The wood pellet industry is exploding in North America and Europe, due to an increasing number of customers seeking a clean-burning and sustainable form of energy. Due to their density and quality, wood pellets can provide the cleanest burn with the lowest ash of all wood fuels. Cleverly designed pellet burners are available on both domestic and industrial levels. Having very low net carbon emissions makes them extremely eco-friendly and deserving of the title ‘super fire of the future’. With most wood pellet units controllable by remote, thermostat, and timers, this method of heating has found itself at the top of the list in terms of convenience and comfort.

How are wood pellets made?

Quite simply, wood pellets are made from either wood residue (meaning waste material), such as sawdust, shavings and offcuts, which are by-products of saw mills and other wood processing plants, or from virgin cut timber especially felled for wood pellet production All wood used for wood pellet production is untreated and sustainably grown, so the making of wood pellets is actually very eco-friendly. The material is dried under very high temperatures, and then compacted in a pelletizer, in a process that utilises the naturally occurring organic binders (known as ‘lignin’) in the wood, so no artificial additives are necessary.

The result is a uniform pellet, usually 6mm in diameter for residential burners. This standardised size makes the product easy to handle, easy to transport and easy to store.  It also means that the moisture content is a controlled amount - for pellets this is usually less than 8% for a premium product. As such, there is no guessing or measuring of moisture content with wood pellets (as there is with seasoned firewood, for example). Purchasers of approved wood pellets can relax knowing that each little pellet has an absolute minimal amount of water inside it, and produced to a very high standard. 

All of the above makes for a very compelling argument to use wood pellets. While the cost may at times be similar per weight to kiln dried wood, for example, you can rest assured that wood pellets in combination with an efficient burner have the highest calorific output of all woodfuels. And they can be conveniently delivered to your door in bagged form. The Luxury Wood Company stocks both KG (15kg bags) and Imperial Heat (10kg bags) brands which are both ENplus® approved standard and RHI compensation eligible.