(-: 2010 Pellet review its that time again! :-)

[jtakeman]

Are these the pellets that are supposedly the same as Hammer Hot Ones?

My local Agway (Hooksett NH) said their Agway brand was made by NEWP. Sooo...does it matter which one you are at?????

Good question, I guess they could rebag whatever they want or whatever is easiest for a particlular area. Don't really know for certain. I have also seen some that really don't know and say things untrue. If NEWP is popular and they want to move there pellets. Guess they can say whatever they want as its hard to prove. My local Agway sells named brand pellets so, I will be not much help here.

I suppose we could all contact our local agway stores that carry them and see what there saying?

 

[Toycruiser84]

Hey j. How do you measure the temp?

 

[jtakeman]

Hey j. How do you measure the temp?

TC84 check these links to the other test thread. I have the info there. Hope it helps

post 199

post 214

 

[beaconpcs]

I looked into bringing the Blazers in back in 2009, but to ship a box car from there into CT was about 11000 just in freight. Plus to do it during the winter months is tough because the RR is not always the speediest bunch. I had STR leave a box car of pellets in the Plainville, CT yard for about 4 weeks in late 2008, hard to pay bills without inventory!

 

[jeffd3889]

New to pellets, have burned about 25 bags so far and have had excellent results overall. We have tried Cubex, Somerset and Stove Chow so far and lots of heat from all. I have noticed a lot of build up(cakes of ash) in the Wear Plate with the Somerset when compared with the Cubex. So far we only need to burn on settings 1-3.
The Somerset and Stove Chow are $215/ton and Cubex $250/ton.
so here are some of my newbie questions:
Is the extra build up anything to be concerned about?
Is this build up what they call "clinkers"?
Has anyone else used/tested Cubex?

Thanks!

 

[jtakeman]

I looked into bringing the Blazers in back in 2009, but to ship a box car from there into CT was about 11000 just in freight. Plus to do it during the winter months is tough because the RR is not always the speediest bunch. I had STR leave a box car of pellets in the Plainville, CT yard for about 4 weeks in late 2008, hard to pay bills without inventory!

And that ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls is why you don't see many Douglas Fir pellets in NE and if you do they are well over $300 per ton....just do the math...it doesn't lie and when you add in cost of goods, and a retail mark up (a dealer does have to make something or why do it right?)......there you have it....it just plain costs too much.......

%-P Looks like I need to move to the west. But If the Cubies stay decently priced maybe not! :cheese:

 

[captkirk5858]

I looked into bringing the Blazers in back in 2009, but to ship a box car from there into CT was about 11000 just in freight. Plus to do it during the winter months is tough because the RR is not always the speediest bunch. I had STR leave a box car of pellets in the Plainville, CT yard for about 4 weeks in late 2008, hard to pay bills without inventory!

And that ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls is why you don't see many Douglas Fir pellets in NE and if you do they are well over $300 per ton....just do the math...it doesn't lie and when you add in cost of goods, and a retail mark up (a dealer does have to make something or why do it right?)......there you have it....it just plain costs too much.......

%-P Looks like I need to move to the west. But If the Cubies stay decently priced maybe not! :cheese:

We do have the readily available Vermont Wood Pellets for around 250 ton...

 

[flynfrfun]

I looked into bringing the Blazers in back in 2009, but to ship a box car from there into CT was about 11000 just in freight. Plus to do it during the winter months is tough because the RR is not always the speediest bunch. I had STR leave a box car of pellets in the Plainville, CT yard for about 4 weeks in late 2008, hard to pay bills without inventory!

And that ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls is why you don't see many Douglas Fir pellets in NE and if you do they are well over $300 per ton....just do the math...it doesn't lie and when you add in cost of goods, and a retail mark up (a dealer does have to make something or why do it right?)......there you have it....it just plain costs too much.......

%-P Looks like I need to move to the west. But If the Cubies stay decently priced maybe not! :cheese:

Come on out J, my local HD has Blazers for $3.79/bag, but I'm using Clean Burn right now. Wasn't sure if Blazers are good. My Clean Burn pretty much have zero fines. Just got my first pellet stove and didn't realize how fortunate we are in the NW to have Douglas Fir pellets available. :bug:
Flynfrfun

 

[jtakeman]

We do have the readily available Vermont Wood Pellets for around 250 ton...

samm6, Depending on price they should do fine, So should Okies Spruce Pointe Barefoot Hamer and Cubex. Last spring early buy cubies deal was hard to pass on. So I scarfed them!

