While wood burners are not a modern invention, they are becoming increasingly popular again and can be found in many homes in the 21st century, either as a fireplace or a stove. Wood burners, just as the name implies, burns wood in order to generate heat, and the unit usually consists of just a combustion chamber and chimney.

If we travel back in time to when wood burning fires were at the centre of the home, with the whole family crowded around the stove to warm up and cook, you can imagine the smoke filling the room!

Shortly after, a stove/chamber was designed to hold the fire in the corner of the room, followed by the invention of the chimney, to vent the smoke out of the room.

Even today with modern upgrades, it has been recorded how bad a wood burner can be for the environment, with the emissions released from using them, especially if multiple houses are using them for hours on end to heat their homes or cook their food.

Incineration and cremation may sound similar to wood burning, as both include burning items in a combustion chamber at high temperatures, but that is where the similarity ends.

While incinerators and cremators may not be as old as wood burners, we still have many years of development that has led to the most environmentally sustainable technology designed, throughout the whole Addfield range.

Let’s take pet cremation for example. Pet cremation as a business has boomed immensely over the years with many industries diversifying their business to include pet and horse cremation services. Many businesses will install a pet cremator in residential areas or on their own land if available. When people hear the word ‘cremator’ they may be concerned about what the process is doing to the environment, especially if they live near where the cremator is installed. We are often approached by concerned residents, and we are able to put their minds at ease.

A typical wood burner is a fairly simple system. It consists of one chamber and a chimney with logs and other materials being thrown in and ignited at temperatures fluctuating from 360°C/680°F to a peak of around 600°C/1112°F. These temperatures are not hot enough to produce clean gases. The gases, smoke and odours produced during combustion are released directly into the atmosphere without any cleaning. This is why you will see smoke billowing from chimneys and smell the distinct odour that comes from it in some residential areas.

In comparison, all Addfield incinerators and cremators are purposely built to handle a whole range of waste types safely and environmentally friendly. The pet and agricultural range burn at temperatures as high as 800°C/1470°F in the primary chamber, some equipped with additional hot hearth technology, heating the chamber from above and below to ensure full cremation of the animal. Whilst our medical and more complex machines burn as high as 850°C/1562°F. These temperatures are high enough to release cleaner gases into the secondary chamber.

Not included on a wood burner, the secondary chamber acts as a filtration gas cleaning system, with temperatures reaching 980°C/1800°F for the pets and animal machines, 1100°C/2012°F on the medical side. A 2 second retention time in the secondary chamber is the time the flue gases take to travel through the secondary chamber to ensure complete cleaning.

The secondary chamber always reaches operational temperature before anything in the primary chamber starts to burn, so any gases released from the cremation or incineration are treated from the very start of the process. The machine will never start the burning process until it can safely clean the gases.

Where a wood burner is designed to released heat out of the chamber, it is quite the opposite for an Addfield machine. Each chamber is lined with an advanced brick refractory, our alumina infused fire brick holds and releases the heat back into the chamber, behind the brick we have two further layers made up of insulation brick and board, these layers block the heat from escaping meaning it can only go one way from the fire brick and that’s back into the chamber. This means no heat is lost from the chamber, completing the cremation using 40% less fuel and is significantly safer to operate compared to alternative solutions.

This technology is what makes Addfield machines smoke and odour free, the most you are likely to see coming out of the chimney is a faint heat shimmer, which is very miniscule compared to the amount of smoke from a wood burner.

Even with the latest regulations that came into effect in 2022, meaning that all wood burners had to meet certain environmental standards and guidelines, Addfield incinerators and cremators are proven significantly more environmentally friendly due to the added filtration of the secondary chamber and brick lined refractory.

Addfield has always prided itself on its accessibility and dedication so if you have any question on the real world impact of one of our machines in your neighbourhood, please feel free to reach out to us at sales@addfield.com

The first day focussed on the High Capacity and Waste to Energy approaches to sustainable waste incineration delivered by the team at Addfield Projects. The second day presented a number of exciting innovations coming to the world of pet cremation from AES that are launching this spring. Welcoming visitors from the 27th to 28th March the two days were an incredible success keeping both teams busy as visitors travelled internationally and nationally to see the future of waste management and cremation.

“This was a great opportunity for us to celebrate not only the opening of our new facility for Addfield Projects, that they only moved into a few months ago. This new site enables them to build these massive plants from start to finish all in one place which is a real boost to the business. It was also a great opportunity to invite and meet with so many new and expanding pet cremation businesses to show them the latest upgrades that we have been working on behind the scenes, and help them to choose the perfect cremator for their business needs. This was a really impressive turn out over both days and the two teams did a tremendous job putting the days together.” Derek Carr – Managing Director, Addfield.

Addfield has always prided itself on quality, continuously reinvesting to develop new and more sustainable approaches to thermal treatment that ultimately benefit the end user and the environment, no matter what industry they are in.

Having made incredible progress in the past decade, from a business and operational perspective achieving record growth in 2024 for both AES and Addfield Projects, it was agreed that there was no better time than the start of Spring to celebrate the future opportunities that lay ahead.

The feedback from the visitors reflected how seeing the facilities up close was incredibly useful when thinking of their own project.

Kicking off the first day, Addfield Projects exhibited a completed, high-capacity waste to energy facility ready to be tested before shipping to Guernsey to manage the islands general waste. Being able to take a tour around a completed facility is not an opportunity that comes up often and so attendees came from across the country from councils, consultants and private businesses. As large as it was the team are set to begin work on a machine two and a half times larger very soon. Visitors had the opportunity to speak with the many experts at Addfield Projects who will be designing and building their projects, and learned about previous installations that may be similar to their needs.

The second day, the team focussed on some of Addfield’s more compact solutions in comparison. Showcasing two new approaches to pet cremation. An industry achieving enormous growth in the past 5 years from private and individual businesses. Beginning with the newly redesigned PET200 one of the worlds most popular solutions for pet crematoriums displaying for the first time a number of updates to increase performance and operational comfort. Alongside that was the A50 IC 2 a four chambered pet cremator for the larger operator which in this instance was fitted for the first time with a number of additional options which can lead to an increase in throughput of more than 30% in operation. Attended by existing and start up customers some flying all the way from the Middle East for this opportunity to see what’s new.

This was a perfect way to welcome in Spring and the new financial year. The success of the events have reinforced the decision to continue to organise more in the future. It was great opportunity for the two companies to come together to share the celebration of the combined success over the years and commitment to providing the most robust, reliable and efficient incinerators and cremators. Dedicated to our customer values, the open days allowed Addfield to present several 1-2-1 sessions simultaneously ensuring every customer need and question was met – another reason why they say that Addfield is Simply Built Better.

Since 1982, Addfield has evolved hugely through dedication and teamwork, pushing itself to become global leaders in the sustainable waste management industry. The Addfield name can be found in more than 150 countries, showing the worldwide reach that the companies have reached.

For more information about Addfield Environmental Systems, visit www.addfield.com

To learn more about Addfield Projects, visit www.addfieldprojects.com