Pellets that are garbage

[Britales]

I've been using Turmans from a local dealer here on The Eastern Shore and they burn fine. I've also picked up a half ton of Clean Energys from Lowes in Virginia Beach and they have been less than great. I have a theory, and I may be wrong but..... Lowes stores their pellets in their outdoor Garden dept. It is covered, (under a roofed area) and palletized, but I'm thinking moisture from the air and temp changes, must be having an effect! What do you think?

 

[freebird77]

Does anyone have an opinion on Appalachian hardwood pellets? I have a coworker whos burning them and doesnt seem satisfied. Thank you.

 

[ResOps]

My first season of pellets here and I have put a little over 100 bags of Northern Bear Necessities from Quebec through my EF3 (it runs about 70% of the auger speed 24/7) and I think they burn clean and hot. I clean it once a week and find very fine ash with little or no clinkers. I do store all my pellets inside the basement in a heated room.

 

[squib]

in my us 6220 i am burning somerset hardwood pellets from ky. heat output is very good, very little fines, dark brown, smells like oak wood, meter well. really like them trouble is can`t find any more.
.
have burned test bags of...... american wood fibre pellets made in circleville, oh. lots of dust, seem to be more of a softwood blend they burn hot & the fire is hard to control, very erractic the heat output is good. but they burn up fast.

fibre fuel pellets..... i think they are made in oh. do not like these at all.

the last two may burn well in other units but in mine, no way.

somerset are the best,.......... so far. still testing...

 

[please302]

I bought 2 tons of Pennington pellets and 2 tons of tidy timbers. I began burning the Pennington’s first because of my concern with them since soo many people have had problems. Since burning the pellets there have been a lot of fines and longs. Some pellets are as long as 4”. So if you have a picky stove that needs smaller pellets I would advise against getting Pennington. Also just recently when I poured a bag of PENNINGTON’s into the hopper I noticed that there was a piece of wood inside that bag. It was not a long pellet but a 5” piece of wood. I feel that I cannot trust Pennington anymore. Their pellets are so inconsistant. I then called peggy at customer service who did nothing about the problem but advise me to call home depot where I purchased them and have them exchange them out. First thats not home depots problem its Pennington’s. I can see doing that if the bags were ripped but this is a 5” piece of WOOD inside of the bag. Secondly, home depot towmotor does not fit inside of my garage so I have to take out the ton of pellets by hand and load the exchanged pellets back into the garage by hand. Lastly I am not ven sure that they would exchange them or have any pellets left. Thats some good advice PENNINGTON Dish your responsibility to someone else to deal with including your customers. It is not worth the hassel with this company. I will NEVER buy PENNINGTON PELLETS AGAIn
Pennington customer service doesnt care about their customers or their chitty products. Mybe they will start to care when no one buys their crappy pellets. I believe that they dont care this year because of the pellet crunch and the fact that there was a shortage which makes it unfortunate that people have to buy whats out there. But it shows you what type of company Pennington really is. They add insult to injury when they know that their customers have little choice to find other available pellets especially near winter. All I know is that I will never buy from pennington again, period. I wont support those who dont care about their customers and stand by their products which is the least that they can do. It is just amazing how many issues people are having with this company and it is not just isolated incidents it is wide spread and it is long term, not just this year. DONT you remember last years fiasco !

 

[mtalea]

So far, reading back a few months I have noted posts calling out the following brands of pellets for being "garbage", "the worst", "terrible", or "horrible", etc

Pellets recently noted to be of inferior quality on this board:

-Fireside Ultras
-Michigan Wood Pellets
-Athens
-Penningtons
-Energex
-Greenway
-Corinth
-Cozy Comfort
-Green Team
-Plenty more I'm sure I missed

Seems like barefoots and lignetics are the only two that are consistently rated well (cue the "I have lignitics and they are JUNK" posts)

I would add Hamers,burn good.good heat but dirty pellets....
LG Granules are awesome for me....any softwood is best, especially fir
Anyway, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that either

1) 90% of all pellet brands are nothing but garbage or

2) Pellet performance is directly related to raw material input, regardless of manufacturer / label

 

[Sawsalesman]

Well I will attempt to give you my opinion of what is going on with low quality pellets. I sell products to Sawmills all over New England, New York and Pa. and due to this economy the amount of production from these mills has dropped by almost 30%. With production being down for wood products and the demand being high for pellets, many manufacturers are mixing species, actually grinding sawmill chips into sawdust with hog machines and also accepting raw materials that they once rejected. We all need to be patient this year and probably next year until the demand for lumber increases which will allow more higher quality raw materials to be sent to the pellet mills.

