Heating Oil Crisis
16th March 2026
A lot of the customers walking though our doors just now are experiencing a heating oil crisis in their homes.
The price of heating oil has more than doubled in many areas, with some oil suppliers unable to give customers any information on delivery times. With the weather still cold, this is causing many people to turn to their stoves as their main source of heating. We’re all waiting for government regulation but while we wait, we still have to heat our homes.
Wood fuel is an excellent way of supplementing the heating in your home, and both traditional logs and briquettes will make a huge difference to heat levels. While every stove burns differently, we find that most of our customers get the best value from using briquettes in their stoves.
Maximise your Burn Time
Traditional logs are a great way to heat your home but many people find they burn very quickly. To put out lots of heat, logs need to be dry (under 20% moisture content) but because damp logs burn for longer, people sometimes mistakenly think they’re better value. You’re paying to burn water out of a damp log before any real heat will be put out. Dry logs do burn fast though, because they have quite a low density. This is where briquettes have an advantage and could help you through this difficult spell.
Briquettes are essentially very dry, very dense logs. The dryness gives fast heat output, while the density gives long burn times. You get fast heat, over a long period of time.
We have two best-selling briquettes at opposite ends of the price scale that are great options; UK Hardwood and Beech Nestro.
Our cheapest briquette is UK Hardwood briquettes. They cost just 38p/kg (delivered anywhere in mainland UK) and they give lots of fast heat because they’re very dry. They have a small diameter and fairly low compression, which makes them easy to light, but it also means that they burn quite fast in comparison with something like Beech Nestro. They are en excellent choice is price is your primary concern; you will get an easy-to-use, hot briquette; just remember it won’t last as long as something more expensive.
Beech Nestro are a more expensive briquettes, selling at 56p/kg delivered. They are big briquettes, incredibly dense and very dry. Their size and density means they burn for a long time, while producing consistent, high heat. Most people just use half a briquette at a time, which gives plenty of heat and is the equivalent of about 2-3 traditional kiln dried logs. Beech are our top-selling briquette for a really good reason; they are the best. You’ll get lots of heat over a long period of time.
| Product | UK Hardwood | Beech Nestro |
| Size | Dimension: 300mm x 72mm | Dimension: 295mm x 95mm |
| Weight per briquette or log | 1.25kg | 2.5kg |
| Made from | Pure hardwood sawdust from a mix of species | Pure hardwood Beech flour |
| Compression | 1,000kg/m3 | 1,200kg/m3 |
| Energy output per briquette (kWh/kg) | 4.8 | 5 |
| Average burn time per briquette/log* | 30 minutes – 1 hour | 1 – 3 hours |
| Price per full pallet delivered (960kg) | £368 (38p/kg) | £541 (56p/kg) |
| Price per 10kg pack in our Dumfries shop (non-members) | £4.00 (40p/kg) | £5.54 (55p/kg) |
| Price per 10kg pack in our Dumfries shop (members) | £3.50 (35p/kg) | £5.04 (50p/kg) |
*Burn time will vary. It depends on whether the briquette is burnt whole or broken up; the size of the stove; the efficiency of the stove; air flow settings; weather conditions etc. These timings are a guide to what we experience using the fuels ourselves on 5kw stoves. You should always get a longer burn time out of briquettes than traditional logs.
We know that eventually rising transport and production costs will start to increase wood fuel prices, so now is the time to buy.
