See what I found in one bag of pellets....

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Grove St.

Member
Jan 5, 2013
11
Portage, WI
While unloading a new purchase of Lumberjack pellets yesterday, one bag felt very different than the rest. I opened the bag and discovered a huge amount of fine, dry, powdery sawdust. After screening out the dust I ended up with just 29 lbs of pellets, and a high percentage of those are very small pieces. See the attached picture of all the dust in that one bag. Hopefully it's limited to just this bag. My vendor has offered a replacement and he'll be sending my picture to the factory for their comment. I trust this was a very rare occurrence as over the years I have burned over 24 tons of these same pellets with absolutely no complaints before this. I'll let you know if I hear what the factory says.
 

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Reactions: dradam1
Awesome!
 
I would suggest you send the bag back with a sharpie change to their claimed fine percentage!!!
 
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Reactions: AddictiveStew
Guys this is completely normal. When they make % claims on dust and fines
that is the % of bags that are just dust and fines =P
 
A while back, I found a piece of conveyor belt in a bag. Somehow I saw it before it went into the auger.
 
A few years back my auger quit feeding and of course the hopper was full, so I unloaded it and I found a piece of metal that looked like it was part of the pellet making machinery. I got in touch with the pellet maker and sent it back to them and they said thanks but I did not get a reward. There was no damage, just my time, so no harm no foul.
 
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A few years back my auger quit feeding and of course the hopper was full, so I unloaded it and I found a piece of metal that looked like it was part of the pellet making machinery. I got in touch with the pellet maker and sent it back to them and they said thanks but I did not get a reward. There was no damage, just my time, so no harm no foul.

Got lucky.
 
I burned Lumber Jacks back in 2013/2014 and they had plenty of fines. Seems the QC from pellet manufactures and we have plenty in WI is lacking. From early burn season to late burn season the products do vary. They all claim the same % of ash but once you burn them you see the difference. Raw materials must be all over the board.
 
2 years ago at hd the bottom of the pallet bags like 30% of the bag was like that.it was a mess.
 
Pellets were wet and disintegrated.

Bill
 
It probably was the last bag feeding from their bin and got missed by the operator. Wait till you have to replace a motor because a chunk of steel from the pellet mill gets jammed in there. Been there done that.
 
I heard from the factory general manager: "When we do a product switchover or start up and shutdown the static electricity in the bagger hopper releases any fine dust clinging to the sides of the hopper and we will get a bag or two with a lot of wood dust. We usually are quite good at catching this but must have missed this one."
 
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