%-P Looks like I need to move to the west. But If the Cubies stay decently priced maybe not! :cheese:

Come on out J, my local HD has Blazers for $3.79/bag, but I'm using Clean Burn right now. Wasn't sure if Blazers are good. My Clean Burn pretty much have zero fines. Just got my first pellet stove and didn't realize how fortunate we are in the NW to have Douglas Fir pellets available. :bug:
Flynfrfun

Every now and again. I can get some DF around here. Just enough to tease me. A couple years ago HomeDepot had Blazers. I grabbed all I could and went back for more. Haven't seen them since.

Maybe when I am ready to retire? Hopefully you'll save me some.

 

[Rooscooter]

Greetings to all......I am new to the site and have been going through the threads soaking in all of the wisdom from the community on all things fire related.

I thought I would join in on this conversation and let everyone know my experience with several pellet brands indigenous to the Pacific Northwest that I use or have tried.

I have two Bosca Spirit 500 pellet stoves doing the primary heating in a 4500+sf home. I use between 3 and 5 tons a year weather dependent.

Brands in this area that I use on a regular basis are:

North Idaho Energy Pellets: High BTU Fir Blend - These are the most consistent pellets I've used and have very little ash and almost no fines in the bag. These are the same year in and year out. They are very hot burning.

Westwood Premium Pellets (AKA Okanagan Pellets from British Columbia). These are my second favorite locally as they burn the hottest (all Douglas Fir) and are very consistent in quality. One thing that jumps out is the consistency in length of pellet. They are almost all 5/8" long.....the entire bag! This along with being very clean (no fines in the bags) make for a jamb proof pellet.

Lignetics Premium Wood Pellets of Idaho: Used to be the pellet of choice, however some very dirty bags and a ton a clinkers last year have all but put them out of my regular purchases. These Fir Blend pellets were known for being very hot and relatively clean.

Atlas Ultra Premium Douglas Fir Wood Pellets: A very good pellet and very well priced at certain times of the year. Hot, clean and consistent.

Rocky Canyon Ultra Premium Red Fir Wood Pellets: A red fir pellet (very red in appearance with a wonderful smell) made in North Central Idaho that has some issues with consistency. These pellets burn very hot, however the bags are full of dust and dirt that have tainted this brand for me.

Blazers Premium Wood Pellets: These are not sold around here like they used to be. They were a good pellet that had very little ash. Medium on the heat scale though.

This year we saw a drop in prices around here that brought these Premium Brands down around $200.00 a ton delivered (free delivery when ordering 2 tons or more). This makes them 10% or so cheaper than Natural Gas for heating (we have very low NG rates in our area). When the price is over $230/ton its cheaper to use a 90% efficient gas furnace.

 

[fidiro]

It's been a while since I've been here and finally finished my first clean bag of TC. I don't know how many bags one has to go through to be a pellet pig but I know I failed that test. I'm constantly feeding the wood eater and don't have a need for much of the pellet stove.

Now I started this bag with a clean stove and don't know how I got about 28 ounces of very fine ash. This bag was started the last time I posted here probably 2 weeks ago and stove went through about 15 start ups. I always kept stove on low settings so I don't know if that makes it more ashy. Or is it that I didn't use the famous mason jar. Could it be the wifeys pyrex is labeled wrong????NOT I topped the pyrex off at the 16 ounce first dumped it in the trash and threw the rest in to find another 12 ouces.

I'm happy with the heat they put out, they smell good and stove never shuts down on low setting which it would shut off when I was using Clean Energy last season. As for the ash, if low setting creates more ash then I will have to live with it or slow down the wood stove. I cleaned stove again to see if I get the same results for another run of TC. I'll try a few more bags over the next few weeks then I'll try the Clean Energy and the Greeneteam.

 

[captkirk5858]

Greetings to all......I am new to the site and have been going through the threads soaking in all of the wisdom from the community on all things fire related.

I thought I would join in on this conversation and let everyone know my experience with several pellet brands indigenous to the Pacific Northwest that I use or have tried.

I have two Bosca Spirit 500 pellet stoves doing the primary heating in a 4500+sf home. I use between 3 and 5 tons a year weather dependent.

Brands in this area that I use on a regular basis are:

North Idaho Energy Pellets: High BTU Fir Blend - These are the most consistent pellets I've used and have very little ash and almost no fines in the bag. These are the same year in and year out. They are very hot burning.

Westwood Premium Pellets (AKA Okanagan Pellets from British Columbia). These are my second favorite locally as they burn the hottest (all Douglas Fir) and are very consistent in quality. One thing that jumps out is the consistency in length of pellet. They are almost all 5/8" long.....the entire bag! This along with being very clean (no fines in the bags) make for a jamb proof pellet.

