Fireside Ultra Pellets GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!

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Baston8005

Member
Hearth Supporter
Oct 17, 2007
124
East of Hartford, CT
I bought 1 ton of these pellets at Home Depot about a month ago. These are the absolute worst pellets. After 6 hours of burning these pellets, I have to clean out my burn pot. There is pumice stone in the burn pot. If I wait over a day to clean, the burn pot is almost solid pumice. I have a Quadra fire Mt Vernon stove and it is set at the lowest feed rate and on med to high setting. I wonder how much Bark, soil and overall filler garbage is added to these pellets????
 
Fireside Ultra were the best pellets I used last year.... no dust in the bag, burn hot and had very little ash. I wish I could still get 'em here.

Maybe you got some wet pellets?
 
Krooser, did you find that you had to clean the burn pot more often and did you find the pumice(clinker's) that I am finding? The clinkers look like volcanic pumice stone...
 
Can the damper setting cause clinkers?
Been using horrible Ahtens pellets which have incredible ash but they are so small you have to keep the damper closed up to keep them burning.
When I throw in bigger pellets and open the damper a bit I get big clinkers or "pumice" type chunks. Don't know if it is the air flow or the kind of pellets. ??
 
I have a 4-5 year old Quadra fire Mt Vernon stove(stand alone). There is no dampner setting that I know of? Only a feed rate setting. I could be wrong....someone correct me if i'm wrong. My stove always produces the pumice like clinker when I buy and burn "premium Hardwood" pellets. But these fireside ultra's are horrible. Soft wood pellets burn like a dream in my stove. Barely any ash or clean up when I burn softwood pellets.
 
Oh my!.......Last season I used mostly Fireside Ultras(Ton and a half) and they were AWESOME :) Seriously. I couldnt find any this year....I would of bought a ton or so.
 
I saw some at the North Windham Home Depot about a week ago and they were stored in their open air nursery. It had rained the night before. I can't imagine that's too good for them, even if they are wrapped in plastic. (some weren't). Don't know where you got yours, but if they were stored in a similar fashion, that could be the problem. Must be extremely frustrating.....
 
The Home Depot here in Manchester has all their pellets stored inside............that's weird.
 
Baston8005 said:
Krooser, did you find that you had to clean the burn pot more often and did you find the pumice(clinker's) that I am finding? The clinkers look like volcanic pumice stone...
Actually they were the cleanest I ever used last year. The Marth hardwoods are pretty dirty, The Uncle jed's I use now are good but the Ultra's were the best... honest!!!
 
I burned about 4 1/2 tons of them last year, and 1/2 ton this year. I really don't have anything bad to say. The ash does seem to be a bit sandy, and the clinkers are quite hard, but I clean my stove weekly so this doesn't present a problem. This year I'm burning NEWP's, and they seem to produce a much lighter finer ash, and the burn pot doesn't require a "hard" scrapping as often. During tha last five years I probably burned about a dozen different brands of pellets, some better than others, but by in large I never had a problem. My preference is not to burn soft wood pellets. They seem to burn hotter (that's good), but they also seem to produce more dust in the house. When I burned soft wood pellets I needed to wear one of those paper filters over my mouth and nose to limit the dust I was breathing in.
 
This was one of the brands I burned last season, I would burn them
again if I could no longer find my favorites.
 
I had lots of pumice until I opened my damper rod a bit on my Glowboy. Wow! what a difference with a little more air in there.
 
pellet0708 said:
Can the damper setting cause clinkers?
Been using horrible Ahtens pellets which have incredible ash but they are so small you have to keep the damper closed up to keep them burning.
When I throw in bigger pellets and open the damper a bit I get big clinkers or "pumice" type chunks. Don't know if it is the air flow or the kind of pellets. ??

I would gladly take the pumice chunks over the sand like ash the Maine Woods Pellets create anyday.
If the Fireside guy lives anywhere close to Central Mass...I will gladly trade you bag for bag Maine Wood Pellets for Fireside Ultra...just so you too can truely know what a bad pellet is!
 
The Fireside also worked great for me last year when I tried them out. They were the best I used out of the 4 or 5 brands I tried. I haven't seen them around my area though this year, and I wish I did.

I ended up buying some Badgerland pellets and it seems as if they have a lot of ash when compared to others I've tried. I tried a few bags of future fuel from HD and they seemed better than the Badgerland as far as I am concerned. Much less ash with the future fuel when compared to the badgerland.

I'll take the firesides any day!
 
newf lover said:
I saw some at the North Windham Home Depot about a week ago and they were stored in their open air nursery. It had rained the night before. I can't imagine that's too good for them, even if they are wrapped in plastic. (some weren't). Don't know where you got yours, but if they were stored in a similar fashion, that could be the problem. Must be extremely frustrating.....

