# Made the huge mistake of burning some damp pellets



## steveg_nh (Dec 8, 2014)

Wow, what a mess! The last few bags in a ton of Maine's Choice hardwood pellets I had showed signs of being wet. Not sure how they got wet, but they were. Hand fulls of sawdust and exploded pellets. I tried to salvage what I could, but obviously they were all damp. Low temp fire, and just a caked on ash that was a mess to clean. I did a whole strip down of my stove to clean it all, and it was almost like a clay dust...yuck! never again! If I ever see that again in a bag, I don't think I'd burn it.

Is that right, or wrong? Is it usually ok to burn what looks good, or should you junk the whole bag? What do you guys do? Do you have the same result when you burn damp pellets? How the heck does a pallet get wet anyway, when it's got a big ol' plastic bag over it, and then wrapped tightly with the equivalent of plastic wrap...


----------



## CladMaster (Dec 8, 2014)

I've had a few bags like that, I try to save the good pellets by screening out the dust and wet pellets, I then leave them to dry out over 2 - 3 days before putting them in the stove. I'm using a large cooler with some wire mesh over it to separate the fines / dust and the salvaged pellets go straight into a pellet bag.


----------



## Lake Girl (Dec 8, 2014)

Trust me, water will find the smallest places to get into  Never got that far that they got into the stove because I screen mine to try to keep the dust down in the house.

Depends on how badly wet they are - I've dumped 1/2 bag before getting to decent pellets.  Other times, it's only been a couple of handfuls of bad pellets...


----------



## Phoenix Hatchling (Dec 8, 2014)

Never burned damp pellets, and from the sound of your experience...I never will


----------



## Big papa (Dec 8, 2014)

steveg_nh said:


> Wow, what a mess! The last few bags in a ton of Maine's Choice hardwood pellets I had showed signs of being wet. Not sure how they got wet, but they were. Hand fulls of sawdust and exploded pellets. i tried to salvage what I could, but obviously they were all damp. Low temp fire, and just a caked on ask that was a mess to clean. I did a whole strip down of my stove to clean it all, and it was almost like a clay dust...yuck! never again! If I ever see that again in a bag, I don't think I'd burn it.
> 
> Is that right, or wrong? Is it usually ok to burn what looks good, or should you junk the whole bag? What do you guys do? Do you have the same result when you burn damp pellets? How the heck does a pallet get wet anyway, when it's got a big ol' plastic bag over it, and then wrapped tightly with the equivalent of plastic wrap...


Pellets obsorb moisture so even the pellets that looked ok probubly from touching the wetter pellets the still obsorbed a higher level of moisture not noticeable to the human eye but noticeable to your stove from now on I would scrap the hole bag if you see it again


----------



## CladMaster (Dec 8, 2014)

Big papa said:


> Pellets obsorb moisture so even the pellets that looked ok probubly from touching the wetter pellets the still obsorbed a higher level of moisture not noticeable to the human eye but noticeable to your stove from now on I would scrap the hole bag if you see it again



Screen them and let the good pellets stand for a few days to dry out, they will burn once they have had time to dry out in the room that the stove is in. I use these as shoulder pellets, they get mixed in with my so called shoulder pellets (MWP).

The fines / dust make for good kitty litter for the mouse catcher that I have, saved a few $$'s in cat litter over the last month or two.


----------



## SidecarFlip (Dec 8, 2014)

My wife tells me they make really good flower bed mulch.


----------



## John Fortier (Dec 8, 2014)

Ok 1 lesson learned before I do it..no exploded pellets. Question..what do folks do to screen the pellets..short and simple?


----------



## Big papa (Dec 8, 2014)

John Fortier said:


> Ok 1 lesson learned before I do it..no exploded pellets. Question..what do folks do to screen the pellets..short and simple?


I throw the hole bag away its $4 for the bag and or 2 hours of cleaning time I'll just work an extra hour at my job and buy a new bag and save an hour of time


----------



## Dpopps (Dec 8, 2014)

Big papa said:


> I throw the hole bag away its $4 for the bag and or 2 hours of cleaning time I'll just work an extra hour at my job and buy a new bag and save an hour of time




You only get $4 bucks a hour? That sucks.


----------



## Big papa (Dec 8, 2014)

Dpopps said:


> You only get $4 bucks a hour? That sucks.


Yep I'm a slave to my job lol literally


----------



## John Fortier (Dec 8, 2014)

Yet is there a way I can screen them in my basement before I bring them upstairs to cut down on the dust?


