What's the oddest thing found in your hopper??

[opus74]

I found a blue marble in mine. No one in my house owns marbles.

That's a possibility here, I lost my marbles a while back.......

 

[johnny1720]

well you should have used the 100% fir pellets we had in the past. REAL clean you could go weeks before you had to touch your stove.

We used to get fir/pine pellets they were made by Pinnacle from I think British Columbia, or out that way. These pellets were the best pellets I have ever seen. The first time we burned a bag the heat exchanger started glowing red and we had to turn the feed rate down. They left such little ash it was amazing. We actually had a stove burn for over 30 days, we documented the entire burn. Every day we took photos of the stove and we just dumped more in. The last time I got a bag of them they were not that good.

Johnny

 

[hearthtools]

well you should have used the 100% fir pellets we had in the past. REAL clean you could go weeks before you had to touch your stove.

We used to get fir/pine pellets they were made by Pinnacle from I think British Columbia, or out that way. These pellets were the best pellets I have ever seen. The first time we burned a bag the heat exchanger started glowing red and we had to turn the feed rate down. They left such little ash it was amazing. We actually had a stove burn for over 30 days, we documented the entire burn. Every day we took photos of the stove and we just dumped more in. The last time I got a bag of them they were not that good.

Johnny

I sold 1000's of tons of Pinnacle Fir. they rocked then the fir ran out and they only had pine. then I switched to Surfire. they were OK for the first 800 tons then the jackasses started sending me stuff that came from another mill they contracted out to bag crap pellets into surfire bags without telling me.
At the time I was one of there biggest USA customer.

Yes us west coast burners have been spoiled for a long time with soft wood and fir pellets. now some of you guys back east are seeing the OK stuff but nothing like the fir pellets.

 

[jtakeman]

well you should have used the 100% fir pellets we had in the past. REAL clean you could go weeks before you had to touch your stove.

We used to get fir/pine pellets they were made by Pinnacle from I think British Columbia, or out that way. These pellets were the best pellets I have ever seen. The first time we burned a bag the heat exchanger started glowing red and we had to turn the feed rate down. They left such little ash it was amazing. We actually had a stove burn for over 30 days, we documented the entire burn. Every day we took photos of the stove and we just dumped more in. The last time I got a bag of them they were not that good.

Johnny

I sold 1000's of tons of Pinnacle Fir. they rocked then the fir ran out and they only had pine. then I switched to Surfire. they were OK for the first 800 tons then the jackasses started sending me stuff that came from another mill they contracted out to bag crap pellets into surfire bags without telling me.
At the time I was one of there biggest USA customer.

Yes us west coast burners have been spoiled for a long time with soft wood and fir pellets. now some of you guys back east are seeing the OK stuff but nothing like the fir pellets.

During a pellet shortage in 2001, I got to burn some of the west coast fir pellets. They were carried at Agway stores near me. They had them trucked in because they were selling pellets stove with no pellets available locally. At the time they were expensive, But worth every penny. Sweet burning and SUPER hot. My quad was at the same setup as the local hardwoods burned. Stove overheated within 2hrs and shutdown. This is the reason I use a thermometer today to rate my pellets. The fir pellets were cranking out over 300 °F before the stove would start over heating, While the local hardwoods could barely muster 230 °F. So I had to open the feed grate to try to match the fir's. I LOVED those pellets. I really hope I can get some fir to try in my Omega someday.

 

[jtakeman]

I found two very interesting things:

-A part of a 2x4 about 8 inches long

-We had a batch of pellets that seemed to be blue. We were all laughing about how some Smurfs must have got in the material at the plant. We laughed it off until we found part of a blue counter top in one of the bags. These guys were grinding up counter tops and putting them in the pellets. The piece of blue counter top was triangle shaped and about 5 inches long.


Johnny

sounds like the mill I worked at. the last year it was open we build a hammer mill and was hammering out old pallets and mixing them with good wood and left over grape trays. see it was in the centra california valley were most of the worlds agriculture comes from so there were a lot of pallets and grape trays used to make raisins
but the pellet milled failed because at the time there were not alot of stove that could handle high as fuel and all of the other pellets made on the west coast is Soft wood that is a lot cleaner that hardwood pellets you guys are used to on the east. but now I see BTU is pushing easter pellet and telling you they are the best you ever seen
well you should have used the 100% fir pellets we had in the past. REAL clean you could go weeks before you had to touch your stove.

