Bad Pellets? How to tell

[pweeden]

Pellet newbie this year, been burning for about three weeks. Kozi KSH-120 stove. All going well until today. I have been burning Marth premium hardwood pellets and established a baseline for how much ash is created, when to clean, etc. They produce a fine white ash and I have been cleaning the burn pot every two days.

Yesterday, I switched to Dejno premium softwood pellets to see how they burned. What a difference. The burn pot fills with a dark, hard ash after about 12 hours. Stove would barely produce a decent flame after this time and the exhaust had an unusual, acrid smell to it. All stove settings were the same as with the other pellets.

Is there usually this much difference between hardwood and softwood pellets or did I get a bad batch of Dejno?

Pictures of burn pot 12 hours after cleaning are below.

 

[Xena]

Don't know jack about that stove, but from seeing
your pictures and your comments I can definitely
tell that you need to clean that burnpot sooner than
12 hours with those pellets. The holes are almost
all completely blocked. Stove may need settings
adjusted for the different pellets too but again,
I don't know anything about that stove.
Quick scrape of the burnpot with the stove running
is going to help it run better at this point.

p.s. - that plane in your avatar reminds me of
the 41' Waco cabin Biplane my Dad owned back in the 70's.

 

[sparkydog00]

If the bags are marked that they come from Athens ME would be a great clue in telling if you have bad pellets!

 

[pweeden]

zeta--

Yeah, I cleaned the burn pot right after the pictures were taken and went back to the old Marth pellets. Its running like a champ again. I think I may have bad pellets from Dejno.

You guessed the picture, a 1941 Waco UPF-7. I wish it were mine, but its not. A family friend owned it since 1946. Recently restored and sold.

 

[pweeden]

If the bags are marked that they come from Athens ME would be a great clue in telling if you have bad pellets!

They come from Kenosha, WI.

 

[Xena]

zeta--

You guessed the picture, a 1941 Waco UPF-7.
I wish it were mine, but its not. A family friend
owned it since 1946. Recently restored and sold.

Cool! I knew it had a familiar look. This plane in the link was my Dads.
He co-owned it with a friend. Now the friend's son Mike owns it.

(broken link removed)

Glad to hear you are back to the pellets that give a better burn!

 

[DiggerJim]

Is there usually this much difference between hardwood and softwood pellets or did I get a bad batch of Dejno?

Before you throw the pellets out (or ask for your dealer to take them back), have you adjusted the draft for the Dejnos? There is a difference between pellet burning characteristics so with some stoves you need to change the draft damper with any different pellets (or different production years for the same brand). Other stoves are more tolerant of differences between pellet composition.

Hardwood pellets tend to burn with less ash and need less air than softwood pellets. Softwood pellets have a much higher resin content which burns in addition to the wood biomass. That's what adds to the heat output and makes softwoods burn somewhat hotter (5-10% depending on brand).

So, try adjusting the air to see if that fixes your clinker problem.

 

[pweeden]

Hardwood pellets tend to burn with less ash and need less air than softwood pellets. Softwood pellets have a much higher resin content which burns in addition to the wood biomass. That's what adds to the heat output and makes softwoods burn somewhat hotter (5-10% depending on brand).

So, try adjusting the air to see if that fixes your clinker problem.

DiggerJim,

Thanks for the explanation on pellet differences. I did play with the intake air a bit initially, but probably not enough to make a big difference. I'll try again, but my gut tells me that these aren't worth messing around with. I called the dealer today and he said the Kozi stoves run best on hardwood and that they never use softwood. An e-mail to Kozi sort of confirmed this. "You can burn both kinds but softwood will require more maintenance" is essentially what they said. No kidding.

The farm store will not take them back so I posted on craigslist. 44 bags left for $175 if anybody in the Madison, Wis. area is interested. I have enough hardwood on hand to get me into January.

 

[chrisasst]

hey weeds, you still around here?

 

[pelletizer]

If they smell bad trash em!

 

[Souzafone]

The difference between hardwood and softwood pellets is a fairy tale. The difference between good and crappy pellets is very real.

 

[4124elad]

I was discussing how to test pellets here yesterday:https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/31413/

Take a handfull of pellets and put them in some water. They should dissolve within a few minutes. If not then they will build clinkers instead of burning.

Merry Christmas

 

[j00fek]

that pot looks like a athens burn, so your pellets must have lots of junk wood,bark,wet wood i bet.

post some pics of the pellets

 

[pweeden]

A follow-up to the original post about the bad pellets, I ended up mixing them 50/50 with my good pellets and opening up the combustion air quite a bit and it really helped. I have been burning the mixture for a couple weeks now with only sporadic problems.

 

[bungalobob]

Bad pellets are the one's that fall behind the stove. Those little bastard's will get theirs someday, you can bet your bottom dollar on that, for sure!