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The common interpretation of a wood stove, is a log stove. Incineration logs as a source of heat in a living room or open plan living space has been done for hundreds even thousands of years. Yet, for many years the humble log stove has been seen more as a different heat source for one room or even a style alternative, rather than a complete solution to residence heating. There are several reasons for this, firstly a log stove is a lot of work for people by a busy modern behavior. The stove will also not generate a lot of useable heat, it may create the living room very warm, but the rest of the property will not benefit from the heat. A modern wood stove which can meet the users demands must generate more useable heat plus at the same time be low maintenance. Yet wood logs are the predominant interpretation of biomass, there are many other forms of biomass which can also be used as biomass energy. Biomass simply refers to any form of organic matter which can be used as a energy source. This includes wood logs, but also biomass chips along with sawdust from biomass processing operations. There are other sources of biomass such as agricultural waste such as grass and other waste from food production. This biomass supply is particularly under utilized and has very little value. Most biomass resources on the other hand cannot be used as fuel in their raw form. Proficient combustion is down to fuel density in addition to energy moisture content. To process wood into the most proficient form of solid energy, the most practical process is to upgrade the biomass into pellets. Pellets have a much higher density, as well as also have a low moisture content, producing more temperature.

The properties of pellets mean they flow well owing to feed hoppers as well as can light quite easily in addition to quickly. This technique that pellets can easily be used in automatic in addition to sophisticated heating systems. Biomass burners therefore can be controlled via a thermostat the same as any other oil or gas heating system. When the thermostat demands more temperature the auger system on the biomass stove will feed more pellets into the fire. If the fire is not lit, then a hot rod igniter will start the fire by means of a higher fan speed. Once the fire is lit the fan speed will lower to achieve the correct combustion heat to maximise temperature generated while keeping energy consumption to a minimum. It is these features which makes wood pellet stoves more of a realistic full heating solution.

The wood stove can be used to provide heat for a single room, or with a boiler can be used to feed into your existing central heating system. The amount of maintenance required for the pellet stove will depend the features included and the size of the energy hopper. Generally the size of pellet fuel hopper on the wood stove will hold enough energy for at least a day, which is already much greater than a log stove, which will call for energy loading quite a few times a day. Yet some biomass pellet stoves can have energy hopper extensions so the stove can run for a week or even more than a few weeks without the need to refuel. To minimise energy loading, it is potential to link a biomass stove by an large external fuel hopper which will feed the smaller hopper on the stove. The large external hopper can hold up to year worth of energy, plus be loaded by a pellet energy tanker which blows in pellets.