I know a lot of people have been asking about these hardwood/softwood blend pellets from Lowes recently. I bought a ton since they were $4 a bag. My St Croix Hastings had been the dirtiest it had ever been since I started to burn these. Black glass often and lots of ash. I was cleaning the stove like crazy and finally employed the leaf blower trick on Sunday afternoon. So this morning (Thursday) around 5AM, my stove was running low on pellets, so I let it run out so the glass would cool and I could wipe the white haze from the glass with a wet paper towel. Well I checked the ash bin and it was completely full. I normally empty it weekly with other pellets and it is less than half full each time. This was full in less than 4 days with only 4 bags of North American Pellets burned. The stove is running perfectly and the flame appearance is identical to that posted in the video on the St. Croix site of a good flame. If you are using these pellets keep an eye on your ash bin more frequently than you usually would so you don't open it up and have a huge overflowing mess one day. Other than the huge amount of ash, I am happy with these pellets as long as I will be using the leaf blower monthly (or sooner).