Wood Fuel Deliveries

bioHOT use only birch wood from sustainable forests because it burns bright with a good flame and doesn’t spark or spit.

It is cut and split to even sizes, with loose bark and small pieces removed, and because it is all the same species we know that the moisture will be pretty constant when we kiln dry it. All of our logs contain less than twenty percent moisture.

We weigh our handy sized nets while packing to ensure each net has more than 15 Kg, as close as possible the same contents and we pack them rather than “loose fill”. As a further test, samples are regularly taken and tested in a water bath to ensure a minimum solid mass volume of 27 litres.

Then we can be sure that a 40 net pallet we stack them on the pallet we can be very confident that it will be 1.6 cubic metres of tightly packed dry logs and over 600 kilogrammes in weight.

At bioHOT we give you AT LEAST 1.6 cubic metres of STACKED wood with a GUARANTEED heating value of MORE THAN 3500 kilowatt hours –can your supplier give you guarantees like  this?

Wood is good for burning – it’s carbon neutral and keeps you warm without harming the climate but you should be able to know just what you are buying. Whether you buy a “load” or a “ton bag” the problem is the same – it’s a vague description without any hint of the heating value you are buying.

Big bags, large bags, giant bags – they are all descriptions of ton bags but they may hold different volumes – who knows? 

A cubic metre loose filled bag is equal to .6 of a cubic metre of stacked wood.

A bag of 90cm cube is only .73 cubic metres so an apparently small difference in bag size can make a big difference in the delivered  volume. In this case, it is equal to only .44 of a cubic metre stacked.

Full loads, large loads, heaped loads – they all depend on the size of the vehicle. Whatever they are, they are dumped in your drive for you to move and will not look nearly as big when you have stacked them neatly. Think crisps and Pringles! 1 cubic metre “loose filled” is officially recognised to be about .6 of a cubic metre stacked.

And there’s more – if it’s described as “seasoned” just how seasoned is it? Most modern stove manufacturers specify 20% moisture for efficient burning but Scottish “green” wood is closer to 60%. Careful seasoning can bring this close to 30% after about two years .

When buying fuel from a local wood cutter, you should think of buying and storing 6 months to 1 year ahead to ensure your wood is ready for burning so you need to consider extra storage space to allow for full seasoning.