What Makes A Quality Wood Boiler and The Advantages Of Pellet Fuel

So, obviously burning wood is nothing new. We have been using wood to heat our homes for thousands of years. Even wood boilers connected up to a central heating system is nothing really new, however many of the old wood boilers are not very efficient. Most of the heat generated from burning logs in the older wood boilers simply goes up the stack, without any real heat benefit. Also, most people now have changed over to oil or gas as their complete heating solution. Many of the reasons are gas and oil have been relatively cheap, but also because using logs to heat your home can take quite a lot of work. However, things are changing, oil and gas is becoming more expensive year on year, and wood boilers are becoming more efficient, however logs still take a lot of work!

What Makes A Quality Wood Boiler and The Advantages Of Pellet Fuel

Today, there are much more advanced wood boilers, which can burn logs much more efficiently. The technology that these boilers use is know as gasification. Instead of burning the logs directly in a single stage burn. Gasification works on a two stage combustion process. First the wood goes through a low temperature combustion process, in this process a gas is produced known as syngas or simply as wood gas. This gas is then burnt in the second stage combustion process. Not only does gasification technology burn the wood much more efficiently generating more heat, it also reduces the amount of smoke generated and particulate emissions. Firstly reducing smoke is important as it is better for the environment and people health. However what it also means is that you can use these wood boilers in built up residential areas safely.

Quality Wood Boilers

Quality Pellet Stoves

What Makes A Quality Wood Boiler and The Advantages Of Pellet Fuel

However, even with gasification technology, the problem still remains with the fuel most people use, low quality fuel wood. Now, when I say low quality, what I'm mainly referring to is the moisture content of the wood used. Virgin timber has a moisture content of around 60%, however for combustion to work efficiently you really want a fuel to be below 20%, and ideally below 10%. Even if you seasoned the wood for over 2 years, you would be lucky to be below 20%, but still no where near 10%. However, a lot of consumers get sold wood that has a moisture content around 30%, therefore they get low heat and problems with creosote build up in the stack. The advantages of wood pellets or any other biomass fuel pellets for that matter are their moisture content will always be below 15% and mostly its between 5-10%, ideal for good clean combustion.

The Pellet Stove and Boiler Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Quality Wood Boiler