----------



## Big papa (Dec 8, 2014)

Yes some people use pvc pipe and a shop vac to suck out the fines into a bucket there is a thread here the guy had pics of his set up I thought  it was a pretty neat way to do it . I will see if I can find it for ya


----------



## Big papa (Dec 8, 2014)

John Fortier said:


> Yet is there a way I can screen them in my basement before I bring them upstairs to cut down on the dust?


I did a quik search and haven't found it it's been busy at work so heading to bed but if you don't find the info you need send me a PM tomorrow and I'll dig into it for ya tomorrow


----------



## woodmakesheat (Dec 8, 2014)

I recently bought 15 bags and noted that 2 had solid clumps of pellets in them. Bought these unseen as the workers brought them out from an unknown storage area (which I assumed was outside and uncovered.) I returned all 15 bags.


----------



## steveg_nh (Dec 8, 2014)

So is this common? I have 5 tons of hardwood pellets to use, 3 Geneva, and 2 Cubex. I'm hoping I don't keep finding wet pellets here and there. seems like a waste. I too would like to see a nice way to filter them...


----------



## titanracer (Dec 8, 2014)

Big papa said:


> I did a quik search and haven't found it it's been busy at work so heading to bed but if you don't find the info you need send me a PM tomorrow and I'll dig into it for ya tomorrow



Don't know if this was the picture you were looking for or not. I have posted it on here before. This is my setup for cleaning pellets with a shop vac, before burning to remove fines & dust in bags.


----------



## SidecarFlip (Dec 8, 2014)

Gonna go against everyone's grain on this one, I've never screened one bag of pellets, ever.  Total waste of time IMO.  Thats not to say that I haven't had visibly wet ones or a clump (usually frozen like a misshapen football) in  a bag (because I keep mine outside in one of the barns, where it's just as cold as it it outdoors) and those wind up in the flower beds (for the wife's mulch), but screening pellets, no way.  I don't screen corn either.  I buy my corn pre-screened for animal feed so it's clean enough anyway.

Dry Pellets develop sawdust from handling and movement, not from sitting stationary.  My handling consists of unloading full pallets from the drop deck trailer and moving whole pallets of shrink wrapped pellets into the barn.  When it's time to load my 4 plastic rubbamaid garbage cans on the back deck, I take a whole skid up to the deck via forklift, peel of how namy bags I require, dump them in the rubbamaid cans and take the remaining pellets (on the pallet) back to the barn and cover them back up.  Repeat as necessary.  Any sawdust I get is minimal and it's in the bottom of the rubbamaid cans that I dump out (in the flower bed) when the can is empty.  They go from the rubbamaid can into a 5 gallon bucket and into the house.

I always get the pellets out of the rubbamaid can with a plastic Hills Bros coffee container with a handle and I alwys pour the pellets slowly into the pail and allow the wind to blow the fines away, if any.  The wind is free.

My method may or may not work for you, but the bottom line is, 'The more you handle the bags of pellets, the more sawdust and fines they make from rubbing together.  To mitigate that, don't handle them except if absolutely necessary.


----------



## Lake Girl (Dec 8, 2014)

The one I used:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/filter-fines-from-pellets.30591/#post-398528 (mjbrown)

Another one:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/my-diy-pellet-sifter.73263/#post-73263 (Dexter Day)

Edit:  since the first version, I use an adapter and heating duct boot (3") and got rid of the funnel...
fernco coupler for the shop vac...


----------



## steveg_nh (Dec 9, 2014)

I agree on filtering them to get fines out, and have felt the same. If you handle them too much you will get more dust. But the wet stuff was killing me. I'm only on the second bag of Cubex and there's a huge difference in fire size and heat output. Those damp bags were killers.


----------



## lordgrinz (Dec 9, 2014)

I run all my pellets into the cellar(heated and dehumidified) and back onto pallets, they usually have months to dry before I get to using them, any visibly wet bags get put to the side. I just wait until the season starts getting done and burn off those troublesome previously wet bags.


----------



## LordmetalZ28 (Dec 9, 2014)

Had a handful of puffed up green supremes. Took as many out as I could of the bag and burnt the good looking ones. Noticed a dirtier burn but no wet film


----------



## Dmichigan (Dec 9, 2014)

I just dump the bag in mine, the auger pulls the fines up and drops it into the burn pot, I store my pellets in the heated basement


----------



## SidecarFlip (Dec 9, 2014)

Every year, the local TSC uses the punctured bags ( the employees arent too good with the forklifts) to 'mulch' their landscaping.  Thats where my wife got her idea for mulch.

