Every family is facing the problem of home heating. With rising price of natural gas, fuel oil and electricity. More and more people show their interests in renewable firewood and wood pellets fuel resources. How do you know when to switch from one heating source to another? Here we give you some advice.
Wood pellets
Wood pellets is a by-product of the wood industry. It consists of wood shaving, sawdust, forestry residues or agro-waste. The raw materials need to be dried first and then crushed with wood hammer mill, compressed between the roller and die in the wood pellet mill under the condition of high temperature and high pressure to produce the compacted and uniform fuel pellets. After drying and high pressure, the combustion value of the materials is increased. The moisture content of wood pellets fluctuates from 5% to 10%.
Firewood
The firewood is branches or trunk being cut down from trees. It is a natural material with a large moisture content.The 
combustion value varies with the species of firewood as well as the moisture content. For every 1 percent increase in moisture content, there is about a 1 percent decrease in heating value.Wet firewood produces creosote when burning. So the moisture of the firewood should be 25% to create a good combustion value. The firewood on the market is however been dried and in a smaller size for burning.The firewood should be protected from rain and snow for storage.
Comparing of firewood and wood pellets
Comparing the same weight of firewood with wood pellets, the firewood has a larger volume than the wood pellets. Thus wood pellets are more convenient in transportation and storage than firewood.With the uniform size, there is no need of extra processing of the wood pellets. It will save more time and labor to use wood pellets.
A. Health concerns
Smoke from a wood fire often triggers good memories of sitting around a campfire or keeping warm near a fireplace on a cold winter day. However,wood smoke is not good for you to breathe.The gases and fine particles produced from the firewood may damage health of people’s eyes and the respiratory system, where they can cause burning eyes,a runny nose, and illnesses such as bronchitis.However modern wood pellet stoves produce much less smoke than either open fireplaces or wood stoves because of its good combustion performance.
B. Costs comparing
Wood pellets are usually sold in 40-pound bags. Prices are often expressed in dollars per ton (fifty 40-pound bags). Firewood may be cheaper than the equal amount of the wood pellets.For the same amount of heat release,however,there is no big difference between the cost of using wood pellets and the firewood.
We supply wood pellet machine and mobile wood pellet line for those who want to make their own wood pellets. If there is any questions in the processing of the wood pellets, feel free to contact us!
