On April 1, 2022, UK households will be hit with a record-high fifty-four percent energy price increase. The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets approved the rise in the energy price cap a little over two months ago. The energy sector experts warn of yet another price hike in October.
If you have a wood burner and use firewood or heatlogs, rather than paying gas or electric heat, then chances are you aren’t worried about this. Despite the odds, wood fuel suppliers have managed to avoid increasing the price of their products.
But with manufacturing, logistics, and shipping becoming more expensive then ever, is a wood fuel price increase close to inevitable?
Why Are People Still Heating With Firewood in 2022?
With the prices of gas and electric heat doubling over the course of the last 24 months, more and more UK households are rediscovering cheap and abundant firewood. Heating your home with firewood or wood briquettes has always been noticeably cheaper than doing so with gas or electric heat, but the recent energy crisis has made the difference bigger than ever.
As a result of modern heating solutions becoming prohibitively expensive, buying and installing a wood stove has become more tempting than ever. If you had bought a log burner in September of 2021, chances are the savings from transitioning to wood heat would have already covered the upfront costs of the purchase and installation for you.
Will Wood Fuel Energy Become More Expensive in 2022?
No business is immune to rises in energy costs. Manufacturing, warehousing, and delivering firewood costs more in 2022 than ever before. And the first signs of these costs trickling down to the consumer can already be seen.
Several leading UK wood fuel suppliers have already informed their customers that this would be the first year in their history that there will not be a summer price drop on wood fuels.
Traditionally, one could stock up on wood fuels in summer months for about half of what they’d pay during the heating season. This is because the vast majority of wood fuels are produced in the summer yet very few people purchase it. As a result of this, supply greatly outweighs demand. Once the production season ends and the temperatures drop, supply becomes limited and demand increases, which brings the prices up.
This year, however, prices will not be be cut in the summer, and it remains to be seen if there will be a further price increase in September.
