For most people when they start to purchase wood pellets for the first time for their pellet stove or boiler they will purchase them in 50lb or 15kg plastic bags. However, if your going to be using a significant volume of wood pellets every year purchasing in bulk will get you a much better deal. So with this post, I thought I would write about how to get set up to receive loose bulk wood pellet deliveries. Should You wish to build your own wood pellet silo as I did or purchase a pre-made wood pellet storage solution. Whichever option you choose you need to make sure you can properly protect those wood pellets from the elements or those pellets could be damaged.
Bulk Wood Pellets Delivery and Storage Advice
How to store wood pellets properly?
- As the wood pellets are easy to get damp and loose in wet environment, we’d better pack wood pellets in damp-proof bags. If the bags are not damp proof, you must store them in dry places.
- Keep the storage room dry (moisture content less than 10%) and ventilated. Put the wood pellets bags on panels or cardboards to prevent their direct contact with the ground.
- In high humidity area, you need to install ventilation and dehumidifying equipment in the storeroom.
- Wood pellets are easy to burn. Keep the wood pellets away from fire, like stoves. Check the potential safety hazard regularly. Prevent children playing with fire near the wood pellets.
- Don’t place wood pellets in the open air, or you need to move them to indoors in rainy days. Besides, the package bags may be damaged by weathering outdoors.
- If you have to place the wood pellets outdoors. You must place them in dry places and build a shed or shelter. Inspect the package bags and mend all cracks and holes. Cover the wood pellet bags with water-proof cloth, and fasten it securely.
The Benefits of Bulk Wood Pellets Deliveries
So the first benefit that most people are drawn to is the lower price per ton of bulk wood pellets. However, there are other benefits to bulk wood pellet deliveries.
Convenience
Moving from a gas or oil heating system to a wood pellet stove or boiler can be a shock to some people. Especially if they are told that every day they have to pick up one or more plastic bags of wood pellets and empty them into a hopper. Just a few decades ago this would not have seemed a strange concept, especially for those who used coal as their heating fuel. However, in the 21st century, there is a minimum level of convenience that most people expect.
With bulk wood pellet deliveries and suitable storage solutions, a wood pellet heating system can require no more effort than a gas/propane or oil heating system. If a large enough silo is installed a once a year annual bulk wood pellet delivery may be sufficient.
Reducing Plastic Waste
The average home will require 4-5 tons of wood pellets annually. Therefore as you can appreciate that’s a lot of plastic bags. Furthermore, when a wooden pallet arrives its also wrapped in a thick layer of plastic film to protect those bags from tears. If the bags get torn then moisture could make the wood pellets go bad.
With bulk wood pellet deliveries all of that plastic packaging is not required. I’ve sometimes heard of bulk wood pellet deliveries as being bagless deliveries. Plastic waste is a significant issue that needs to be addressed. Especially as in most cases, plastic bags such as these are not easily recycled. Its good to think that with bulk wood pellet deliveries you are not contributing to the plastic waste problem. Many people choose wood pellet heating as a more environmentally responsible heating solution compared to using fossil fuels. Therefore, choosing to go with bulk wood pellet deliveries is the ‘greenest’ way to accept wood pellet deliveries.
Reducing The Cost Per Ton of Wood Pellets
I’m not going state prices of bagged and bulk wood pellets as they would be pretty inaccurate even a few weeks after writing this post. What I’m going to emphasize is the cost relationship between the price of bagged wood pellets and bulk blown deliveries.
Typically with bulk deliveries, you are able to get a reduced price per ton compared to bagged wood pellets of between 25-50%. Now, the price you can get often depends on what size/volume of delivery you are willing to accept. For instance, there is usually (depending on the supplier) a drop in price over a certain number of tons. For instance, our last delivery of bulk wood pellets dropped by a further A$37 per ton as we were able to accept over 8 tonnes. Therefore this leads to an important point. To get the lowest price per ton for bulk wood pellets you really want to install the largest silo you reasonably can.