How do you get your pellets into your basement?

[VTJake]

not to hijack this thread, but does anyone have an experience with sliding pellet bags on a gravity roller conveyor? just wondering if this would work, or if the bags would sag & get hung up on the rollers???

my basement has interior access only, so it's up the stairs to the deck, through a portion of my house, down a flight of stairs to the basement & re-stack. this gets old quick after the first couple tons - last year i did a little over 5 this way.

if the conveyor would work, I'd might be able to roll/slide pellet bags through a basement window. the only thing is it'd be going under my porch, which limits the vertical drop from end to end on the conveyor to be about 2' over 8'.

other than those options, I'm considering building some type of pellet shelter on the side of my driveway.

any feedback is appreciated.
thanks-

Try using 2- 2x10's wrapped with a tarp they will slide down nicely. I use a garden cart to move them to where i store them. It will hold 10 bags or so. There are 5 of us that help each other out when the pellets come. It's a good workout and we are keeping our green on this side of the pond!

 

[ChrisWNY]

I cut a couple of wood paneling boards (smooth on the front), and lay those over the stairs. Before I lay the paneling over the stairs, the wife heads down to the bottom and waits for me to toss the bags down (usually 2 bags each drop), then stacks them a bag at a time. Sometimes I have to yell at her to stand clear from the bottom of the stairwell as 80 lbs. worth of sliding pellets would easily knock her over, considering she doesn't weigh much more than 2 bags of pellets. LOL.

We usually buy and unload 1 ton at a time, so it only involves 20-25 minutes for me to pull the bags off the pallet on the back of my truck bed and get them to the basement stairwell.

 

[LMPS]

Use to carry one bag at time also....then I got smart I tell ya......built me my home made ramp and now they slide down slick as " " well you know what.......
Last three tons they dropped right next to the bulkhead not bad, next three ton from SID will be next to the driveway as he can not go across my lawn to get to the bulkhead. So I will have the WIFE haul them across the lawn and slide them down to me----..

Still a pain in every part of my body no matter how I do it

 

[LMPS]

Final three ton in the basement today in under two hours. That makes 6 ton total, 3 PWI, 2 MWP softies, 2 MWP blend. Plus half a ton left so far from this year (still burning so we will see what it ends up at). Here is a pic of my ramp and the pellets.

 

[Defiant]

Nicely done LMPS, maybe you should market that ramp

 

[Eatonpcat]

Looks like you lucked out, they mistakenly put a couple of nice tires in there!

 

[St_Earl]

looks like he's getting a bad radiation into the basement too.

from the looks of those trees turning all green, it must be dangerous.

 

[Crane Stoves]

holy crap! now i know how Joe (defiant) got so strong LOL. i still cannot grasp for the life of me the advantages of pellet stoves (im really trying to, but at every turn i keep hitting roadblocks like this that show disadvantage after disadvantage).

 

[Eatonpcat]

holy crap! now i know how Joe got so damb strong LOL. Not that i burn wood all that much but at least i can store it outside without the fear of these 10 trillion lil' sponges touching a drop of water. I just dont get it.... i still cannot grasp for the life of me the advantages of pellet stoves (im really trying to, but at every turn i keep hitting roadblocks like this that show disadvantage after disadvantage).

Have to have an IQ above 7 to understand!

 

[smoke show]

i still cannot grasp for the life of me the advantages of pellet stoves (im really trying to, but at every turn i keep hitting roadblocks like this that show disadvantage after disadvantage).