Yup, back in the day when I had to walk to school at -40 below ...in shorts and short sleeves...what do these kids know today anyways..... ;-)

You can have all the best 100% Fir pellets you want back east as long as buying them for about $340 per ton doesn't bother you. The ONLY reason you can't get fir pellets in NE is the price...there is NO way to get them back there competitively and sell enough quantity to make it worthwhile...Get the Canadian $ back to about 80 cents and then maybe we can address this subject again......

I don't get something. If the Okanagans are from BC and the fir(aka Clean Burn) pellets are also from BC. Why the huge price difference?

 

[jtakeman]

I don't get something. If the Okanagans are from BC and the fir(aka Clean Burn) pellets are also from BC. Why the huge price difference?[/quote]

Clean Burn come from Washington State and ship on a US railroad...more expensive to ship from there and the fir pellets cost more at the mill....nothing but simple math...more cost to buy and more cost to ship equals higher selling price to end consumer.[/quote]

Gotcha, Thanks.

 

[hearthtools]

I found two very interesting things:

-A part of a 2x4 about 8 inches long

-We had a batch of pellets that seemed to be blue. We were all laughing about how some Smurfs must have got in the material at the plant. We laughed it off until we found part of a blue counter top in one of the bags. These guys were grinding up counter tops and putting them in the pellets. The piece of blue counter top was triangle shaped and about 5 inches long.


Johnny

sounds like the mill I worked at. the last year it was open we build a hammer mill and was hammering out old pallets and mixing them with good wood and left over grape trays. see it was in the centra california valley were most of the worlds agriculture comes from so there were a lot of pallets and grape trays used to make raisins
but the pellet milled failed because at the time there were not alot of stove that could handle high as fuel and all of the other pellets made on the west coast is Soft wood that is a lot cleaner that hardwood pellets you guys are used to on the east. but now I see BTU is pushing easter pellet and telling you they are the best you ever seen
well you should have used the 100% fir pellets we had in the past. REAL clean you could go weeks before you had to touch your stove.

Yup, back in the day when I had to walk to school at -40 below ...in shorts and short sleeves...what do these kids know today anyways..... ;-)

You can have all the best 100% Fir pellets you want back east as long as buying them for about $340 per ton doesn't bother you. The ONLY reason you can't get fir pellets in NE is the price...there is NO way to get them back there competitively and sell enough quantity to make it worthwhile...Get the Canadian $ back to about 80 cents and then maybe we can address this subject again......

I don't get something. If the Okanagans are from BC and the fir(aka Clean Burn) pellets are also from BC. Why the huge price difference?

Im sure the soft wood pellet you guys are getting from the companies from Northwest Canada are made of a mixture of
Lodgepole pine and Engelmann Spruce and some white spruce.
There is a shortage of Fir because of the pine Beetles. they are not harvesting as much Fir because of shortage of building and they are trying to cut down as much pine as they can to keep up with the dead pine trees from the Beetles.

 

[johnny1720]

I sold 1000's of tons of Pinnacle Fir. they rocked then the fir ran out and they only had pine. then I switched to Surfire. they were OK for the first 800 tons then the jackasses started sending me stuff that came from another mill they contracted out to bag crap pellets into surfire bags without telling me.
At the time I was one of there biggest USA customer.

Yes us west coast burners have been spoiled for a long time with soft wood and fir pellets. now some of you guys back east are seeing the OK stuff but nothing like the fir pellets.

In 2003 or 2004 I purchased 200 ton of these Pinnacle Fir each year. They came on 1.5 Ton pallets and they were amazing. I think I was paying $280 per 1.5 Ton. However the years have passed and the memory has become fuzzy. The next year they would not sell us any pellets for one reason or another.

I remember when Agway was bagging the Pinnacle's and selling them for cost because they over promised.

I remember selling boatloads of stoves and pellets those years.

Wow I am getting old!


Johnny

 

[dobie daddy]

Lets see. Just loaded the cleanburns in on top of the pennywise. 22 degrees outside 76 degrees inside. Osburn cruising along at setting 4 of the six speeds.