Wood and coal, yes…

But in putting a new shower in I find myself with lots of combustibles 😈

Cardboard, paper, polyethylene, polystyrene, plastic…

I’d imagine the first two could be OK (subject to some caution re chimney fires), but the others quite harmful regarding noxious smoke. Is anyone aware of any rules & regs on what can be used as a “multi”-fuel?

“Multi” means coal vs wood as they require different airflow – wood burns better if it’s on a bed of ash with airflow from the top, whereas coal bursn better if the ash is allowed to fall away into the ashpan and provide airflow from below

Cardboard burns very quickly and leaves a LOT of ash, I wouldn’t count on it as a regular source of burnable material, and there’s no way on earth I’d be putting plastics into my burner.

Use a garden burning bin kind of thing instead

I wouldn’t burn anything other than wood / coal on a regular basis…

Multi usually means smokeless rather than house coal – house coal burns with a very long flame which can damage the stove (according to the instructions with mine anyhow!!)

Never burn plastic, it’s terrible for the environment. Same for painted or treated wood.

Never burn plastic

+1

Cardboard and paper can be recycled

Besides the environmental effect plastic can stick and melt to awkward places ruining parts of your stove if it doesn’t burn up completely. Also, bigger lumps will burn way too hot, as I discovered when I accidentally chucked in what I thought was a lump of wood but actually turned out to be plastic.

The effect was reminiscent of Back to the Future III when they throw those fuel bales into the steam trains furnace – I could barely stand in the same room as the stove. I was convinced it was going to crack, or take off.

Never burn plastic, it’s terrible for the environment.

I once complained about all the packaging in a cell site in Ghana, from the installation of new BTSes. So, they sent out some guys to clean the place. All they did was pile all the plastic / polystyrene up on the ground outside, douse it in petrol and set fire to it. Standard way of dealing with rubbish in Africa, dump it or burn it, or both….

My wife has a habit of using wood burner as a waste disposal limit, especially envelopes where they have clear plastic window, she didn’t believe that it was bad until we had to clean it out and try and get rid of the plastic build up.

So I made a post about a multi fuel stove the other day, put it this way, if it’s not metal it goes on the fire here. We have no kitchen bin except for the dog…..