(broken link removed)

 

[Crane Stoves]

(broken link removed)

I edited my post down a little bit so as not to upset Eatonpcat, @ smokeshow... TY for reducing it so an older adult can understand some of my slang.

advantages

#1 1 can buy small amounts of bags as needed and/or bags make it easier to move/store (I think its easier to have a truck dump down a shoot into your storage bin since its done in 3 minutes and requires zero lifting), or id rather have my cords of wood stacked N racked outside my door in their storage spot since its part of the cost of the cords in most cases)

#2 Because the fire is contained in a heat box inside the unit, there is a minimum of smoke, which lessens the smell in your home and prevents the outside of the unit from heating up. (an airtight stove is an airtight stove so unless somebody is using a non-airtight stove or has an improper draft the smells are the same "airtight is airtight", as far as the comments about "the unit NOT heating up", i believe id call that a HUGE disadvantage! hahaha

#3 Pellets create considerably less ash than firewood, giving off less creosote and better =for the environment (might be the first real advantage ive heard, but i do not know how pellets are made and processed so i cant say if its better for the environment if it requires a factory using gobs of electricity and natural gas, chemicals and plastics,etc. to to make, bag and process these (I think maybe a chainsaw and dump truck is better for the environment!)

OK, so these are the main advantages above, now ill list a few of the disadvantages below...

#1 a pellet stove cannot produce as much heat as a conventional stove because of its limited firebox size.

#2 a pellet stove requires electricity to run its fans and motors and without it your still a dependent energy monger

#3 a pellet stove requires incredibly accurate drafting on many levels from the air induction to grate to the exhaust at the top of chimney pipe and one little error in all these air/draft routes creates a miserable non functioning, non efficient stove (therefor painstaking weekly cleanings into all these little areas where the fines build up and at each joint/bend in the pipe are mandatory by most owners manuals... so be ready to shut your heat source OFF often!)

#4 because of the addition of electricity and motors and fans into the harshness of a wood-burning stove environment, the reliability is less and maintenance is much more.... from feed screws to linkages to digital control panels to air feed fans you will surly be fixing/repairing, buying parts or doing something of these sorts each couple years you use it (unless of course you just fire it up at xmass for a night or two of ambiance and pretend your a real "lumberjack guy" and then use your oil)

#5 because you cant store pellets outside and because its sealed in chemical plastic bags (because the manufactures cant store in weather either), you must deal with these one by one by hand and take up a large amount of space in your home (your back will surly get stronger though and maybe you can cancel that gym membership).

We all have our own opinions as to what best suits our needs and cant say that Ive attempted using a pellet stove year after year as a heat source, I do think at some point when im able i will get down to brass tacks and try a Harman (since that's the best one Ive tested thus far).

 

[LMPS]

Looks like you lucked out, they mistakenly put a couple of nice tires in there!

The four winter tires cost as much as two tons of pellets, wish they could find a way to make tires out of pellets.

 

[LMPS]

Nicely done LMPS, maybe you should market that ramp

Great, idea how much do you think I would have to PAY people to take them.....

 

[LMPS]

Thought we were talking about how to move pellets into the basement not about if one should get a pellet stove or not

 

[Crane Stoves]

Thought we were talking about how to move pellets into the basement not about if one should get a pellet stove or not

we were until eaton hauled off and told me my IQ is that of a 7 year old, so i then tryed to explain it a little more in depth for him (a mod can certainly copy paste my post into its own thread titled "advantages & disadvantages of pellet stoves)... I will leave it to a mod to make that decision.

 

[Eatonpcat]

we were until eaton hauled off and told me my IQ is that of a 7 year old, so i then tryed to explain it a little more in depth for him (a mod can certainly copy paste my post into its own thread titled "advantages & disadvantages of pellet stoves)... I will leave it to a mod to make that decision.

You do know I was kidding , But thanks for the thesis (wood stove vs. pellet stove) anyway!

 

[fossil]

Doug, you've come onto the pellet stove forum into a thread discussing pellet movement/storage, hijacked it and turned it into yet another pellet vs. cordwood discussion. Have you any idea how many times that's been discussed around here? At this point, the vast majority of members have made their choices, and you're not going to change anyone's mind...so what's the point? Why not excuse yourself and let the pellet pigs go back to their original topic? Rick