hardwood, softwood blend vs hardwood

Ive been testing the Fireside Ultra / Energex , which is a mix , maybe 80/20 and have been finding my 25EP likes and burns them well , keeps my 1700 square ft. house plenty warm. Am trying the LG granules now , 100% soft , cuz im a scepitical New Englander and wants to find out for himself.

erzeez77 said:

Living in a small town I dont have much options. Im heading to the city where I can buy Canawick hardwood for 5.99$a bag which is about 2$ less then what I pay at home. That being said I should probably load my truck to the max weight this weekend and hope these cheaper pellets are decent.

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Trebio are not a bad option and seemed to be carried by Wal-Mart. I got a ton of Sure-Fire from the Kenora Home Hardware (not carried at local one). Getting LaCrete's from the North American Lumber Store. Try Crappy Tire too - Firemaster, Trebio and Cannawick at the local one. Haven't tried the Cannawick yet...

Chrisnow86 said:

I think the blend works well I can imagine cause it best of both worlds.. Plus it's all about the quality too

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Some blends are better than others - depends on percentage and types of wood used...

Tonyray said:

Speaking of Energex,
I will get to try the Energex Golden Premiums this winter..0,5 ash.... we'll see...
Bought 2 tons here in May on a early buy from my dealer...

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Tony - Please do let us know how the two Energex differ, and if you like both. I hope to burn them next year, from PA Pellet Guy. He was having supply issues earlier in the year so I stocked up on Presto and Hamer's. But his service and prices are good, so I plan to stock up in the summer next year on Energex, largely because they're produced in PA and thus minimize transport. Thanks!

I have an older model Englander. It's a 25 PDVC. I've found that it does prefer I feed it soft wood pellets. I get less build up in the burn pot when I burn softies. If I burn hard woods I have to scrap the ash out twice a day. Lately I've been mixing hard wood and soft wood pellets together as close to a 50-50 mix in a bucket. I get a lot more heat for some reason and only have to scrap out the pot once a day.

Think ill try that , got a ton of FSU and a ton of LG granuels , we will go 50 50 and see also got a ton of Vermont wood pellets coming along with a ton of Maine Wood pellets , wonder how they will mix ?

Wilbur Feral said:

Tony - Please do let us know how the two Energex differ, and if you like both. I hope to burn them next year, from PA Pellet Guy. He was having supply issues earlier in the year so I stocked up on Presto and Hamer's. But his service and prices are good, so I plan to stock up in the summer next year on Energex, largely because they're produced in PA and thus minimize transport. Thanks!

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will do....

Jackfire said:

Think ill try that , got a ton of FSU and a ton of LG granuels , we will go 50 50 and see also got a ton of Vermont wood pellets coming along with a ton of Maine Wood pellets , wonder how they will mix ?

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Or save the hotter ones for the dead of winter...

Which do u consider HOTTER

Jackfire said:

Which do u consider HOTTER

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Can't get either where I live. Try checking reviews on the forum or here: http://www.woodpelletreviews.com/

Edit:

LG Granules:
Variety of black spruce and Jack pine
LG Super Premium
Calorific value > 8700 BTU/lb, 5.61 kWh/kg
Average humidity < 4.5%
Ash < 0.4%
Bag or bulk

LG Premium
Calorific value 8500 BTU/lb, 5.48 kWh/kg
Average humidity < 7%
Ash < 0.6%
Bag or bulk

Are Fireside Ultras a product of Energex, Quebec?

Lake Girl said:

Are Fireside Ultras a product of Energex, Quebec?

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I don't know, some say yes to that though. I do know that I burned 5 bags of FSU last year as a test and survived it. I didn't catch the same hype some folks seem to get from them. They were messy and did not produce the heat of the PA Energex, IMO. Nor of TSC's own brand name pellets. They heated my house, I would take them in a pinch. But with the P61 you can tell a good hot pellet because the stove radiates heat more with hot pellets vs lower BTU Pellets, Harman or not. Even my wife noticed that, she was camped out next to the stove most of last winter with a broken rib. With the FSU, she said lets not buy these again. Ya they burned, they got the house up to 73 same as hot pellets but you did not feel the same radiating heat from the stove. Just my experience with them.

This year I have a ton of the PA Hardwood Energex which are 8600 btu. I haven't started burning those yet, I haven't even unwrapped them and have had them about a month now. I'm just burning up loose bags of this and that pellet for now, trying to get through till we need heat full time. And then after the Energex are gone we/ I have two tons of Okie DF at the dealer with our name on them stored under cover..

In past years when I burned half hardwood and half softwood, I noticed the automatic start takes longer with hardwood on my Harman stove.

Currently I need a new starting coil. Since I am too cheap to spend the $100 to get a new starter, I have been using a torch to start my stove.

Our Ecoteck Elena takes longer to ignite hardwoods and we prefer to use softwood blend in it as the ash blows out of the pot better and that keeps the periods between cleaning longer. Can't tell if it takes longer to light in the PC45 as it has a pressure ignition system made to light corn too.

