First impressions LG Granules

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Harvey Schneider

Minister of Fire
Oct 9, 2012
1,321
Southbury, CT
In the past I have burned a variety of hardwood pellets. Most from big box stores and some from the local hardware store. Brands have included Infernos (ugh!), Lignetics and Greene Team.
I decided that this year I would try a softwood pellet brand. So, after looking around and considering both BTU/$ and ash content I decided on the LG Granules. It turns out that the cheapest pellets were the highest BTU/$ but they were also the highest in ash content. So I went middle of the road and hoped for the best.
I bought them from a wood pellet specialty company on the internet. The price for my 5 tons with shipping was not much more than I paid for the big box store brands.
It is too early in the season to really talk about heat content. I'm running the MVAE in manual mode with flame height set at 3 out of 5 (medium flame). As far as I can see the flame is bright, intense and lively.
The pellets arrived with a triple, outer, weather tight, wrap. The pellet bags are transparent so that I can see the content clearly. It was raining the day they were delivered and the outer most layer of plastic was wet, but the pellets inside were fresh and dry. Thats after spending a half day driving through the rain. I was the last stop for this delivery truck that came down from central MA to southern CT
The first thing that I noticed is that there was no dust in the bags. There are some coarse particles that broke off of the pellets, but no dust. This was verified when I poured pellets into the hopper and there was no dust cloud and no pile of dust at the end of the bag.
The other thing that caught my attention is that after two bags of pellets the stove's window has only a light to moderate haze on it. With all of the other pellets that I have burned, after two bags I would have been thinking that I should clean the window (or just not look at it).
Ash on the shelf is also much less than I expected.
I am quite pleased with the LG Granules, so far. I suspect that I will be going back for more next year.
 
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In the past I have burned a variety of hardwood pellets. Most from big box stores and some from the local hardware store. Brands have included Infernos (ugh!), Lignetics and Greene Team.
I decided that this year I would try a softwood pellet brand. So, after looking around and considering both BTU/$ and ash content I decided on the LG Granules. It turns out that the cheapest pellets were the highest BTU/$ but they were also the highest in ash content. So I went middle of the road and hoped for the best.
I bought them from a wood pellet specialty company on the internet. The price for my 5 tons with shipping was not much more than I paid for the big box store brands.
It is too early in the season to really talk about heat content. I'm running the MVAE in manual mode with flame height set at 3 out of 5 (medium flame). As far as I can see the flame is bright, intense and lively.
The pellets arrived with a triple, outer, weather tight, wrap. The pellet bags are transparent so that I can see the content clearly. It was raining the day they were delivered and the outer most layer of plastic was wet, but the pellets inside were fresh and dry. Thats after spending a half day driving through the rain. I was the last stop for this delivery truck that came down from central MA to southern CT
The first thing that I noticed is that there was no dust in the bags. There are some coarse particles that broke off of the pellets, but no dust. This was verified when I poured pellets into the hopper and there was no dust cloud and no pile of dust at the end of the bag.
The other thing that caught my attention is that after two bags of pellets the stove's window has only a light to moderate haze on it. With all of the other pellets that I have burned, after two bags I would have been thinking that I should clean the window (or just not look at it).
Ash on the shelf is also much less than I expected.
I am quite pleased with the LG Granules, so far. I suspect that I will be going back for more next year.
My brother has a MVAE and he's only burned LG for a few years now. I burned a couple tons last year, and still have 7 bags in the basement. My experience is 100% like yours. Triple wrapped pallets. Nice strong clear bags so you can see there's no fines. I posted a pic last season of the pellets freshly poured into my hopper. They were like little pieces of french bread, so clean they looked straight from the factory. And, the ash is a light grey haze on my stove's window. It's as close to having an inexpensive doug fir pellet you'll get around here without some wacky delivery of Blazers to HD.
 
I bought them from a wood pellet specialty company on the internet. The price for my 5 tons with shipping was not much more than I paid for the big box store brands.

Sounds good. Who did you buy from and what was the cost?
 
Sounds good. Who did you buy from and what was the cost?
I bought them at Woodpellets.com. I paid about $305 a ton plus $69 flat rate deliver. Their price has gone up since I placed my order and is now at about $320 per ton.
Delivery charges can vary according to how you want your pellets delivered. Since I have my own pallet jack, I was able to go with their lowest cost delivery.
They normally deliver with 1.5 tons per pallet. I was concerned about my ability to move my pallet jack with that much weight, so they packed it at one ton per pallet at no extra charge.
 
