The Irish Press 17 November 1948
Lullymore Peat Briquettes
The cleanest fuel you can handle today are turf briquettes. A turf briquette is as neat and clean as a book, and as regular in shape and size. It is such a beautifully finished and polished job that if you didn’t know it was intended for fuel, you’d make a guess at its being a nice black shiny brick.
You could lay a load of it anywhere in your house and it wouldn’t leave a speck of dirt or dust, for turf mould never marks the spot as it did with the old soft turf.
Some women still think all turf is the same, and what many of them think it is not printable! That is because women find it hard to get the wet stuff out of their minds, the sodden messes they often had to put up with during the Emergency. That wet turf was the women’s heartscald, so it was.
A trial of the briquettes should go a long way towards wiping out the past. They are ideal for the new small house and bungalow of today, for flat and room dwellers, for anywhere that space is a consideration.
They’ll pack into a corner as neatly as books, or bricks, and they give off no dust or dirt. Because they are free of fibre, they leave very little ash and no clinkers, of course.
Due to their great density, peat briquettes last much longer in the fire than ordinary turf, and they give out an intense heat which, by the way is threequarters of the calorific value of coal.
Generally speaking, turf requires only about one-seventh of the amount of air needed for the burning of coal, so that when peat briquettes are used in coal-burning grates and ranges the draught should be reduced to a minimum.
In a coal-burning range, keep the dampers closed to prevent too rapid combustion.
In an open grate, keep a shovel of turf ashes at the back for the same reason.
So long as combustion is kept slow, the briquettes will generate an even, steady temperature without the frequent re-fuelling and constant attention that ordinary turf needs.
Peat briquettes are manufactured on Lullymore Bog from very fine peat mould or dust, which is stripped from the bog surface by specially designed machines.
The dust is milled into very small particles, which are semi-dried and built into large storage piles.
On reaching the factory, the semi-dried peat is again screened and broken up. The residue is then dried out in a special steam-heating process and sent to the press for briquetting. The moisture content of the finished product is exceedingly low.
From the middle of October the price of briquettes had been reduced to 65/- per ton at Lullymore Works, Co. Kildare, and can be bought from any fuel merchant at this price plus delivery charges.
They are selling in Dublin at prices ranging from 75/- per ton for lorry lots, to 90/- per ton for smaller quantities delivered in bags.
A simple calculation will show that they compare very favourably with coal at its current cost.
Turf is still our native fuel. Wet and dry, it got us over the emergency. Thousands of countrymen depend on it for employment. Burn turf and you’re helping to keep the money at home, where it’s needed. Remember this when your sitting round the fire.
Comments on this entry are closed.