Wood Pellet Insert and Wood Pellet Stove

There are various forms of wood pellet burning solutions including the wood pellet insert. The pellet insert refers to a fitted pellet stove into an existing fireplace. The look of a wood pellet inert is of a more integrated and purpose build solution instead of a pellet stove positioned somewhere in the room. Depending on the heat output of the wood pellet insert, it can either be used to generate enough heat for the living room where it is located or to heat several rooms, or even the whole property. Some wood pellet inserts come fitted with a back boiler to connect to an existing central heating system for better heat distribution.

The design, features and required maintenance are essentially the same as a pellet stove, in fact practically all wood pellet inserts are based around existing pellet stove models. The only main difference maybe the loading space of the pellet fuel hopper.

Wood Pellet Burning Stove and Pellets

The core features of a wood pellet stove or wood pellet insert are the hopper, auger feed system, burn pot and heat exchanger. The design of the these components is very important, much more important than many people realise. For example the design of the hopper and auger feed system its self can influence how well the pellet stove handles the fuel pellets without complications. For example, pellet length is not a universal standard in many cases, and pellet lengths do vary. The length of the pellet is set in the pellet mill by a knife, and these knives are set differently by many pellet stove manufacturers. The issues comes as the design of some pellet insert hoppers and augers are designed when only a pellet of a set length can flow through the hopper and up the auger feed chute. If a pellet is too long it can, and will frequently become blocked in the auger mechanism, in some cases even causing damage. The other issue with some hoper and auger designs is the inability to deal with pellet fines. Pellet fines is dust from the pellet production process, and although the pellets are screened before bagging and sale, there will always be a percentage of fines. Some hoppers also block with a build up of fines in the base of the hopper, and to clean the pellet stove or pellet insert hopper can required a lot of work.

Wood Pellet Fireplace and Fuel Pellets

One of the other key components of the wood pellet insert which effects combustion results and success is the design of the burn pot. Though the principle and key design criteria of the burn pot may appear simple, this is a misconception. The burn pot must be able to burn the pellets efficiently, with a god air flow and also remove ash. Now to designing a burn pot to burn a low ash fuel is very simple, however many biomass fuel pellets have a higher ash content and many designs of pellet insert burn pot are not sufficient. Manufactures design the simplest burn pot as most consumers currently only wish to burn premium pellets and demand no more. However these basic design of burn pots remove consumer choice on pellet fuel, and remove the ability to possibly use locally produced fuel pellets from other forms of biomass pellet fuel. More flexible designs of burn pot are well known, have cost more to manufacturer, so are deliberately looked over by wood pellet insert designers and manufactures.

PelHeat Wood Pellet Production Guide

At PelHeat we have many years of experience in pellet production, and we provide a pellet production consultation service. The PelHeat guide download will show you how to make wood and other fuel pellets.

The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Wood Pellet Insert