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I burned 4 tons of LGs last season and they were very clean, consistent and put out a lot of heat - I wouldn't hesitate to get another 4 tons this year if I could find them :(
Got mine at Harry's hardware in Cabot...saw several tons at the side of the store couple days ago...
 
I bought them at Woodpellets.com. I paid about $305 a ton plus $69 flat rate deliver. Their price has gone up since I placed my order and is now at about $320 per ton.
Delivery charges can vary according to how you want your pellets delivered. Since I have my own pallet jack, I was able to go with their lowest cost delivery.
They normally deliver with 1.5 tons per pallet. I was concerned about my ability to move my pallet jack with that much weight, so they packed it at one ton per pallet at no extra charge.


Damn that seems high. Paid $275.00/ton
 
I bought them at Woodpellets.com. I paid about $305 a ton plus $69 flat rate deliver. Their price has gone up since I placed my order and is now at about $320 per ton.
Delivery charges can vary according to how you want your pellets delivered. Since I have my own pallet jack, I was able to go with their lowest cost delivery.
They normally deliver with 1.5 tons per pallet. I was concerned about my ability to move my pallet jack with that much weight, so they packed it at one ton per pallet at no extra charge.
Wow! $305 per ton + shipping is high. I`m glad I bought mine in the spring when they were $269 per ton and the $59 delivery charge.
 
$320+ is even higher....
I'd be willing to bet he got more than 1 ton. If he bought 5ton @ $269.00/ton + $59.00 for delivery that's still only $280.80/ton :)
 
My experience with LG was positive last year, I would take them again as a second to La Crete. I feel La Crete burn slightly cleaner yet and that LG burns up a bit faster out of the hopper given similar weather conditions. So I would conclude that I got more heat from the La Crete. LG were not particularly ashy but LaCrete produced less ash in a given time frame since the stove burned less of them.

On another note, Energex Hardwood and Spruce Pointe give heat like LaCrete but more ash than either LaCrete or LG, in my experience. This being a fact that they contain more ash but similar heat ( 8700 BTU for POINTE and 8600 for Energex Hard).

I burned a bunch of different brands last year over a months time and the weather was pretty stable, with single digit nights and upper teen days , NW wind. My conclusion about LG was that I liked them but they burned up more quickly than some other brands. I came to the same conclusion about Okanagan Platinums. Now you guys with tighter houses than me may not notice this at all. But my P61a has it's work cut out for it and it handles it very well, just it burns fuel maybe at a rate a little more robustly than it would in a nice tight highly insulated modern home. We are working on the house, it may may tax the heat source a little less this winter.

By far the worst pellet burned last year and the only pellet I returned was Natures Own. Tons of dirty ash, I didn't want to deal with it and good we only had 15 bags of them. I think we burned three and returned the rest. FSU I found to be better than Natures Own but no where near the class of all the others listed above. I'm burning Pure Fire right now, they seem fine so far but not cold out yet so not a fair test.
 
Good to know. I have 2 tons on order. I paid $320,but it was still the cheapest softwoods I could get.
 
Good to know. I have 2 tons on order. I paid $320,but it was still the cheapest softwoods I could get.
Distance from the point of origin of the pellets and time of the year both affect the price. I placed my order at the beginning of September, so I didn't get the lowest price possible and I doubt that the delivery charge does much more than cover the cost of the driver's time to get here from MA and back.
I don't think that I will ever see them at $269 here in CT, the cost of trucking has to be paid by somebody. That price is on a par with the mediocre and poor pellets at the big box stores.
This year Greene Teams were going for $295/ton so I feel pretty good about getting the LG's at $305.
 
Distance from the point of origin of the pellets and time of the year both affect the price.
I don't think that I will ever see them at $269 here in CT, the cost of trucking has to be paid by somebody.
This year Greene Teams were going for $295/ton so I feel pretty good about getting the LG's at $305.

VERY unlikely we will ever see LG at $269 again, TBH. And where you are in Connecticut, your $305 was good..
We are closer to Canada than you, by quite a bit, they are $295 here, $310 from WP.com.

Dan
 
I would have saved a few dollars on Woodpellet.com, but I already ordered and I like to do business locally.
 
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