Pellet "quality assurance"

[PoolGuyinCT]

Below is email exchange about corn.. One skid had fatty pellets another where less than a 1/4".



I forwarded on your email to my plant manager in NC and he told me that
for a very brief period in 2010 we did make Freedom Fuel at a 7/32nd
diameter and then switched to 5/16th. He also said that if adjust the
combustion air on your stove a little you should get a better burn with
the smaller pellet.
As far as the corn there's a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands
of tons we produce each year may have trace amounts of corn in them as
industry standard practice denotes that corn be used to clear the wood
from the holes in the die whenever the pellet mills are shut down for
regular maintenance or emergency repair. Failure to do so will cause the
wood to plug the holes permanently rendering the $10k die useless.
Corn is far more expensive than wood and as such would never be used
as a filler in place of wood by any right minded wood pellet producer.
Furthermore corn burns virtually identical to wood and therefore will
not cause any adverse effects to a stove or exhaust system. I hope this
answers your questions and thank you for choosing Freedom Fuel this
season.

Regards,

CONTACT REMOVED





-----Original Message-----

Subject: Freedom fuel diameter

Hi scott, thanks for taking my call.
Attached is an image of the pellets we discussed. The image depicts
pellets from 2 skids, both sacks labeled 7. 6437592365. 3

On a side note, the sacks indicate 100 percent wood. Why do the 5/16ths
pellets contain a fair amount of shelled corn?

Thanks for taking my call today.

 

[Phil Do's fire.]

According to the article NEWP helped develop the new standard based on there pellet quality? I'm not impressed

This qualification is the culmination of work that NEWP has done in conjunction with PFI, the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC) and Timber Products Inspection, Inc. (Conyers GA) over the last year. In order to maintain compliancy within the program, New England Wood Pellet has entered into an agreement with Timber Products Inspection, Inc. (TP) for auditing and third party laboratory testing.

 

[Phil Do's fire.]

According to the PFI the new categories are: premium, standard and utility.

here is what the terms translate to:

(broken link removed to http://pelletheat.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/standards-table.jpg)

The new categories are a joke. Moisture for standard less than 10% and chloride is fixed at 300ppm for all standards, no BTU rating and ash fusion (clinkering) is not applicable

 

[ironpony]

so like in life, if you can not rise to the top of the testing, lower the standards for testing

 

[jtakeman]

so like in life, if you can not rise to the top of the testing, lower the standards for testing

I was hoping for a standard that would put pellets in their perspective catagories and hopefully end the debate on pellet value. Kind of like a gasoline standard(economy-regular-mid grade and high test). But I don't think the bar graph system will take any of the guess work out of pellets. Most will be even more confused that what we have been.

What irks me the most is pellet A(not saying any names and don't put one in for me!) has a name for themselfs, But the quality of the pellet they market is no better than pellet B. But pellet A fetches a fancy price while pellet B is more economical.

IMHO, we need a system that can help us with this. Until then I will keep doing my own thing! Again, We are the best police.

 

[Central NH]

I think there is a simple way for companies to figure out testing at low cost............Have the mfg. co. log on this forum and listen to the customer. In any business there is one rule to follow....1. THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT AND KNOWS BEST!! When in doubt refere to rule number 1 or go out of business and lose lots of money on the way