Wood Burning Pellets

Wood pellets are the primary pellet fuel used in pellet stoves and boilers. Wood pellet fuel has many advantages over other forms of wood fuel, leading to its success as the fastest growing form of wood heating. So why is burning wood pellets so much more popular than simply burning logs for example.

One of the reasons, is with pellets you can be assured that you  are buying fuel and not water. This may seem like a strange comment to make, however it is true in many cases where wood logs and wood chips are sold for fuel. To be fuel wood logs and chips are dried naturally or seasoned down to around 30% moisture. Well, this is what should happen, however some log and chip suppliers sell fuel with a much higher moisture content. Therefore the consumer is actually paying by weight for water and not fuel. A high moisture content in fuel has many negative effectives in terms of a lower heat value, and more ash and creosote generated during combustion. Meaning as well as less heat the fuel also required more maintenance to clean  and maintain the stove.

Wood Pellet Heating and Wood Pellets

Wood pellets on the other hand have a moisture content on average around 5% up to 10%. This moisture level is much lower than even the seasoned dry wood logs or wood chips. Therefore pellets may always be more expensive by weight than logs or wood chips, however they are also always guaranteed to have a low moisture content, as it is simply not possible to form a pellet with a high moisture percentage. The uniform shape and size of the pellet means they are ideal for automated pellet heating.

Wood Pellets Cost and Wood Pellet Price

There are various different grades of pellet fuels. The most costly and pricey pellet fuel are premium wood pellets. Premium wood pellets are made from specially selected wood residues, mainly pine, spruce and oak. The residue is sourced from timber processing operations, however the wood used must not contain bark, as this will increase the ash content generated by the pellets. The ash produced from premium pellets is amazingly low at around 0.5%, no other wood fuel produces so little ash. However this ultra low maintenance fuel does come at a price. As the resources to produce premium wood pellets also relies on the waste from other industries the prices of premium wood pellets are the most unstable of the pellet fuels. There are cheaper wood pellets which produce slightly more ash and more stable prices.

Wood Pellets For Pellet Stoves

However it cannot be presumed that your pellet stove can burn any other standard of pellet other than premium pellet fuel. The reason for this is because most pellet stove manufactures design the stove to burn premium pellets, and only premium pellets as it is much cheaper to do so. This means however the owner is very limited in their choice of fuel, and tied in the price changes and high price of premium pellet fuels. It therefore makes sense to do your research and purchase the most fuel flexible pellet stoves and boilers you can afford to save on the cost of pellet fuel.

The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Wood Burning Pellets