Lignetics Premium Wood Pellets of Idaho: Used to be the pellet of choice, however some very dirty bags and a ton a clinkers last year have all but put them out of my regular purchases. These Fir Blend pellets were known for being very hot and relatively clean.

Atlas Ultra Premium Douglas Fir Wood Pellets: A very good pellet and very well priced at certain times of the year. Hot, clean and consistent.

Rocky Canyon Ultra Premium Red Fir Wood Pellets: A red fir pellet (very red in appearance with a wonderful smell) made in North Central Idaho that has some issues with consistency. These pellets burn very hot, however the bags are full of dust and dirt that have tainted this brand for me.

Blazers Premium Wood Pellets: These are not sold around here like they used to be. They were a good pellet that had very little ash. Medium on the heat scale though.

This year we saw a drop in prices around here that brought these Premium Brands down around $200.00 a ton delivered (free delivery when ordering 2 tons or more). This makes them 10% or so cheaper than Natural Gas for heating (we have very low NG rates in our area). When the price is over $230/ton its cheaper to use a 90% efficient gas furnace.

Welcome to the Forum. You have a nice stash of Quality pellets at hand in your area. We would love to hear about your installs and pics are allways worth a thousand words. Your experience is of value so please share away.

Stay warm

 

[Rooscooter]

Greetings to all......I am new to the site and have been going through the threads soaking in all of the wisdom from the community on all things fire related.

I thought I would join in on this conversation and let everyone know my experience with several pellet brands indigenous to the Pacific Northwest that I use or have tried.

I have two Bosca Spirit 500 pellet stoves doing the primary heating in a 4500+sf home. I use between 3 and 5 tons a year weather dependent.

Brands in this area that I use on a regular basis are:

North Idaho Energy Pellets: High BTU Fir Blend - These are the most consistent pellets I've used and have very little ash and almost no fines in the bag. These are the same year in and year out. They are very hot burning.

Westwood Premium Pellets (AKA Okanagan Pellets from British Columbia). These are my second favorite locally as they burn the hottest (all Douglas Fir) and are very consistent in quality. One thing that jumps out is the consistency in length of pellet. They are almost all 5/8" long.....the entire bag! This along with being very clean (no fines in the bags) make for a jamb proof pellet.

Lignetics Premium Wood Pellets of Idaho: Used to be the pellet of choice, however some very dirty bags and a ton a clinkers last year have all but put them out of my regular purchases. These Fir Blend pellets were known for being very hot and relatively clean.

Atlas Ultra Premium Douglas Fir Wood Pellets: A very good pellet and very well priced at certain times of the year. Hot, clean and consistent.

Rocky Canyon Ultra Premium Red Fir Wood Pellets: A red fir pellet (very red in appearance with a wonderful smell) made in North Central Idaho that has some issues with consistency. These pellets burn very hot, however the bags are full of dust and dirt that have tainted this brand for me.

Blazers Premium Wood Pellets: These are not sold around here like they used to be. They were a good pellet that had very little ash. Medium on the heat scale though.

This year we saw a drop in prices around here that brought these Premium Brands down around $200.00 a ton delivered (free delivery when ordering 2 tons or more). This makes them 10% or so cheaper than Natural Gas for heating (we have very low NG rates in our area). When the price is over $230/ton its cheaper to use a 90% efficient gas furnace.

Welcome to the Forum. You have a nice stash of Quality pellets at hand in your area. We would love to hear about your installs and pics are allways worth a thousand words. Your experience is of value so please share away.

Stay warm

Thanks for the warm welcome.
I'll take some photos and post a little later.

The installs are two Bosca Spirit 500 stoves. I have a 3 level home and the stoves are installed on the lower two levels. I decided on the Bosca's for two main reasons: One they don't look like most pellet stoves in that they have very clean lines and contemporary styling. Two they are very efficient with a rating of 85%+. They are built in Chile with component from the US. It also helps that the US importer for Bosca is a Spokane Company as well. The price for each stove was in the $1,800.00 range and I got them "professionally" installed and inspected to keep my home owner's insurance company happy. I have been very happy with the stoves and they will heat my 4800+SF home even on the coldest days here in Spokane.

 

[Toycruiser84]

J Do you have a spread sheet for your 2009 testing?

 

[jtakeman]

J Do you have a spread sheet for your 2009 testing?

Sure do!

