Last fall I posted a couple videos about firewood – how to select woods and best ways to stack and dry for winter use. I receive frequent messages about woods and it remains one of my favorite ways to supplement heat at my house. Recently, I came across something called Eco Blocks at Tractor Supply. It is sold at other hardware stores as well. Essentially, Eco Blocks are a gigantic wood pellet. It is brick sized compressed hardwood without any chemicals, glues or other substances. I still enjoy the snap and crackle of real logs but these bricks are an added source of heat that doesn’t build any creosote in the chimney and burns twice as hot as regular wood and leaves fewer ashes behind.
They are shrink-wrapped in plastic. They stack easily and when they are brought in, they are easy to handle with no spiders, no rot and no mess. It doesn’t replace the exercise you get from cutting, splitting and stacking firewood or the odor from certain woods. But, I it is a nice additional way to burn wood during the cold months. If you happen to see eco bricks at a store, you might purchase a couple packages and see how you like them. Unlike decorative logs, you need to get a fire started (kindling) and then they burn twice as hot as most woods and last a long time.
If you have experience with them, let me know what you think.
Peter Geiger is the Editor of the Farmers' Almanac. 
If you notice a hole in the upper left-hand corner of your Farmers' Almanac, don't return it to the store! That hole isn't a defect; it's a part of history. Starting with the first edition of the Farmers' Almanac in 1818, readers used to nail holes into the corners to hang it up in their homes, barns, and outhouses (to provide both reading material and toilet paper). In 1910, the Almanac's publishers began pre-drilling holes in the corners to make it even easier for readers to keep all of that invaluable information (and paper) handy.
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