Manure brickettes/poo bricks - Photo story!

Only just seen this thread (from the muck heap one) - Sheer brilliance. Have sent link to OH as a hint for when we win the lottery and get a farm as there will be lots of pony poop then :D Dad has a biomass boiler system and is currently working his way through his wood, but that will only be finite. There is a paddock out the back of his that always has a good supply of raw material and since the boiler takes up 1/2 the double garage, can't see why he couldn't take up the other half with poo bricks!

Would buying your dad a poo brick maker for his 60th be the same as buying a partner an iron or household item? :D
 
I have just found this thread and shown it my my husband. We are now going to order the brick maker.

When we moved in we inherited 17yrs worth of muck heap and all our heating and hotwater is from a wood burning stove so this should work really well.

I'm looking forward to getting started :o
 
You need to be several weeks ahead of yourself to get them dry enough, and remember they make a lot of ash. You'll be making now for next winter, but good luck with it, seems a shame for such a useful resource to go to waste.
 
I've got a brick maker, not as heavy duty as yours though, it has handles on the top you fold over, but I save time and just stand on it in wellies and my weight clamps it down (fat git!).
I use old newspapers destined for the recycling bin, the bricks burn between 1 hour 20 mins and 2 hours, if it's got glossy magazines in it it lasts longer.
No smoke, no smell and very little ash.
 
My dad made me a poo block maker last year (as a result of this thread), it uses an old piece of large bore metal pipe as the receptacle so I get baked bean can shaped bricks. The only downside is finding the time to make them, I can't persuade OH to get stuck in, he likes to keep his distance from horse poop!
 
Garnet said:
My sister and I gave our Dad one of the heavy duty manure brick makers for Christmas 2012. Dad has been as happy as a pig in manure ever since, perfecting his poo brick making technique! Here is the photographic story so far . . .
Firstly, the evidence of his industry around 300 poo bricks, drying happily on purpose-built shelving, four shelves deep, with five or six bricks per shelf, resting on two lengths of bamboo cane. Initially Mum lost all the bamboo canes from her vegetable patch, but the brick-making industry quickly outgrew that supply, so Dad has been keeping a local garden centre in business supplying canes!
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Next equipment and modifications. Dad has replaced the original lever handle with a longer one to reduce the amount of effort required to squeeze the bricks. In the photo, he is holding up the original handle supplied, to show the length of the modified handle. Note the concrete mixer a brick-making industry requires industrial quantities of poo mixture! Mums pony is bedded on Megasorb and rubber matting, so there is not much fibre in the manure, and the bricks were too crumbly when made of this alone. Dad has therefore experimented with additives, starting with shredded paper, but discarded that idea as too labour intensive after he had shredded most of the contents of his study and my sisters office! His current preferred additive is woodshavings, so he bought one bale of the largest flake shavings available, which is used a double handful at a time in the concrete mixer, and he is part-way through the first bale.
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Brick handling technique. Dads production line has evolved into a slick procedure, with tools adapted to improve brick handling, reduce dropped bricks, and reduce general cursings and swearings to save the neighbours blushes!
Dad has created a carrying board for wet bricks, with grooves to stop the bamboo canes from rolling off. This enables him easily to transfer wet bricks in batches of five on their bamboo canes onto the drying racks, with no breakages simples!
Uniform for brick manufacture includes full overalls, wellingtons, heavy duty rubber gloves and waterproof gaiters worn on the arms to avoid soggy-sleeve incidents.
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Dad is now burning the first batches of bricks he made and is pleased with the results. There is no smell verified by Mum! Transporting the bricks into the house has been the latest process to benefit from Dads ingenuity. He has purchased a couple of brick carriers from a builders merchant ta-dah!
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Dad places a row of poo bricks on top of the wood and the effect he has observed is that the wood seems to burn hotter with the bricks, which has been handy in this cold weather!
Overall Dad is tickled pink with his new toy, and at the age of 73, has been pottering about outside in the garage, tool shed and woodshed for the last three months, gainfully employed in both mind and body, finding out that there is fuel for free in that muck heap!

Hopefully this will inspire others to great industry too - if you have any questions, I will relay them to Dad!
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For some reason I can’t see the photos.
So glad my OH isn’t on Hho. He loves trying new burning ideas,and would be all over this, the last being tightly packed wheat grains ?‍♀️
Wheat stinks and gets really black and sooty, it also appears all over the floor, sofa, dog beds..... and doesn’t hoover well. A fail
 
I’ve only just found this fabulous post! The eBay link is now no longer available (appreciate I am late to the party!) does anyone have a current ‘supplier’ for a briquette making machine - really want to have a go! Also I can’t see pics either ?? Thanks
 
Brilliant.
I used to make them and they burnt well, then I read that the sulphur released when they are burnt is corrosive to metal stoves and liners. I don’t know if this is correct but it put me off.
 
Just come across this fab post, definitely appropriate with the energy prices at the moment..?
Has anyone continued to have success with burning poo- briquettes over the winter?

I was thinking of giving this a go with the warm dry spell we're having - seems like it would be good drying weather..?
 
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