Bigbox store list

Ultimate

 

[esuitt]

hey ladies and gents
I asked on another thread about this. Has anyone ever heard of or used Nations Choice pellets? I also used the search here and did not come up with anything.
There is a local dealer who had a special 2 weeks ago for 185 delivered. I tried to google some reviews but did not come up with much.
This is all the dealer listed:
* Premium Hardwood Softwood Blend
* Ash .49%
* BTU 8300
* Free delivery in a 75 mile radius of York, PA

 

[slvrblkk]

hey ladies and gents
I asked on another thread about this. Has anyone ever heard of or used Nations Choice pellets? I also used the search here and did not come up with anything.
There is a local dealer who had a special 2 weeks ago for 185 delivered. I tried to google some reviews but did not come up with much.
This is all the dealer listed:
* Premium Hardwood Softwood Blend
* Ash .49%
* BTU 8300
* Free delivery in a 75 mile radius of York, PA

Super Premium Pellets? Can you grab a couple bags to try? Where is the dealer located? York? I'll be driving through on Wednesday heading to Virginia and if it's not far off of 15 or 83, I'll stop by and grab a couple bags myself.

 

[gcugg]

Hi All,

Great posts, very helpful info. I've had a XXV for 3 years now. We love it.

My 2 cents on pellets mentioned here. This year went to Lowe's and bought 10 bags of Green Team and 10 bags Potomac (price was $4.38/bag). The Green Team did fine, burned well no problems. The Potomac pelets have to be one of the worst I've burned. Should have guessed there would be problems because the pellets were extremely long, almost 2 to 2 1/2 inches. Also, they had heavy amount of fines (compared to others I've used).

Anyway, had multiple auger/feeder jambs, poor heat and fairly heavy deposits/clinkers noticed in burn pot when cleaning.

Now we are using Vermont Softwood pellets ($245/ton), four bags so far and really great heat, consistent size and small amout of fines. Of course these are just my observations, nothing scientific, but thought I would pass it along.

Guy

 

[esuitt]

Super Premium Pellets? Can you grab a couple bags to try? Where is the dealer located? York? I'll be driving through on Wednesday heading to Virginia and if it's not far off of 15 or 83, I'll stop by and grab a couple bags myself.

they do not give an address to were they are located, just an email and phone # 717-505-9830 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 717-505-9830 [email protected]

 

[esuitt]

Super Premium Pellets? Can you grab a couple bags to try? Where is the dealer located? York? I'll be driving through on Wednesday heading to Virginia and if it's not far off of 15 or 83, I'll stop by and grab a couple bags myself.

they do not give an address to were they are located, just an email and phone # 717-505-9830 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              717-505-9830      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 717-505-9830 [email protected]

Don't even bother! I just got off of the phone with him. This guy does not operate out of a store, he just orders them and then has one big sale till they are gone.

 

[jtakeman]

A dealer in CT is looking at carring them. See this thread.

Pelletdude thread

There is another CT dealer carring them.

(broken link removed)

I'll see if I can get some. No promises though!

 

[slvrblkk]

Super Premium Pellets? Can you grab a couple bags to try? Where is the dealer located? York? I'll be driving through on Wednesday heading to Virginia and if it's not far off of 15 or 83, I'll stop by and grab a couple bags myself.

they do not give an address to were they are located, just an email and phone # 717-505-9830 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              717-505-9830      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 717-505-9830 [email protected]

Don't even bother! I just got off of the phone with him. This guy does not operate out of a store, he just orders them and then has one big sale till they are gone.

awwww...that sinks!! I have to get a hold of some of this "Super Premium" stuff to see what all the fuss is about!

 

[fidiro]

Super Premium Pellets? Can you grab a couple bags to try? Where is the dealer located? York? I'll be driving through on Wednesday heading to Virginia and if it's not far off of 15 or 83, I'll stop by and grab a couple bags myself.

they do not give an address to were they are located, just an email and phone # 717-505-9830 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              717-505-9830      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 717-505-9830 [email protected]

Don't even bother! I just got off of the phone with him. This guy does not operate out of a store, he just orders them and then has one big sale till they are gone.

awwww...that sinks!! I have to get a hold of some of this "Super Premium" stuff to see what all the fuss is about!

I hope these turn out as good as they claim. Their price is definately competitive. A SUPER Premium Pellet at a price lower than most, if not all, Premiums'. Hope you find some to test Jay

 

[jtakeman]

I have updated the Okies info and the comparison chart.

I need to take a break from this! I am a bit sick of cleaning the stove. We have some cold weather coming and I want to burn some of my stash! yadda yadda yadda!

See you in the other threads!

 

[fidiro]

I have updated the Okies info and the comparison chart.

I need to take a break from this! I am a bit sick of cleaning the stove. We have some cold weather coming and I want to burn some of my stash! yadda yadda yadda!

See you in the other threads!

I'm surprised you were able to hang in there this long. I can see how it can definately become tireing having to clean after every batch. thanks for all the great info so far and hope you feel better after the holidays.