folks

If its raw you’ll be OK, laminated – especially PVC foils then don’t.

http://www.mdfrecovery.co.uk is the way forward

We put some on the log burner once.
It smouldered until it got hot enough to hit the flash point, when it virtually exploded. Went up with a real pop.
Won’t be burning any more!

Don’t do it, if nothing else it makes your room stink (and it’s glue and other nasties you’ll be breathing in)