Since we launched our Woodlets website in October 2016, we have regularly published our monthly laboratory reports, detailing the quality and performance of our wood pellets.
You may wonder why we have done this, we are not under any legal obligation to do so, it’s not an industry standard or even considered good practice to publish this data. We do it because we firmly believe that you (our customer) should know what quality of pellet you are purchasing in terms of calorific value (CV), ash and moisture content before you part with you hard earned money.
The quality indicators of calorific value, ash and moisture content will all influence how the pellets will perform in terms of heat production in your boiler and how often you will be emptying the ash draw.
The ENPLUS A1 standard sets minimum levels for these three quality indicators, for instance the calorific value, which is a measure of the amount of heat contained in a tonne of pellets, is required to be at least 4,600 Kilowatt Hours (KWh). Our laboratory reports show you that Woodlets consistently deliver 4,700-4,800 KWh/t.
The moisture content of wood pellets under the standard is a maximum of 10% and it is obvious that the drier the pellets are the more complete the burn. From our March laboratory reports you can see that Woodlets came in at 6.9%, well below the standard.
When it comes to ash content the ENPlus A1 sets a standard of <0.7% allowable ash per kg of pellets burnt. But what does this mean in practice? Typically a household will generate around 35Kg of ash per annum if you use pellets for heating and hot water and burn around 5 tonnes per year.
The size of the ash drawer of course varies between boiler models but typically they carry about 5Kg of ash, meaning that you’ll be emptying the ash about every 6-8 weeks, more often in the winter. Woodlets pellets have an average ash content of 0.2%, meaning with the same boiler you’ll only need empty the ash twice a year.
