When are cheap pellets worth it?

Just IMHO
If you have a stove that is not fussy on what pellets it burns them you can save money! Running the basement stove 24/7 and the garage/workshop and shed when needed.
Last year we burned Green Supremes for $220 per ton without an issue in our P61s and little Quadrafire.
Gave the basement stove a good cleaning once per month when the ash pan was full.

TimfromMA said:

That's really a subjective thing. How many more of these cheaper pellets do you have to burn to keep as warm as you would with a higher end pellet? Are you prepared to have to clean your stove more often? You may have to run your stove higher for the same heat output which means slightly more electric use and filling the hopper more frequently.

You will never truly know unless you try them and weigh the cost vs benefit. Everyone's preferences are different.

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Haven't compared infernos but typically the cheaper pellets are still less d than all high price pellets when comparing BTUs/$.

briansol said:

IMo, it's never worth it.

Unless you have a huge ash pan, you end up with a lot of down time for cleaning. I can usually go 2 weeks with good stuff. With cheap stuff, 2 days and i'm overlfowing ash back into the burn pot.

That means 2 hours of stove off, waiting for cool down, house getting cold, oil pig kicking on, and then another 2 or 3 hours of getting the house back up to temp... every 2 days!

No thanks. not worth $40 to me.

I bill myself at $100 /hr :D

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I can go over a month with the worst pellets I have burned before I am close to filling the ash pan. One of the many reasons why I bought the stove I did.

mepellet said:

I can go over a month with the worst pellets I have burned before I am close to filling the ash pan. One of the many reasons why I bought the drive I did.

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You must have an ash pan the size of a dump truck.

Don2222 said:

Just IMHO
If you have a stove that is not fussy on what pellets it burns them you can save money! Running the basement stove 24/7 and the garage/workshop and shed when needed.
Last year we burned Green Supremes for $220 per ton without an issue in our P61s and little Quadrafire.
Gave the basement stove a good cleaning once per month when the ash pan was full.

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Sure you get the "good" GS up there in NH, down south here in Ct we get the NY garbage!!, go look at your bag real close NH GS have a code stamped in the top of the bag in the left corner, have to look real close, NY has there's stamped on the back

My Lowes here in Mass has Green Supremes. So if they are the ones from New Hampshire they are a decent pellet?

I bought two tons of OHP's for 145.00 a ton last year for the 'deal' knowing my quad does not like them. I cleaned daily and had to keep scraping the burn pot and had to remove the plates weekly to keep it running decent. With decent softwood pellets I could get a ton of pellets through before getting as dirty as these would in a week and only need to keep the burn pot cleaned out. Others that purchased other tons of the same truck were pleased with the deal while I was hating life. With the amount of heat lost through a poorly burning stove I would have been money and btu ahead to pay 200 a ton for decent soft woods. I ran 3 bags of softwoods through at the end of the season and it cleaned a ton of the residue out for a easy end of year cleaning.

The two worst pellets I bought were about $290 a ton. Clumps of crap left around. I ended up mixing them with the Maines Choice I bought for about $180 a ton. After those two experiences I don't think I will ever buy a "Super Premium Pellet". Once bitten twice shy...

I dont buy the BTU crap on the bag it came out to 9000btu/lb exactly when it got tested just amazing!!

moey said:

The two worst pellets I bought were about $290 a ton. Clumps of crap left around. I ended up mixing them with the Maines Choice I bought for about $180 a ton. After those two experiences I don't think I will ever buy a "Super Premium Pellet". Once bitten twice shy...

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VERY similar experience here as well. I'll stock to the lower price pellets and save more money and frustration at the same time!

TimfromMA said:

You must have an ash pan the size of a dump truck.

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Harman P Series ash Pans can get many MPG before having to be emptied..

My ash pan is approximately 4" x 8" x 12"

TimfromMA said:

My ash pan is approximately 4" x 8" x 12"

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8" W.. 12" L 10" depth.

Tonyray said:

8" W.. 12" L 10" depth.

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2.5 times the size of mine. No wonder I have to clean mine alot more frequently.

