tree cycle followup

[Jim H.]

Nice to see I was right! HAHAHA I stayed away until others chimed in. Mike definitely cares about the quality. I have burned thru about 3/4 of a bag since the 6th....these wet cool nights.....hope the moisture is about done, especially winter snow!

 

[Emta17]

I have burnt 38 bags of TC pellets. They have formed alot of clinkers in my Breckwell P23 freestanding stove. I have never had a problem with any other pellet. The issues I am having with these pellets are the following;
- Glass soots up extremely quickly
- Odd odor when burnt
- Clinkers galore
- Pellets will not burn completely
- Very High ash content
- lazy flame
Prior to the heating season I cleaned the entrie interior combution chamber. Since I started burning these pellets I have had to re clean everything as well as checke the air intake hose, adjusted the low feed rate setting (currently set on the lowest setting), added air flow, took away air flow and nothing has worked. The pellets are still burning dirty and messy. When I say messy that within 10 minutes the glass soots up and within an hour the entrie glass is black.

I have contacted Mike Zanetti at [email protected] and they seemed committed to helping me at first. Mike has mentioned that I may have gotten a "bad batch". After trying to contact him numerous times he has yet to re-contact me. Obviously, they are not standing behind their product!

So I had cleaned the stove again prior to a baby sitter coming over last night (12/4/10) so that my wife and I could go out. We left at 8:30 pm and were back by 11:30. They stove had shut off due to clinker overload and the pellets "fusing together". I cleaned out the clinkers, turned the stove on and went back to bed. The stove again was shut down by morning. I again cleaned the clinkers, and the combution chambers. I noticed that two of the chambers were full of ash (the ones on the side of the stove). I mean they were completely clogged . I re-cleaned them and restarted the stove. The stove shut down and the number 2 light flashed. Looking up the online manual for Breckwell I saw that the #2 light indicated an air flow problem. I took apart the venting (less than 3 months after cleaning the vent pipe) and there was a considerable amount of ash build up. The ashes were large (not fine) and the arrester screen was almost completely blocked.

Next, I had a friend drop off two bags of Energex pellets on 12/5/10. I re-started the stove and the flame is crisp, the glass is not sooting up and everything appears "normal" with the stoves operation. The stove has been burning the Energex pellets for 5 hours and it is great. I am going to shut down the stove, re-clean the glass and try the TC pellets one last time!

NOW, on december 17th I have still had numerous problems with the Tree Cycle LLC pellets. I again had to clean the vent pipe (twice within 12 days!) in which I measured 8 ounces of ash to come out of it. The pipe is maximum 9 feet in length with a 2 foot horizontal run. I attempted to contact Mike Zanetti again and he has not called be back nor has he emailed me. The tree cycle pellets are junk and a waste of time. I brought the remaining 62 bags that I owned back to the distributor and got other pellets that are burning fine. So it is obsiously not the stove or any of its components! Shame on tree cycle for not standing behind their product.


If anyone wants I can post pictures of all the issues I have mentined in this posting. Let me know..

 

[Jim H.]

sent pm and info on your other post.

 

[ADVA]

I have burnt 38 bags of TC pellets. They have formed alot of clinkers in my Breckwell P23 freestanding stove. I have never had a problem with any other pellet. The issues I am having with these pellets are the following;
- Glass soots up extremely quickly
- Odd odor when burnt
- Clinkers galore
- Pellets will not burn completely
- Very High ash content
- lazy flame
Prior to the heating season I cleaned the entrie interior combution chamber. Since I started burning these pellets I have had to re clean everything as well as checke the air intake hose, adjusted the low feed rate setting (currently set on the lowest setting), added air flow, took away air flow and nothing has worked. The pellets are still burning dirty and messy. When I say messy that within 10 minutes the glass soots up and within an hour the entrie glass is black.

I have contacted Mike Zanetti at [email protected] and they seemed committed to helping me at first. Mike has mentioned that I may have gotten a "bad batch". After trying to contact him numerous times he has yet to re-contact me. Obviously, they are not standing behind their product!

So I had cleaned the stove again prior to a baby sitter coming over last night (12/4/10) so that my wife and I could go out. We left at 8:30 pm and were back by 11:30. They stove had shut off due to clinker overload and the pellets "fusing together". I cleaned out the clinkers, turned the stove on and went back to bed. The stove again was shut down by morning. I again cleaned the clinkers, and the combution chambers. I noticed that two of the chambers were full of ash (the ones on the side of the stove). I mean they were completely clogged . I re-cleaned them and restarted the stove. The stove shut down and the number 2 light flashed. Looking up the online manual for Breckwell I saw that the #2 light indicated an air flow problem. I took apart the venting (less than 3 months after cleaning the vent pipe) and there was a considerable amount of ash build up. The ashes were large (not fine) and the arrester screen was almost completely blocked.

