Pressure is the force that shapes U.S. Recycled Wood Products.

It makes the firm's wood bricks out of scrap lumber and sawdust, gathered from local furniture makers and millworks.

It also squeezes the firm's two owners, as they strive to establish their new renewable-fuel company in the midst of a pervasive recession.

"Long term, (the company's prospects) look very good. It's a matter of surviving the next six months and the economic turmoil," said president Ed Druffner.

Druffner and vice president Ed Zook have a five-employee business that leases a 23,000-square-foot industrial space on Concrete Avenue in Leola, near L&S Sweeteners.

The former Armstrong World Industries engineers started making their dense two-pound bricks — to burn in fireplaces, wood stoves and campfires instead of firewood — last September.

Of course, that was when the economy was beginning its nosedive.

Yet, despite the timing of their $1 million venture's launch, the entrepreneurs say the market has responded enthusiastically.

"We see the potential...," said Druffner. "It's a matter of getting from here to there. We have growth opportunities. We have suppliers and retailers calling us.

"Two more (woodworking) shops called in the past 24 hours, looking to supply us," he added.

Meanwhile, Druffner and Zook are making steep sacrifices to put cash into the business, such as refinancing their homes and going without salaries.

"Everything we have is going back into keeping the lights on," said Druffner, noting that he and his partner have "very understanding" and supportive wives.

Druffner, 32, of Downingtown, and Zook, 47, of Mountville, are confident their sacrifices will pay off, because they see a market ready to embrace a product such as theirs.

The Penn State graduates cite the consistently high quality of their compact wood bricks, which they say burn hotter, cleaner and longer than an equivalent amount of firewood.

"With our product, you know exactly what you're getting every single time. You're getting a dry two-pound brick in a convenient package," said Druffner.

In addition, the bug-free bricks are not affected by restrictions on transporting firewood enacted in some areas to stop the spread of insects such as emerald ash borers and Asian longhorned beetles, they said.

So vacationers can take U.S. Recycled Wood Products bricks to their campsites without running afoul of firewood quarantines, the partners explained.

Druffner and Zook have long been interested in using waste wood for fuel.

They met while employed by Armstrong, studying how to make sawdust from its hardwood flooring factories into pellets that could be sold as fuel.

When Armstrong shelved the project, Druffner and Zook decided to pursue it on their own. But rather than make pellets, they opted to make bricks, a process which requires less costly equipment.

For financing, the entrepreneurs got loans from Union National Community Bank and the state's Small Business First program, via the Economic Development Co.

U.S. Recycled Wood Products makes its bricks out of pure wood scraps and sawdust — no laminates or treated lumber — purchased from more than 35 woodshops, averting the shops' need to burn or landfill the waste wood.

Next, the wood is pulverized into pieces no bigger than grains of rice and compressed into bricks, with the wood's natural lignin serving as glue. No binder is added.

U.S. Recycled Wood Products, which can make 7,000 tons of bricks a year, sells the bricks at more than 25 retailers from Virginia to eastern Canada. These include county retailers Bombergers, Good's Store, Witmer's Mulch and Countryside Hearth.

The 16-brick packs (including four fire-starter squares), a size intended for campfire or chiminea use, typically cost $10 to $15 a pack.

A pallet of 50 20-brick packs, a quantity appropriate for home-heating use, typically costs $250 to $350, said Druffner.


Staff writer Tim Mekeel can be reached at tmekeel@LNPnews.com or 481-6030.