Lake Girl said:

Trebio are not a bad option and seemed to be carried by Wal-Mart. I got a ton of Sure-Fire from the Kenora Home Hardware (not carried at local one). Getting LaCrete's from the North American Lumber Store. Try Crappy Tire too - Firemaster, Trebio and Cannawick at the local one. Haven't tried the Cannawick yet...

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I bought a dozen bags of Cannawick from crappy tire to try them out. The hardwoods. They seem to do the trick to keep the house warm at the moment.

erzeez77 said:

I bought a dozen bags of Cannawick from crappy tire to try them out. The hardwoods. They seem to do the trick to keep the house warm at the moment.

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Hardwoods will always take longer to Ignite than Softwood...
have read that a Bag of softwoods will not last as long as bag of Hardwoods but having never used them, I can't say.

erzeez77 said:

I bought a dozen bags of Cannawick from crappy tire to try them out. The hardwoods. They seem to do the trick to keep the house warm at the moment.

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Might want to plan on the LaCretes and Pinnacles for the middle of winter file:///C:/Users/Acer/Downloads/Wood%20Pellet%20Testing%202012.pdf

Some of the US brands tested are not available in Canada: http://woodpellets4me.com/pdf/2011-2012-PelletReview.pdf

Edit: LaCrete rating 8730 btu

Cannawick rating from their website is 8000 btu

Soft do light quicker. Some soft do burn faster as well. Heat output is debatable, again some soft do burn hotter and some not so hot. There are some crappy soft pellets out there too. A decent hardwood pellet should burn in the upper 8000 btu range, around 8600 or 8700 BTU and I have found they burn with a lower flame height than softies do, in general.. In my experience a hopper full of Energex Hardwood out lasted a hopper full of LG softwood.

Hardwood pellets in my experience do tend to produce a little darker ash and perhaps a bit more of it or heavier anyway.

That said, I've found Spruce Pointe pellets to burn hot and fairly long and spruce is relatively soft compared with oak or maple. Spruce Pointes are rated at 8700 BTU. Douglas Fur is probably the hottest of them all, Okanagan claiming 9200 btu on the bags I had last year of DF from them.. They burn hot, light easy, produce next to no ash and burn reasonably long. But around here they are costly. I have found nothing yet that matches them though.

Right now I'm burning Tractor Supply Blends, they burn hot and dirty my stoves glass sooner than many other pellets, reasonable ash. Hotter than PureFire in my experience, noticeably hotter too. PureFire though produce less ash, less smoke on start up and less glass staining. Non of this matters in shoulder season but it might in the cold of winter. An easy starting pellet is an asset during shoulder season as I run my P61a ( Room Temp Auto) but that doesn't stop me from burning any pellet I grab !

Tractor Supply and other "store" brands can be from some pretty good manufacturers ... UPC codes are usually the way to track them ... see the sticky on UPC at the home page of pellet mill or enter the UPC code in the search box to see if its already been identified.

Lake Girl said:

Might want to plan on the LaCretes and Pinnacles for the middle of winter file:///C:/Users/Acer/Downloads/Wood%20Pellet%20Testing%202012.pdf

Some of the US brands tested are not available in Canada: http://woodpellets4me.com/pdf/2011-2012-PelletReview.pdf

Edit: LaCrete rating 8730 btu

Cannawick rating from their website is 8000 btu

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I had my suspicions about the cannawick not throwing the heat like the Lacretes and Pinnacles.

Lake Girl said:

Tractor Supply and other "store" brands can be from some pretty good manufacturers ... UPC codes are usually the way to track them ... see the sticky on UPC at the home page of pellet mill or enter the UPC code in the search box to see if its already been identified.

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The Tractor Supply brand in stock locally right now were produced by Maine Woods and tehy burn hot. The said they have no idea what will come in next. I bought PureFire there recently as well. And they also have Natures Own in stock, which they are perfectly welcome to keep Natures Own.. I told the girl that's the only pellet I ever returned to a store.

Alt, what do you think of those Pure Fires? I bought a couple bags to try but haven't thrown them in the hopper yet. There was a sign hanging over the pallet explaining the benefits of burning softwood pellets As for categorizing pellets by hard, soft, and blend I don't think it's that cut and dry. I have burned both excellent and terrible pellets from each of those categories. It really depends on overall quality, the stove they are burned in, and of course - your perception of what's good and bad. You have to test, test, test to see what you will like. I will say that in general, I prefer softwoods, because I tend to have the best experience with them, however this year I picked up a few bags of Hardwood Heats at TSC and so far they are the hands-down winner for both heat and ash output.

I thought the PureFires were a decent pellet, they light easy, not too ashy. I have burned hotter running pellets in my stove but that doesn't matter this time of year. Although I see we have some colder weather headed our way. I'm running TSC pellets now, then on to Energex Hardwood (8600 btu) probably by Thanksgiving.
TSC pellets to me burn hotter than PureFire but more dirty. They produce the infamous Harman burn pot speed bump rather quickly compared to PureFire which was cleaner.