I bought mine at the same Windham HD. Same storing situation but they were Penningtons. No problems with mine, burn great. They were stretch wrapped though. I find more air less clinkers AKA pumice.
 
packerfan said:
The Fireside also worked great for me last year when I tried them out. They were the best I used out of the 4 or 5 brands I tried. I haven't seen them around my area though this year, and I wish I did.

I ended up buying some Badgerland pellets and it seems as if they have a lot of ash when compared to others I've tried. I tried a few bags of future fuel from HD and they seemed better than the Badgerland as far as I am concerned. Much less ash with the future fuel when compared to the badgerland.

I'll take the firesides any day!
Have you ever tried Uncle Jed's from Earth Sense in Dale?
 
krooser said:
packerfan said:
The Fireside also worked great for me last year when I tried them out. They were the best I used out of the 4 or 5 brands I tried. I haven't seen them around my area though this year, and I wish I did.

I ended up buying some Badgerland pellets and it seems as if they have a lot of ash when compared to others I've tried. I tried a few bags of future fuel from HD and they seemed better than the Badgerland as far as I am concerned. Much less ash with the future fuel when compared to the badgerland.

I'll take the firesides any day!
Have you ever tried Uncle Jed's from Earth Sense in Dale?

They don't seem to have those around here in the west bend area.
 
I had a Quad 1200 years ago, and found that the Fireside Ultra pellets were the only ones that did not produce massive, burnpot-clogging clinkers. They did make a strange black ash, but overall I liked them. The composition of Fireside Ultras could obviously have changed many times over since then, but they are made by Energex who makes some decent pellets.
 
packerfan said:
krooser said:
packerfan said:
The Fireside also worked great for me last year when I tried them out. They were the best I used out of the 4 or 5 brands I tried. I haven't seen them around my area though this year, and I wish I did.

I ended up buying some Badgerland pellets and it seems as if they have a lot of ash when compared to others I've tried. I tried a few bags of future fuel from HD and they seemed better than the Badgerland as far as I am concerned. Much less ash with the future fuel when compared to the badgerland.

I'll take the firesides any day!
Have you ever tried Uncle Jed's from Earth Sense in Dale?

They don't seem to have those around here in the west bend area.

You're right. This is their "house brand" that they sell in Dale, Green Bay and some of their dealers. I wasn't sure where you were located.

If you bought a ton or more it might be worth it to make the trip... these are pretty good pellets.
 
I burned a ton of firesides last year and overall was very pleased. They did clinker and had more ash than others, but they burned hot! Don't mind the extra stirring and cleaning if they have good heat. Haven't seen them this year in our area. They sure smell the same as energex...
 
Last week i picked up some fireside ultras at the hommey for 5.25 a bag so i could try them and the results were: Thay are garbage!!! the glass was caked over after 3 bags with a dark soot and after 5 bags the burn pot looked like a bird payed massive amount of pumice eggs in there. It was not good even the flame was not as hot or a high. I measured on of the clinkers and it was impressive at just over 1.5" round and there were at least 7 of them of all sizes. What a mess they made. I am now back to my dry creek and will stay with them always. They are a Canadian product and they should keep them on that side of the boarder..

Okay i feel better now...
 
Woodsman,

I think I remember you mentioning that you thought Lignetics were a good pellet. I have tried burning 5 different brands so far (Lignetics, NEWP, Fireside Ultra, Freedom Fuel, and another <can't remember the name> from HD), and the Lignetics are THE BEST of all of them.

If you haven't tried them, and get a chance to, give 'em a burn...I think you'll like them. I have 1 1/2 tons left, and will be saving them for the REAL cold in Jan-Feb....burning the NEWP right now.

This spring I will be on the lookout for Lignetics only (if possible).....they are THAT good!
 
macman said:
Woodsman,

I think I remember you mentioning that you thought Lignetics were a good pellet. I have tried burning 5 different brands so far (Lignetics, NEWP, Fireside Ultra, Freedom Fuel, and another <can't remember the name> from HD), and the Lignetics are THE BEST of all of them.

If you haven't tried them, and get a chance to, give 'em a burn...I think you'll like them. I have 1 1/2 tons left, and will be saving them for the REAL cold in Jan-Feb....burning the NEWP right now.

This spring I will be on the lookout for Lignetics only (if possible).....they are THAT good!

yes lignetics are the best i have used with dry creek right behind them. I burned lignetics last year and they were great. Dry Creek plant is 10 minutes from my house so i burn them now. I just thought i'd try the fireside's and never again. I get drycreek for 190. a ton when they have any at all. Drycreek says they have trouble getting raw material to make em.
 
I picked up a couple bags of these at the HD in Bangor and they burned great. The best heat of any pellet I have used yet. The next time I was in I bought three more bags off a pallet that was inside. The bags were wet on the inside and the pellets were mushy sawdust, Makes me nervous about getting any more unless I know how they were stored, but if I could find them dry I would buy them over any other I have tried.
 
I got a ton of these pellets from HD and they do burn ok, but the clinkers are un-godly. No matter how my damper is set the form up very quickly and require a good scraping every 2 days.
j
 
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