With the increase in energy prices, the price of pellets is also soaring.
Yves used to pay 200 euros for a ton of pellets, when the price reached 1000 euros this summer, the 41-year-old Alsatian said to himself that he had to find a solution.
"I looked on the Internet, and that's when I came across a Facebook group to produce its own pellets, I decided to get started!
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He then decided to invest 2,500 euros in a Chinese machine from a Belgian dealer.
After 2 months of testing, Yves now manages to produce 120 to 150 kg of pellets every day.
He fills his machine with sawdust and wood pellets come out on the sieve he built himself.
“It's a feeling of pride to have succeeded, that's for sure.
I'm also happy to be able to be independent, I no longer have to follow the price of pellets in stores.
For the sawdust he gets his supplies from various sawmills around his home, which provide it for free or for 30 to 40 euros per m³.
In total, a ton of pellets costs him approximately 80 euros of raw material.
But that's not counting the electricity and the time spent producing.
“Fortunately, we take advantage of the electricity produced by our solar panels,” underlines Yves.
But for the moment there is no question of buying industrial pellets again.
When he has a bit of free time, he answers questions from the 7,000 members present on the Facebook group “Making your own pellets”.
He shares his knowledge, “some even came to see my machine, they brought me their raw material to see if I could get pellets out of it.
Yves wants to help them because he is angry with the State, which pushed the French to equip themselves with stoves and pellet boilers, with the backing of subsidies, until this year when prices exploded.
“I'm lucky to have found this solution, but there are plenty of homes that won't be able to heat themselves,” he breathes.