I call on the Cummings Lumber which owns Barefoot Flooring and Barefoot Pellet company and I can tell you that they probably have a nice advantage over others because they can make pellets from their own sawmill and their flooring plant and can control what they make pellets from.

 

[CygnusX1]

You forgot conclusion # 3 . Most but not all on this post are relatively newbies & don't know their stove yet . I was one of the 1st to get Athens & hated them, i figured out wood is wood wether it be dry,seasoned or green. You gotta adjust your stove accordingly. It's not rocket science, just common sense . My pellets burn pretty good now. I just have to tweek the stove a bit every now & then Muss

Very true. When I try a new brand of pellet, I find the optimum setting on the stove and mark the damper rod with a different color permanent marker.
Granted, my damper rod looks like a rainbow, but when I use that brand of pellets again, I don't have to guess as much. it kind of gives me a base setting for the pellet, then I can tweak from there.

 

[Latent]

Ok..........dumb question 1,000 and counting.

I live east of Hartford in Connecticut. I have no idea what is good vs. bad.

Those of you from CT............what's good in your experience and where did you get them?

THANKS

From Colchester, New England pellets burn ok but loads of ash, clinkers big time and demands opening OA alittle
Country Boy pellets burn pertty good, very little dust and has a lower ash content then New England Pellets.

 

[pelletizer]

Wonder if Garbage could be turned into pellets now there is a renewable energy source!

 

[long island]

GREENWAY THE WORSE

PELLETSALES.COM

I ordered and payed for New England pellets from
pelletsales.com They call me few days before
delivery told me no more new england, GREENWAY
I had no choice after doing the spring order
and waiting 5 months for New England pellets
I get Greenway. With no money off or do the right thing.

I WILL NOT ORDER FROM PELLETSALES.COM AGAIN !

 

[mattbell]

ive burned...

lignetics, green and orange , love both all around best pellets ive used
pennington's natures own, burned well but had a slightly lower than average heat output for me
hardwood heat (TSC store brand) loved em!
clean energy(lowes store brand) was happy with them
corinth they were ok but not fantastic
barefoot burned well decent heat
marthwood wonderful pellet wish i could get more one of the best performing pellets ive burned right up there with lignetics
energex was happy with them
propellets, got those from eric at Kinsman stoves , would recommend them in a heartbeat as well , put them near the top of my list , might have been higher but i only brought a single bag back from ohio left the rest with my sister. as always , thanks to eric for taking the time to run to his other store and sell and load a ton for me on the fly!


im sure there are a few more but the names escape me. ive never run into a pellet which was "terrible" but each of the brands ive burned have all had certain charactoristics which some may like and others may not. as for heat lignetics shade the marthwood by just a touch but i'd be happy as a clam to burn either at any time. at the other end , the coninth pellets and the penningtons were probably my least favorites though they were in my opinion acceptable pellets in the case of the penningtons they did burn cleaner than the others but for whatever reason the stove physically didnt get as hot , same with the corinths but they were one of the dirtier ones i'd burned.

one thing ive learned in my work, one mans trash is another mans treasure. i migt take a call and have a customer say "brand x burns great in my stove ,and brand y is junk" the next guy would say brand y was good and he didnt like brand x.

Have you tried Northeast Pellets (Ashland, Maine)?

 

[mattbell]

ive burned...

lignetics, green and orange , love both all around best pellets ive used
pennington's natures own, burned well but had a slightly lower than average heat output for me
hardwood heat (TSC store brand) loved em!
clean energy(lowes store brand) was happy with them
corinth they were ok but not fantastic
barefoot burned well decent heat
marthwood wonderful pellet wish i could get more one of the best performing pellets ive burned right up there with lignetics
energex was happy with them
propellets, got those from eric at Kinsman stoves , would recommend them in a heartbeat as well , put them near the top of my list , might have been higher but i only brought a single bag back from ohio left the rest with my sister. as always , thanks to eric for taking the time to run to his other store and sell and load a ton for me on the fly!


