PassionForFire&Water
Minister of Fire
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Both of you, ... to the principals office!
Merry Xmas.
Pellet Boilers - Do different pellets perform differently
- Thread starter DBNH22
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I am now just starting the 6th brand of pellets in the Windhager and I have yet to see any difference in performance of the boiler. A tiny bit more ash with a couple brands but no creosote, no lighting problems, no smoke except for a 15-30 second trace at ignition occasionally, no measurable difference in combustion efficiency that I have seen on the Testo.
Conclusion...........it's the boiler that makes the difference, the pellets?....not so much.
So far I have burned mostly local brands,
Michigan Wood Pellet (MWP here), These are extremely clean as they are made from wood fiber that has been pressed out of leftovers from a high density fiberboard plant. Their primary product at this plant is high density panels used in the automotive industry for door and head liners. Virtually no dust with these.
Pro Pellet. Nothing remarkable about them, average dust, the bags seemed to be very thin and you could puncture them just by squeezing with your fingers.
Maeder Brothers (a small local mill), these used to be horrible pellets with high variation in density. Their mill burned down a couple years ago and they are now up and running with a brand new sawmill and pellet pressing operation. Consistent quality now and really reasonable price.
Somersets....tried about 400 pounds of these because I heard people bragging about them and asking for them by name. Frankly speaking, I could measure no difference in efficiency and saw no difference in the amount of ash. They are good pellets but I didn't see any appreciable difference in them and anything else.
Kirtland pellets. This is a new mill just in operation for a year or two up in Boyne City. Their pellet is an interesting combo. They use mainly waste hardwood, some oak and have developed a system for picking up the tops, branches, needles and limbs from all the plantation pine sites here in Michigan. Smells great when you open a bag. These weigh a little less per cubic foot than a typical pellet, probably because of the fine matter (needles) incorporated in the mix. They are very uniform in size and hard. I would say ash is just slightly higher than other brands dues to the higher volume of pellets needed to produce a given amount of btus. I did notice a couple soft "clinkers" in the firepot that were too big to fall through during the auto clean cycle on the BioWin.
It was interesting to watch the Windhager compensate for the lighter weight of these pellets by automatically by upping the feed rate.
Currently trying a ton of Kirtland #2 pellets to see what they do. Even though they are termed a #2 pellet by them, they are still rated as premium grade for ash and content. The difference is in size only. When you open a bag you see little product in the typical 1" range. There is short and there is long with little in between. Some of the pieces are as small as 1/4" long, some are well over 1-1/2" long.
In all cases, I never measured a combustion efficiency below 84%. Most times I gave it a sniff I saw 86-87% regardless of brand of pellet. The only appreciable differences between the brands were in the residual ash (and that was not much), the amount of dust when you open a bag and the smell.
I'll say it again.......... an appliance with a good combustion control is far more important than the brand of pellet.
From what I can determine, as long as the pellets are dense enough to keep from turning to dust, a boiler such as the Windhager will be able to successfully burn them.
Some facts and figures ........
The Windhager has 2,172 hours of actual burn time on it.
Next cleaning, which will be the 3rd time, is due in 416 hours
Total run time between cleanings is about 850 hours.
Total pellet consumption to date is 5.1 tons or 10,200 pounds.
Pellet consumption average per hour is 4.69 pounds
Using an efficiency of 85% that pellet use tells me my average heating load is about 33,000btu/hour
This makes sense because I rarely see it running above 50% output which is about 36,000btu.
Conclusion...........it's the boiler that makes the difference, the pellets?....not so much.
So far I have burned mostly local brands,
Michigan Wood Pellet (MWP here), These are extremely clean as they are made from wood fiber that has been pressed out of leftovers from a high density fiberboard plant. Their primary product at this plant is high density panels used in the automotive industry for door and head liners. Virtually no dust with these.
Pro Pellet. Nothing remarkable about them, average dust, the bags seemed to be very thin and you could puncture them just by squeezing with your fingers.
Maeder Brothers (a small local mill), these used to be horrible pellets with high variation in density. Their mill burned down a couple years ago and they are now up and running with a brand new sawmill and pellet pressing operation. Consistent quality now and really reasonable price.
Somersets....tried about 400 pounds of these because I heard people bragging about them and asking for them by name. Frankly speaking, I could measure no difference in efficiency and saw no difference in the amount of ash. They are good pellets but I didn't see any appreciable difference in them and anything else.
