Made the huge mistake of burning some damp pellets

John Fortier said:

Yet is there a way I can screen them in my basement before I bring them upstairs to cut down on the dust?

Click to expand...

I use one similar to this
cost about 35 bux on ebay, one bag fills about 2 buckets, takes about 5 min a bag and requires a slow pour or, like I do fill it up and shake it a little from side to side

Mine is free, I let the wind do it...out on the deck.

I clean my fines box once a week and most of the fines that end up in the burnpot get burned up..
Not concerned with fines...
Damp pellets? different story.

titanracer said:

Don't know if this was the picture you were looking for or not. I have posted it on here before. This is my setup for cleaning pellets with a shop vac, before burning to remove fines & dust in bags.

Click to expand...

Yes thanks for dropping by that should do it here's the guy to talk to John

I store mine in the heated cellar and if there are leftovers they stay there all summer long with the dehumidifier on 24/7 never have had a problem yet..key word yet!

steveg_nh said:

Wow, what a mess! The last few bags in a ton of Maine's Choice hardwood pellets I had showed signs of being wet. Not sure how they got wet, but they were. Hand fulls of sawdust and exploded pellets. I tried to salvage what I could, but obviously they were all damp. Low temp fire, and just a caked on ash that was a mess to clean. I did a whole strip down of my stove to clean it all, and it was almost like a clay dust...yuck! never again! If I ever see that again in a bag, I don't think I'd burn it.

Is that right, or wrong? Is it usually ok to burn what looks good, or should you junk the whole bag? What do you guys do? Do you have the same result when you burn damp pellets? How the heck does a pallet get wet anyway, when it's got a big ol' plastic bag over it, and then wrapped tightly with the equivalent of plastic wrap...

Click to expand...

You paid good money for a good product. They will replace the bad bags . That outer wrap can leak if water sits on top of the plastic for a length of time. I had to return 10 bags from two pallets of a ton each. I could see water and the bags were swollen and broke when handled. Some were ok but you could feel clumps so no use opening them. I returned the bad ones to Menards and they just asked how many and gave me good ones. When I was unloading them from pickup to where I stack them I can feel if the bags were wet. Those that were wet went back. The bags that hold each 50 lbs have pin holes and moisture can get in through the pin holes.
Most people learn after one time of trying to burn wet saw dust that it doesn't work and it takes a long time to clean the stove. So as I said I pay good money for a good product not garbage. return the bag with the contents to show it was wet and they will make it right with you.

I kept forgetting to clean the fines out of my Harman's feed mechanism and thought that I would definitely clean them prior to this season's first burn. I did and inside the little cover held on by a wing nut (obviously meant to be serviced regularly), the fines had filled the spaces from top to bottom!! I did not notice any change in the feeding of pellets to the burn pot either before or after cleaning. I had never cleaned that area on my Harman and have burned over 27 tons in the boiler. I'll be cleaning it much more often from now on. It only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish.