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The Great Debate - Hardwood vs. Softwood Pellets
\What really makes a good wood pellet? We get it all the time at PelletSales.com, and I'm sure you do in your hearth shops as well. The answer, of cours, is that it depends.
The debate starts here: typically, hardwood logs are preferred for wood stoves and fireplaves becuase they are more dense, contain less moisture and burn longer. Softwood, on the other hand, burns hotter from the get-go, but burns up more quickly. That all changes when you turn those different types of wood into wood pellets. In fact, the BTUs per pound are very similar across many different species of wood - roughly 8,000 BTU per pound at six percent moisture.
So what does that mean to you customers? Pellets are made from dried sawdust or wood chips. They're dried to a specific moisture level, compressed to a specific density regardless of what type of species the wood is. What really matters is the fuel quality - largely, the type and amount of ash that is in the pellet - because that's going to affect burn and maintenance for each individual pellet stove. Wood pellets are based into different classifications based on their ash content - with premium grade containing less that one percent ash, for example.
So when considering all of the different variables that comprise an excellent wood pellet, the type of wood it comes from shouldn't be the deciding factor! The good news is that many pellet mills send their product to independent labs for testing, and the results are often available for review. We also post the data for the products we sell at PelletSales.com on our own website.
Moreover, the Pellet Fuels Institute is working withy the wood pellet mills and testing labs in it's Standards and Quality Assurance Quality Control Program to help bring the consistency to the fuel industry, according to the group's website.
It's important to keep in mind that wood pellets come from different manufacturers, different regions and different types of wood, so they can appear very different. If your customers are armed with a bit of knowledge about how pellets are made, and what makes a good pellet in the first places, you'll have happier, warmer clients!
Jennifer Nickulas
PelletSales.com
www.pelletsales.com
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