Kirtland pellets. This is a new mill just in operation for a year or two up in Boyne City. Their pellet is an interesting combo. They use mainly waste hardwood, some oak and have developed a system for picking up the tops, branches, needles and limbs from all the plantation pine sites here in Michigan. Smells great when you open a bag. These weigh a little less per cubic foot than a typical pellet, probably because of the fine matter (needles) incorporated in the mix. They are very uniform in size and hard. I would say ash is just slightly higher than other brands dues to the higher volume of pellets needed to produce a given amount of btus. I did notice a couple soft "clinkers" in the firepot that were too big to fall through during the auto clean cycle on the BioWin.
It was interesting to watch the Windhager compensate for the lighter weight of these pellets by automatically by upping the feed rate.
Currently trying a ton of Kirtland #2 pellets to see what they do. Even though they are termed a #2 pellet by them, they are still rated as premium grade for ash and content. The difference is in size only. When you open a bag you see little product in the typical 1" range. There is short and there is long with little in between. Some of the pieces are as small as 1/4" long, some are well over 1-1/2" long.
In all cases, I never measured a combustion efficiency below 84%. Most times I gave it a sniff I saw 86-87% regardless of brand of pellet. The only appreciable differences between the brands were in the residual ash (and that was not much), the amount of dust when you open a bag and the smell.
I'll say it again.......... an appliance with a good combustion control is far more important than the brand of pellet.
From what I can determine, as long as the pellets are dense enough to keep from turning to dust, a boiler such as the Windhager will be able to successfully burn them.
Some facts and figures ........
The Windhager has 2,172 hours of actual burn time on it.
Next cleaning, which will be the 3rd time, is due in 416 hours
Total run time between cleanings is about 850 hours.
Total pellet consumption to date is 5.1 tons or 10,200 pounds.
Pellet consumption average per hour is 4.69 pounds
Using an efficiency of 85% that pellet use tells me my average heating load is about 33,000btu/hour
This makes sense because I rarely see it running above 50% output which is about 36,000btu.
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My 2 cents on this subject :
- I basically agree with both Heaterman and IceGuy here. A good stove or boiler will burn almost anything, as this is one of the primary differentiators of a high quality pellet appliance !
- I can't measure burning efficiency like Heaterman, but given the small size of my HF60, I can tell some subtle differences in how some pellets respond to heavy load when multiple zones are ON at the same time, and what FeedRate is being used on my little HF60 boiler.
- I have several friends whose Pellet Stoves are fussy about the pellet size, or they have feed\auger issues. This is real for some stoves !
- Good pellets have less ash, less fines, and usually burn cleaner with less fly ash in the exhaust pipe (minimizes cleanings).
- I am very close to several PB105 Installs, where one guy with a large Log House only burns good pellets in the dead of winter, just to minimize his PB105 shut-down and cleaning cycles.
In Summary, a good pellet appliance will burn almost anything, but there is something to be said for better quality pellets. It all depends on the appliance, and what trade-offs the user wants to make (Cost, Cleaning, etc...).
BTW - I have yet to burn any pellets that cause a problem in my HF60, but some are better than others from an ignition, BTU, and Cleaning perspective.
VT_Bubba
- I basically agree with both Heaterman and IceGuy here. A good stove or boiler will burn almost anything, as this is one of the primary differentiators of a high quality pellet appliance !
- I can't measure burning efficiency like Heaterman, but given the small size of my HF60, I can tell some subtle differences in how some pellets respond to heavy load when multiple zones are ON at the same time, and what FeedRate is being used on my little HF60 boiler.
- I have several friends whose Pellet Stoves are fussy about the pellet size, or they have feed\auger issues. This is real for some stoves !
- Good pellets have less ash, less fines, and usually burn cleaner with less fly ash in the exhaust pipe (minimizes cleanings).
- I am very close to several PB105 Installs, where one guy with a large Log House only burns good pellets in the dead of winter, just to minimize his PB105 shut-down and cleaning cycles.
In Summary, a good pellet appliance will burn almost anything, but there is something to be said for better quality pellets. It all depends on the appliance, and what trade-offs the user wants to make (Cost, Cleaning, etc...).
BTW - I have yet to burn any pellets that cause a problem in my HF60, but some are better than others from an ignition, BTU, and Cleaning perspective.
