Homeowners burn pellets in attractive freestanding pellet stoves or pellet fireplace inserts (installed into an existing masonry-built wood-burning fireplace). Pellets are held in a fuel hopper attached to the stove or insert, and are moved to the combustion chamber in small groups by a feeding device. Pellet stoves and fireplace inserts have extremely low particulate emissions due to their high burn efficiency and the density of the fuel. In fact, they burn so clean that the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) doesn’t need to test them for particulate emissions. Another benefit – there is no chimney creosote and they leave behind very little ash for the homeowner to clean up. Pellet stoves and inserts require electricity to operate and many have battery backup systems for power outages.

According to the Pellet Fuels Institute, approximately 1,000,000 homes in the U.S. are heating with pellets. In addition to gaining benefits of lower heating bills, they are also supporting jobs. Pellet manufacturing directly employs more than 2,300 people in the U.S. and supports thousands of industry-related jobs in fields such as transportation and logging.