Instantheat Wood Pellets, Inc.

Instantheat Wood Pellets Inc. (http://www.instantheatwoodpellets.com/) is located in Addison, NY. According to Company Spokesman Scott Drake (p: 607-359-2270), Instantheat used to get their raw material primarily from Two Rivers Timber, but Two Rivers shut down at the beginning of 2009 as a result of the slowdown in the logging industry. Due to the economy, they still use the same product, but have to go farther away and pay more for it. Additionally, the mills that are still running are running at a low capacity. They now have to get material from 25-30 mills a week, as opposed to the 6-8 mills they previous used. The mills they get their sawdust and mill chips from come from about a 200 mile radius (New York and Pennsylvania).

All mills use hardwood and require mixing together the sawdust and chips, hammer milling, drying, re-hammer milling, and then pressing into pellets. The company has about $6 million in equipment and buildings, $5 ½ million of which is the initial costs of the equipment alone. They currently have two presses in use and provisions for a third. The equipment has very high maintenance costs, and the company is still trying to get to the break even point. The presses run on electricity, but the dryer runs on their own saw dust.

The pellets Instantheat sells are used for residential heating. They retail to local people, but most of their product goes to dealers within a 300 mile radius. The equipment puts out 900 tons of pellets per week.

Last updated June 6, 2018