I call TSC the 'Scratch Dent and Damaged Store' or Tough Shitte Charlies, where everything is scratched, dented or broken......

When I get my pellets (on pallets) I watch them carefully to make sure the forks go *under* the pallets and not* through* the bags.....  Visiual recognition isn't high with the employees.....


----------



## Tonyray (Dec 9, 2014)

LordmetalZ28 said:


> Had a handful of puffed up green supremes. Took as many out as I could of the bag and burnt the good looking ones. Noticed a dirtier burn but no wet film


Same here....had a bag that was damp in the middle but didn't notice till I dumped it in..
tried to remove as much swollen pellets as I could...
Stove walls had a lot of sticky pieces on them... just didn't look right..
cranked the stove way up for an hour to burn all that mess off....


----------



## lagger (Dec 9, 2014)

John Fortier said:


> Yet is there a way I can screen them in my basement before I bring them upstairs to cut down on the dust?


 
I use one similar to this
cost about 35 bux on ebay, one bag fills about 2 buckets, takes about 5 min a bag and requires a slow pour or, like I do fill it up and shake it a little from side to side


----------



## SidecarFlip (Dec 9, 2014)

Mine is free, I let the wind do it...out on the deck.


----------



## Tonyray (Dec 9, 2014)

I clean my fines box once a week and most of the fines that end up in the burnpot  get burned up..
Not concerned with fines...
Damp pellets? different story.


----------



## steveg_nh (Dec 9, 2014)

I'm assuming on my M55 insert, the fines just end up in the firebox as pellets are deposited. I don't believe there's any concept of "fines collection box" on an M55.


----------



## Big papa (Dec 9, 2014)

titanracer said:


> Don't know if this was the picture you were looking for or not. I have posted it on here before. This is my setup for cleaning pellets with a shop vac, before burning to remove fines & dust in bags.


Yes thanks for dropping by that should do it here's the guy to talk to John


----------



## DOLLARBILL (Dec 10, 2014)

I store mine in the heated cellar and if there are leftovers they stay there all summer long with the dehumidifier on 24/7 never have had a problem yet..key word yet!


----------



## rona (Dec 10, 2014)

steveg_nh said:


> Wow, what a mess! The last few bags in a ton of Maine's Choice hardwood pellets I had showed signs of being wet. Not sure how they got wet, but they were. Hand fulls of sawdust and exploded pellets. I tried to salvage what I could, but obviously they were all damp. Low temp fire, and just a caked on ash that was a mess to clean. I did a whole strip down of my stove to clean it all, and it was almost like a clay dust...yuck! never again! If I ever see that again in a bag, I don't think I'd burn it.
> 
> Is that right, or wrong? Is it usually ok to burn what looks good, or should you junk the whole bag? What do you guys do? Do you have the same result when you burn damp pellets? How the heck does a pallet get wet anyway, when it's got a big ol' plastic bag over it, and then wrapped tightly with the equivalent of plastic wrap...


 You paid good money for a good product. They will replace the bad bags .  That outer wrap can leak if water sits on top of the plastic for a length of time. I had to return 10 bags from two pallets of a ton each.  I could see water and the bags were swollen and broke when handled. Some were ok but you could feel clumps so no use opening them. I returned the bad ones to Menards and they just asked how many and gave me good ones. When I was unloading them from pickup to where I stack them I can feel if the bags were wet. Those that were wet went back. The bags that hold each 50 lbs have pin holes and moisture can get in through the pin holes.
  Most people learn after one time of trying to burn wet saw dust that it doesn't work and it takes a long time to clean the stove. So as I said I pay good money for a good product not garbage.  return the bag with the contents to show it was wet and they will make it right with you.


----------



## steveg_nh (Dec 10, 2014)

When I first got the ton and moved the bags inside, I had 3 bags obviously soaked. They swapped those, no question. In all, the last 3 bags I lost about 1 total bag, so I just threw it away. Not worth the round trip. What I regret is putting the rest of the last bag in the stove, that were likely damp. 

Now that I'm into burning the Cubex, WOW. Nice.


----------



## SmokeEater (Dec 10, 2014)

I kept forgetting to clean the fines out of my Harman's feed mechanism and thought that I would definitely clean them prior to this season's first burn.  I did and inside the little cover held on  by a wing nut (obviously meant to be serviced regularly), the fines had filled the spaces from top to bottom!!  I did not notice any change in the feeding of pellets to the burn pot either before or after cleaning.  I had never cleaned that area on my Harman and have burned over 27 tons in the boiler.  I'll be cleaning it much more often from now on.  It only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish.


----------