VT_Bubba
iceguy4
Minister of Fire
I am looking for some advice. I recently purchased and had installed a new PB105. I have had a lot of problems with this unit so far, specifically 1. Unburnt pellets in my ashpan. 2. The unit will overfeed pellets into the burnpot on startup, then fail to properly ignite, because of all the pellets in the burn pot. This results in my firebox completely filling with white and black swirling smoke and on two occasions the unit has exploded and vented out the blast door, filling my garage with smoke. I am cleaning the unit properly, and using a quality pellet (Cubex Hardwood). Had the dealer at the house yesterday, he ran some tests and believes it is an exhaust issue. My installer vented horizontally directly off the boiler with no vertical lift at all. Anyone have any words of wisdom? So far I really have regretted purchasing this unit. Thanks for your time.
You can adjust the first three dip switches to vary the amount of pellets that are feed at start up. I had to turn mine down since I had a similar issue when I first got mine. The other thing to check is your igniter. If it only has 13 fins get rid of it and replace it with the newer 15 fin model. Once I did that I didn't have anymore issues with explosions.
Two other things I did were to put another gasket around my hopper door, ash pan door, and viewing door. So I had a gasket on both sides of the doors and then I put a bead of high temperature silicon all the way around the boiler where the ash pan meets the boiler.
Doing those things substantially increased my PB105's reliability.
Two other things I did were to put another gasket around my hopper door, ash pan door, and viewing door. So I had a gasket on both sides of the doors and then I put a bead of high temperature silicon all the way around the boiler where the ash pan meets the boiler.
Doing those things substantially increased my PB105's reliability.
I will assume that if this is a new boiler it does have the pressure ignition. If it does, position the dip switches as follows, looking left to right: #1 off, #2 on # 3 on. (off is down) This will reduce the amount pellets fed into burnpot on startup only. To increase the amount of pellets in the burnpot after the startup, adjust the feed rate so as no unburned pellets are being pushed into the ashpan. A good starting point is to set the feed rate to #4.
All I've done is haul the sawdust/shavings/chips. Did this for a few years. But it has got to be quite a job "brewing" these into a consistent pellet. M.C. can be all over the map when we leave the large lumber mills. Did it rain for a week? Green fresh cut trees vs late spring dry wood. After Feb/mid-March they work off of pile down wood. Can't get in the woods during spring breakup, work off of the pile down. These trailers would hold close to 150 cu/yds. The gross weight would be all over the place. Plus depending on the loader operator, can get a lot of foreign matter into the trailers. The place heaterman mentioned would seem to be a more consistent pellet.
Do augers chew up the pellets? Add to mess?
Do augers chew up the pellets? Add to mess?
I've been burning some pellets termed a #2 quality through this cold snap to see how the Windhager digests them.
These pellets are listed as having the same density and ash content as premium pellets but the size is out of the normal range. I don't know what in particular about their operation causes this but the product itself has a lot of variation in length. I'll see most pellets in the 1/4 - 3/8" length range and then from 1-1/2 to over 2" in length. There are very few pellets in the normal length range of 1/2- 1-1/2".
I've run almost a ton through the boiler and have not had any issues with feeding, ignition or noticed any change in output.
The nice thing about them is the price. They'll deliver a 5 ton load for $165/Ton.
These pellets are listed as having the same density and ash content as premium pellets but the size is out of the normal range. I don't know what in particular about their operation causes this but the product itself has a lot of variation in length. I'll see most pellets in the 1/4 - 3/8" length range and then from 1-1/2 to over 2" in length. There are very few pellets in the normal length range of 1/2- 1-1/2".
I've run almost a ton through the boiler and have not had any issues with feeding, ignition or noticed any change in output.
The nice thing about them is the price. They'll deliver a 5 ton load for $165/Ton.
iceguy4
Minister of Fire
I wish pellets were going for that price in New England. The best you can do here is $219/ton in New Hampshire and $199/ton in Maine for the Home Depot stuff which is what I'm going to be burning in my Biowin. Depending on which day of the week you go into home Depot around here they will have different pellets. Most of the time they have Maine Wood Pellets and Fireside Ultras, both of which are decent. but they also carry some no name brand that I tried. When I opened one of the bags it smelled more like chemicals than wood so I decided to burn the few bags I picked up and then never get them again. I should have snaped a pic of the bag to show everyone.
Do you have your unit set to 210 or 260 on the dip switches? Mine is set to 210 as I've made some improvements to my home's envelope and Marc said 210 should not only suffice to heat my home but would be more effificent as well. So far I've not had an issue at the lower setting.
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