Since 1st May 2021, the government has been phasing out the sale of wet wood and promoting Ready to Burn requirements. This legislation forms part of the UK commitment in the Clean Air Strategy to reduce emissions of damaging air pollutants by 2030. So what are the Woodfuel Ready to Burn requirements and what does it mean? The Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) appointed HETAS and Woodsure to run the Ready to Burn fuel certification scheme. The scheme makes it easy for people to find the cleanest fuels for burning at home. Using fuels that are certified and ..read more

Wood briquettes produce more heat than logs and burn for longer. With moisture levels of less than 10% it makes complete sense to use briquettes for wood burning stoves. They are good for your fireplace, your stove, your pocket – and the environment. And they burn hotter, cleaner, are cheaper to buy and are much easier to store and handle than logs. A wood briquette delivers around 50% more heat for each pound spent than logs. One briquette can last up to four hours, and big users will find they save around £150 a year compared to buying conventional logs. The burn time of a wood briquette dep ..read more

There is currently a great deal of publicity regarding wood burners and wood burning stoves which begs the question are wood burning stoves good or bad for the environment? A log burner is seen as a sustainable heating method – it uses renewable energy rather than fossil fuel. But there’s concern that they emit harmful particulates into the air. The truth is, it depends on what you put in them and how old your stove is. Wood is a renewable energy source, not a fossil fuel. Wood is plentiful and an excellent environmental choice, especially if it comes from sustainably resourced FSC® (Forestry ..read more

Eco-friendly wood fuel – Wood pellets and wood briquettes are the most eco-friendly wood fuel What’s the most sustainable fuel to use in your wood-burner this winter? What makes wood pellets and briquettes the most eco-friendly wood fuel? And as we are using more biomass boilers and wood-burning stoves than ever before, are they as eco-friendly as we think they are? Are wood burners eco-friendly? In the UK, domestic boilers and stoves are very popular and as the trend of wood-burning stoves as a luxurious addition to central heating grows, there is public concern about eco-friendly wood fuel s ..read more

Why is the UK wood pellet price rising? The wood pellet price per tonne in the UK has risen from around £300/t to over £400/t in just six months. One of the knock-on effects of the Ukraine crisis is that wood pellets are no longer imported from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. This has led to a shortfall, pushing up the wood pellet price in the UK. In 2021, 3.3 million tonnes of wood pellets were imported into the EU and UK from these countries, but in early 2022, Sustainability and Quality Certification (ENplus and FSC®) was removed from wood pellets from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine which meant t ..read more

78% of all UK C02 levels are to be reduced by 2035 – is this deliverable? It’s a great idea but where is the plan? And how will it affect our daily lives?  The detail policies have not yet been published, so we are waiting to find out the new heating and building strategy and how will we replace our gas boilers? Almost 90 per cent of homes in England currently use fossil fuels, predominantly for heating but also for cooking and hot water.  The vast majority of these homes, some 85 per cent, are connected to the gas grid. Public awareness is low about the connection between climate ch ..read more

If biomass has a ‘carbon debt’ that is measured between 1 – 50 years (depending upon whom you believe), then fossil fuels have a carbon debt of infinity years. Fossil fuel burning is a net permanent addition of carbon to the atmosphere (or the wider biosphere).  This is the baseline against which all sustainable energies need be measured.  In other words, nearly anything is better than fossil fuels. In the absence of carbon capture and storage (which will remain elusive) the CO2 from fossil fuels will never miraculously find its own way back underground. If there is a difference betw ..read more

Woodlets bagged wood pellets are made from sustainable virgin wood. We use original timber – either spruce or pine from Scottish forests. Our trees are all locally-sourced from sustainably managed forests, all within 60 miles of the Woodlets factory, and they are all accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council.  No waste or recycled wood is used in the manufacturing process of Woodlets. Woodlets provide an ideal solution for a smaller heating system and are ideal as an emergency back-up. Our bagged wood pellets are ENplus A1 standard accredited –  a ‘quality guarantee’ ensuring clea ..read more

Lots of you are asking why Woodlets price increases are so high. Our prices remained static for two years as manufacturing prices began to rise – but we held tight. Now, we are now no longer able to absorb increasing production costs.  In an already fragile market – after Brexit and Covid, we’ve now been hit by the Ukraine Crisis which is affecting fuel and energy costs globally and we can no longer sustain the hits. In short: Energy and power prices have increased four-fold – up 400% Packaging manufacturing has doubled – up 200% Haulage and fuel prices are being affected daily – up 40 ..read more

Wood pellet deliveries could be affected by the huge loss of lorry drivers throughout the UK. Industry chiefs have warned that the UK is facing an autumn of delivery delays because of a loss of up to 100,000 lorry drivers as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. This might threaten the lead times of your wood pellet deliveries. Truck driving in the UK has been dominated by eastern European drivers in recent years but many have returned home during the pandemic and found it difficult to return. The industry has also blamed changes to the tax treatment of drivers’ pay for damaging recrui ..read more