Tonyray said:

Harman P Series ash Pans can get many MPG before having to be emptied..

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Need to throw a dollar bill in the bottom so they can have something to scale off. Just my 2 bits

Bioburner said:

Need to throw a dollar bill in the bottom so they can have something to scale off. Just my 2 bitsView attachment 136410

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Good Idea......

Even burning high end pellets, I need to empty my about every 10 bags or so.

The classic bay has a pan about about 5*10*20. But its sealed and you can fill up the sides before having any type of interference probably two spaces 10*10*10. Ive gone probably 30 bags before and I could have gone more. So 3000 in^3 of space maybe more. After a while you start to get bored and feel obligated to clean it out.

I would imagine that the burn pot area would need to be cleaned more often than the ash pan needs to be emptied. Might as well empty it too while the stove is off.

moey said:

The classic bay has a pan about about 5*10*20. But its sealed and you can fill up the sides before having any type of interference probably two spaces 10*10*10. Ive gone probably 30 bags before and I could have gone more. So 3000 in^3 of space maybe more. After a while you start to get bored and feel obligated to clean it out.

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WOW! I would be ashamed to display my Harman accentra insert pan after seeing those, ilooks like I sacrificed both pellet hopper , and ash pan volume at least it purdy i guess lol

PELLETCONVERT said:

WOW! I would be ashamed to display my Harman accentra insert pan after seeing those, ilooks like I sacrificed both pellet hopper , and ash pan volume at least it purdy i guess lol

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The deal with having a Xtra Large Ash pan is that there is not a dire need to pay Big Bucks for Premo Low ash pellets..
Big Bucks to me is North of 275.00 and up.. That said,
Cheap pellets and Cheap priced pellets are not all equal..
I can Burn HD Stove chows [229.00 ton] which produce more than enough heat but also more than I like Ash ...
With a Big ash Pan I could go quite a long time without emptying it but it also does not gunk up the stove with clinkers or Sticky Residue as [Some other Un-named pellets from HD/Lowes.]

Cheap quality/priced pellets on the Other hand can give even a Harman P series headaches and Gunk up the works so the Lower priced pellets in some cases is not worth it but also doesn't mean I have to jump to 300.00 ton low ash brands to provide heat.
Harman manual sez you can burn 1 ton of pellets before u have to empty a P series stove.
prob using Super low ash pellets I would imagine but spending 50-75 bucks or more a ton just for going that long before emptying to me isn't worth the extra cost..

I ran some GS and green team plats from lowes, burned no problem an my ash pan didnt seem to mind. I only noticed the heat coming from the convection blower was not as hot compared to the Orfords, which were 65$ more per ton.

This year we cut back the orfords to 2 tons and i'm going to buy another 2 tons from lowes, saving 140$. My house is very old and drafty, so the stove runs 24/7. as far as the box stuff being more work for the misses and I, not so much. Each morning before i leave for work, I pull the cleaning rod and we always vacuum each weekend regardless of build up (takes all over 5-10 min, so why not)

2 years ago burned Indeck pellets and had to empty the bin at about 30 bags. Found better equally priced pellet last season and could go a ton or so before emptying. Went to corn latter in season and that's another thing as corn likes to keep is form after burning, but with it now under $120/ton I won't care if I have to change a bin every week.

Bioburner said:

but with it now under $120/ton I won't care if I have to change a bin every week.

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Sigh*.......................


I could only dream of such a thing..............Stupid Massachusetts

Pellet-King said:

Sure you get the "good" GS up there in NH, down south here in Ct we get the NY garbage!!, go look at your bag real close NH GS have a code stamped in the top of the bag in the left corner, have to look real close, NY has there's stamped on the back

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I went to my Lowes in Abington, Ma. The guy at the pro desk said that the truck comes from New York. I don't know if I was looking at the right thing or not but in the top left hand corner of the bag there was
a small stamp in green stamp that said Ma and had a date. Could they possibly be from New Hampshire. I remember reading a post on here in the past that said you can tell something from the barcode also.