im sure there are a few more but the names escape me. ive never run into a pellet which was "terrible" but each of the brands ive burned have all had certain charactoristics which some may like and others may not. as for heat lignetics shade the marthwood by just a touch but i'd be happy as a clam to burn either at any time. at the other end , the coninth pellets and the penningtons were probably my least favorites though they were in my opinion acceptable pellets in the case of the penningtons they did burn cleaner than the others but for whatever reason the stove physically didnt get as hot , same with the corinths but they were one of the dirtier ones i'd burned.

one thing ive learned in my work, one mans trash is another mans treasure. i migt take a call and have a customer say "brand x burns great in my stove ,and brand y is junk" the next guy would say brand y was good and he didnt like brand x.

Have you tried Northeast Pellets (Ashland, Maine)?

 

[mattbell]

So far, reading back a few months I have noted posts calling out the following brands of pellets for being "garbage", "the worst", "terrible", or "horrible", etc

Pellets recently noted to be of inferior quality on this board:

-Fireside Ultras
-Michigan Wood Pellets
-Athens
-Penningtons
-Energex
-Greenway
-Corinth
-Cozy Comfort
-Green Team
-Plenty more I'm sure I missed

Seems like barefoots and lignetics are the only two that are consistently rated well (cue the "I have lignitics and they are JUNK" posts)

Anyway, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that either

1) 90% of all pellet brands are nothing but garbage or

2) Pellet performance is directly related to raw material input, regardless of manufacturer / label

Have you tried Northeast Pellets?
Up here in Northern Maine, we have many brands of pellets to choose from but Northeast Pellets seem to have the best BTU’s with the lowest ash. Less than .5 of 1 % and the BTU’s are between 8600 and 8750. I believe they are a blend of hard and soft wood. Very light in color and clean, low dust. Why not buy local and support local businesses ?
In our area, prices currently are ranging from 240/ton to 299/ton.
For those of you who have asked about where to get Northeast Pellets in Central and Southern Maine, I know they sell down that way but not sure where. Call the mill and ask. Matt, the President and Audrey the Office Manager are really nice people and easy to talk to.
call 207-435-6230 to find out where you can get them.
I have burnt over 4 tons so far this year!

 

[Lorne41]

Evening Folks, I'm new to the forum but I'd like to add my 2 cents to this thread.... The worst pellets that I've bought are Country Pine Pellets. I bought 10 bags to try out from Tractor Supply in Skowhegan, Maine in Nov. and I knew something was off as I was driving away in my van. There was an overwhelming smell of cedar/pine and camphor coming from the bags! I had to roll down my van window as I was driving along ( 28 degrees at that time) to keep my eyes from watering and to keep from sneezing. I should have turned around and brought them back right then but pellets were in short supply and I thought someone may have spilled something on the outside of plastic bags, but nahhh, I wasn't that smart--- I kept driving. I decided to try out one of them last weekend and brought a bag inside and opened it up. Yep, you guessed it, overwhelming smell of cedar/pine/camphor. These things stink in so many ways. They burn dirty with a lot of ash and smoke up the window of my Englander 25-PDVC in about 30 minutes. The pellets themselves are made from some kind of cedar or pine and they make my eyes burn and my throat itches and the things stink up my house of cedar/camphor. I've moved the bag back out on my sun porch... I'm thinking of mailing them off to the U.S. Army Biological Testing Lab, they could make bombs with them and they'd choke the hell out of any of our enemies!
So that's my bad pellet story. If anyone needs some pellets for moth control or just want to gag your neighbors, I can help!
Benadryl and Black Velvet took care of the symptoms....LOL

 

[TomPajak]

I've had NO ISSUES with Forrest's Pride brand from Walmart..good burning especially mixed with corn..garbagewise I'd have to say none here in MY area..they all pretty much suck EXCEPT LIGNETICS..too !@#$% expensive..at $7 a bag..you can keep'em...quality THIS YEAR for some reason has been horrible...last year the same brand(s) of pellets burned wonderful ..this year..totally different

 

[drtnshtr]

I havent heard a thing about the pellets I use..AMERICAN WOOD FIBERS.....I think they are the best out there other than Somerset and those seem to be the exact same thing as my AWF pellets....Last year their pellets were a little longer than this year (didnt bother my stove) but i guess some folks complaines so AWF listened and started making them shorter....I just had to adjust my heat dial for the change but I am yet to get any of the "fines" people are talking about. I only really need to clean ash pan out once every week to week and a half....not to mention I have an AWF plant down the road about 10 miles

 

[PelHeat Ltd]

Hello Everyone

Pellet quality with regards to ash percentage (bark content etc), moisture content, fines and pellet storage can all impact on pellet quality and efficiency.