Next, I had a friend drop off two bags of Energex pellets on 12/5/10. I re-started the stove and the flame is crisp, the glass is not sooting up and everything appears "normal" with the stoves operation. The stove has been burning the Energex pellets for 5 hours and it is great. I am going to shut down the stove, re-clean the glass and try the TC pellets one last time!

NOW, on december 17th I have still had numerous problems with the Tree Cycle LLC pellets. I again had to clean the vent pipe (twice within 12 days!) in which I measured 8 ounces of ash to come out of it. The pipe is maximum 9 feet in length with a 2 foot horizontal run. I attempted to contact Mike Zanetti again and he has not called be back nor has he emailed me. The tree cycle pellets are junk and a waste of time. I brought the remaining 62 bags that I owned back to the distributor and got other pellets that are burning fine. So it is obviously not the stove or any of its components! Shame on tree cycle for not standing behind their product.


If anyone wants I can post pictures of all the issues I have mentioned in this posting. Let me know..

Sorry to hear your having so much trouble.
How old are the pellets? Are they the tan or green bags & what is the date on them?
Where were they stored & have they gotten very damp?

I have had that problem once pellets get damp/logged.
Not soaked just really absorbed full of moisture.
Which could be from the distributor if they were not stored correctly.

I wish I could get my hands on some bags of those bad pellets.

I have bought a trailer load of 22 tons & now sell them.
All the ones I have are incredible!
Very very fine ash like baby powder.
Not one piece of anything abrasive to the touch even.

Best to you...

 

[Emta17]

I took possession of the pellets in Late September. The bags were tan with green writing. The only bag that I have kept has a date of 6/10. I stored them in my dry unfinished side of my basement. It is extremely dry due to the pellet stove being on the finished side. Normally about 70 degrees on the unfinished side. I got them from Pellets Direct LLC in Uxbridge, MA. They have all 62 bags. The gentlemen that took them has a Breckwell stove and was going to try them in his stove. He couldn't believe the issues I was having. PM me if you are from the area and I can give you the name of the people whom I dealt with today who took back these pellets. I believe the Uxbridge distributor stores them outside as I saw a trailer load of them in the open air along with all their other pellets. They did not appear to be water logged or moisture rich to the eye or to the touch. I still have 1 bag left (FYI).

 

[ADVA]

I took possession of the pellets in Late September. The bags were tan with green writing. The only bag that I have kept has a date of 6/10. I stored them in my dry unfinished side of my basement. It is extremely dry due to the pellet stove being on the finished side. Normally about 70 degrees on the unfinished side. I got them from Pellets Direct LLC in Uxbridge, MA. They have all 62 bags. The gentlemen that took them has a Breckwell stove and was going to try them in his stove. He couldn't believe the issues I was having. PM me if you are from the area and I can give you the name of the people whom I dealt with today who took back these pellets. I believe the Uxbridge distributor stores them outside as I saw a trailer load of them in the open air along with all their other pellets. They did not appear to be water logged or moisture rich to the eye or to the touch. I still have 1 bag left (FYI).

Thanks for the info.
I will PM you.

Your storage had nothing to do with it.

It's very hard to tell if they got moisture laden from the distributor.
I had some outside under a not so good tarp all summer.
The bags on the top had similar issues.

But yours were horrible.
I don't know of anyone that burnt even the old green/black/white bags
that were that bad.

I will get back to you by weeks end.

 

[twojrts]

moved this post to a more current thread regarding the Tree Cycles.

Sorry, guys.

 

[fidiro]

I have only burned about 6 bags so far but it seemed that the first couple bags left less ash and left glass cleaner. I did the ash test on Third bag of this season and it came over the 20oz mark in volume. I am waiting for a colder spell for me to run a bag in less than two days so that I can collect the ash again to see if I get less ash running on Medium instead of the low setting with many startups. I weighed in a few bags and they have been about 40.5 - 41 lbs so far.

If I had to choose this pellet based on this amount of ash I would skip it but it produces plenty of heat on low and medium setting on my stove. I have had a couple quarter sized clinkers in corner of burn pot, but come apart with a push of my finger.

I am still very happy with their performance for my needs but would like to see the glass cleaner longer. I guess I need to tinker with the air some more.

When glass gets black does it need more air or less? I concentrate more on keeping the wood stove going 24/7 so it doesn't bother me too much seeing the dirty glass.

I am going to run a few bags of greenteam in the coming weeks to see if I get similar results.

 

[Emta17]

If your glass is sooting up quickly you need to open your air damper and add more air.

 

[fidiro]

If your glass is sooting up quickly you need to open your air damper and add more air.

Thanks, I'll pull it open about a 1/4" more to see what happens.

Will less air also cause the ash to be of greater volume?

 

[Jim H.]

Just a heads up, I heard from Mike. He is down for the holidays and will be back in January sometime. I thought you should know since you had not gotten a response back.....

Jim