Are Wood Pellets The Fuel Of The Future?

By Christopher Scott

So what are wood pellets, well they obviously contain wood, but it can be practically any type of wood, it could be pine or spruce to be example, which is compressed to form a pellet. These pellets would be referred to as softwood fuel pellets.

To make wood pellets, sawdust is collected and then compressed into pellet form through the use of a pellet mill or pellet machine. Under immense heat and pressure the sawdust is essentially melted, as the natural lignin melts it is used as the glue to hold the pellet form.

So what type of sawdust can be use to make wood pellets. Well the choice is really up to you but what you should pay attention to is the fact that bark within the sawdust will increase the level of ash content the fuel pellets produce, and then the value of the wood pellets.

Once the type and grade of wood pellet fuel has been chosen, you must then decide how you will use these wood pellets to generate the heat you require. This firstly depends on the size of your heating requirements. For smaller spaces a wood pellet stove can be used.

If you have an existing central heating system, or under floor heating, a wood pellet boiler maybe more suitable for your requirements. A wood pellet boiler operates in the same way as a gas or oil boiler. However using wood pellets can save a lot of money each year.

So some people may ask, how much work is required to clean up after burning wood pellets. Well actually much less than you may think. As wood pellets burn much more efficiently than other solid fuels, they generate only a small percentage of ash, around 0.5% of ash. As the ash content is so low, it means the ash draw on the pellet stove or pellet boiler only has to be cleaned at most every few days, more than often once a week.

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