Pellet stove design in terms of burn pot design whether it’s a horizontal feed, bottom fed or drop down has a huge effect on the capabilities of each stove.

Finally changing pellet stove settings to achieve efficient combustion also play a crucial role, balancing feed rate to air feed etc.

By taking these factors into consideration many different grades and types of pellets can be burnt successfully. However there is a fact that some stoves are more flexible than others.

Chris

 

[investor7952]

Fireside ultras burn hot but every 3 days like clock work if I dont shut stove down and clean and scrape burn pot I will lose 3- 4 degrees .Just bought 1 ton of Hammer Hot ones I cant wait to try them.

 

[Tony K]

This year I bought 3 tons of the Hamer Hot Ones and 2 tons of the Lignetics, Last year 3 tons of Hamer Hot Ones and 2 tons of Energex "Premium" for what thats worth and the Hamer Hot Ones are far more superior to these two other brands. I get 2 to 3 degrees more heat and one third of the ash. When using the Hamer Hot Ones I can go a week without having to shut down the stove and clean it compared to the other two brands where I find myself having to clean the stove every third day at minimum, it's a different type of ash with the Hamer Hot Ones, seems more fluffy, kind of like flour if you will. I've tried everything with the other two brands to try and stop clinkers and excessive grainy ash buildup. You can only adjust the damper so much before everything starts flying everywhere and closing the damper makes it buildup with clinkers and ash faster. So I've been mixing the two together and been averaging about 4 to 5 days for cleaning. Yes the heat output for the Energex and Lignetics are ok, better than others but I'd rather clean the stove once a week vice twice. I have the Breckwell Big E. Pellet choices seem to be limited, haven't heard of some of the brands that are mentioned here. There are pellets I've read or heard about I'd like to try but they are just not availavle in Ct. Today we do not have the luxury of buying a few bags of pellets to see how they burn in your stove, you have to take a chance and buy them when they are available. Not sure how the pellet situation is in other states but in Ct you better buy them when you can. Hoping this changes in the near future. I hear White Lightening I believe from PA are a very good pellet and hoping I get the chance to give these a try. Been hoping to find an alternative quality pellet just in case I cannot get the Hamer Hot Ones.

Tony

 

[investor7952]

What type of cleaning are you talking about every 3 days oe 1 a week.Is it just routine like burn pot then every 2 weeks cleaning heat exchangers?

 

[burns]

Has anyone used pellets from American Wood Fibers? I am a huge fan of Country Boy pellets but the supplier in my area is charging $335 plus $35 and up per ton doe delivery....highway robbery! I would like to try American Wood Fibers which are at $285 plus $15 flat fee per ton delivery. Much more reasonable. Any pros/cons on American Wood Fiber Pelletes?

Thanks in advance!

 

[flamegrabber]

Don't forget the Maine Woods brand. They are CRAPOLA. At least they were last year.

One solution to this problem is to buy a stove that can burn all different qualitys of pellets.

I had a Breckwell Big E and went through a ton of Maine Woods. I had to clean the stove daily. Tons of ash and a huge clink everyday.

So I bought an Enviro Omega ( multi-fuel ). The Omega can burn pretty much anything. From wheat to corn to crappy wood pellets.

I still try to find good quality pellets but if I get stuck with some bad ones it's not a problem.

JMO.

FG.

 

[Ted79]

With the first assertion can argue with you . Not all and the more so not 90 % pellet is easily soiled are garbage. Michigan Wood Pellet Fuel is and fully integrated wood pellet production We accept only the finest hardwood chips to produce premium residential wood pellet fuel. Our raw material is therefore not subject to the cyclical nature of the saw dust market.

 

[natnyer]

wow you guys really get into pellet brands.The cheapest pellets that keep you warm is the best deal who cares how much ash you have to shovel. Do a little work you will feel better about yourself.