Pellet Stoves Pros and Cons and Pellet Fuel Efficiency and Flexibility

Pellet stoves within recent years have seen a significant increase in popularity. The recent spike in fossil fuel prices such as oil and gas prices, was a key driver in the growing market share in pellet fuel heating solutions. However, many people are still not aware of pellet stoves, their advantages or why they are so superior to using logs stoves for example. We will discuss a few of the advantages to pellet stoves on this page, however there are many more.

Stable Wood Pellet Fuel Prices and Renewable Energy Sources

One of the key advantages and pros of pellet stoves is that pellet fuel has a much more stable price history and future. As wood and biomass in general is a renewable resource, the supply of biomass is within our control. Fossil fuels for example are a limited resource, and controlled by a few large corporations.

Wood Pellet Fuel Density Advantages in Combustion and Transport

One of the key pros for pellet fuel is the much greater density compared to the raw material. Increased density has two main advantages. The first relates to energy density, 1 kg of pellets can easily run a small pellet stove for an hour, which in a log stove would take up several kilograms of logs. One of the reasons is a log still contains quite a high proportion of water. Even a dry log still contains around 35% moisture, which reduces combustion efficiency, reduces the heated generated and increased smoke, ash and particulate emissions. Pellets on the other hand contain around 8% moisture, which produces a much cleaner burn with a much greater heat recovery efficiency.

How Are Wood and Biomass Pellets Produced and the Equipment Used

Due the rapid increase in the market share of pellet stoves, obviously more pellet have to be made to meet the demand. Please visit the guide below.

Best Pellet Stove

Breckwell Pellet Stove

Wood Pellet Stove Cons Due to Poor Component Designs / Features

Pellet stoves have many pros in terms of highly automated combustion and low maintenance, however the con that many pellet stoves have is a limited fuel flexibility. The design of core components in the stove are the limiting features which reduce fuel flexibility. For example the design of the burn pot can have serious limitation on the ash percentage the stove can deal with. Unfortunately the most common design of burn pot cannot remove a sufficient amount of ash generated by high ash fuels to work effectively and also efficiently. Other components such as the auger feed system also play a crucial role in the burn.

Pellet Stoves and Their Pros and Cons in the Wood Pellet Stove Guide

We specialise in pellet combustion and production solutions, and this includes researching the features and limitations of pellet stoves. We therefore used the information we gathered to develop this guide to help consumers purchase more fuel flexible pellet stoves. To download the guide please click below.

The Pellet Stove and Boiler Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Pellet Stoves Pros and Cons