Blending pellets

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.
yrock87

yrock87

Member
Aug 26, 2014
165
Fairbanks, AK
Has anyone blended poor quality pellets with decent stuff? I am experimenting right now and so far the blending has resulted in much less ash and a cleaner pot than just the ashy stuff (no big surprise there) bit UT also helps to clean the pot. A day after I started blending a bunch of carbon that had built up over a week had broke loose on its own.

I'm gonna try this for a week to see of the lower ash is a result of simply burning less of the ash producing pellets, or if the higher quality pellets are generating a more complete burn, therefore burning off some of the lower grade ash and reducing the total ash accumulated.

My high ash pellets force me to do a deep clean weekly. Even if after a week of this experiment I decide that blending isn't worth it, I think k I may toss a bag of DF in the day before I clean as that at least seems to help pre clean the stove so that I don't have to scrape as much.
 
Blending is one way to do it. Or burn the crappy pellets on warmer days and save the better ones for the real cold days. I've never heard of a pellet that helps to pre-clean your stove, but if one exists, I am ALL for it. :)
 
The Currans this year are crap and I get a ton of ash I have to clear out of the pot twice a day (very abnormal). They do put out heat fine, just very dirty burning. I have started blending them with Maine's Choice 100% hardwood pellets (from which I get very little ash out of) , which results in just a medium ashiness.
 
I bought some pellets, made by a small local concern, the first year I had my pellet stoves. I tried a few bags and for what I knew they burned OK. Well I bought 4 more tons. What a mistake. Their quality control was just terrible. Some bags were ok and others were just plain trash. They wouldn't burn in my Mt Vernon unless I had the speed set on 3 out of 4. Some bags had 2 quarts of fines and were very long like 3-4 inches. They were just crap pellets. They never should of been sold. I had built a slide to get them into my basement and when I contacted the company about the problems they said they would take them back, but not haul them out of the basement. That killed my returning them even though in retrospect they had to be hauled upstairs to be burned.

Pellets were and are very hard to find around here. I was able to get some Juninatas and one other brand that burned much better by themselves. It took me 2 years to get through the crap pellets by mixing them. The bad pellets had to be sifted there were so many fines so I made a big sifting screen and ended up sifting all my pellets for 2 years. I sifted and mixed them at the same time and brought them up from the basement in 5 gallon pails. Yep, a royal PIA.

I am now burning Chows and if I get a tablespoon of fines out of a bag that's a lot. I very much like the Chows but would love to try some softies just to see what they are like.
 
"pre cleaning" may have been too strong a word. but my ashy pellets create a hard carbon on the side of thr burn pot. usually i just have to go at it with the scraper for 5-10 mintues to get it all off. when i tossed in the bag of Blazer DF blend the day prior I woke up to several chunks of carbon the size of dimes that had been pushed to the edge of the burnpot and 90% of the rest litterally slide right off the pot too! I know that DF burns hotter than some other woods so maybe that extra heat helps to break up the carbon?

my ashy pellets produce okay heat, i mean with the ESP it is hard to tell, the point is that they keep my house warm! they are just horribly ashy! the worst part is that they only cost $10 a ton less than the Blazers I bought. and I got 4 tons of each!!! well, two tons into the ashy crap, only two more tons too go. I kinda want to finish these up so long as they heat my house just so that when i switch to Blazers full time i dont ever have to look back.

i will keep you updated on the blending experiment. the biggest downside i see in doing it this way is that will extend my ashy pellet supply...
 
I have ashy FSUs and Blazers in my stockpile. What I've chosen to do is burn Blazers during the week, lack of headaches, and I run the stove on low much of the time; then FSUs on the weekend, when I can monitor the burn, and generally run the stove hotter. Sunday night, I do a thorough clean. By doing it that way, if the ashy FSUs are causing me trouble, I can take care of it pretty quickly. I suppose I can try blending.
 
Interesting, my FSU's aren't very ashy. Strange how pellets burn differently for different people / stoves
 
I guess I look at it a different way.
I never thought mixing good stuff with bad, made the bad better.
I think it makes your good stuff worse........

Use up the crap by itself, and get your monies worth out of your good stuff and enjoy it..

Dan
 
  • Like
Reactions: Augmister
Pete Zahria said:
I guess I look at it a different way.
I never thought mixing good stuff with bad, made the bad better.
I think it makes your good stuff worse........

Use up the crap by itself, and get your monies worth out of your good stuff and enjoy it..

Dan
Click to expand...

You can't paint over rust so blending pellets is, what George Carlin would say, "making bad scheisse less bad." Don't buy crap pellets! Read these posts and learn from the experience of others. There was a shortage the end of last year which carried into this year. Always try a few pellets BEFORE you load up the tons. So now you know pellets are in short supply, what is your plan to add pellets to your stash? Hitting the box stores, dialing for pellets? Lining up a spring buy with a pellet house? Finding like minded pellet pigs on this site, who live in your own Geo's and working in teams to hunt the good stuff down? This year? Next year? 2016?
 
Last edited:
Wow, just wow.
 
bogieb said:
Interesting, my FSU's aren't very ashy. Strange how pellets burn differently for different people / stoves
Click to expand...
Actually, it's all relative. Everything is ashy next to DF Blazers!
 
  • Like
Reactions: bogieb
Augmister said:
You can't paint over rust so blending pellets is, what George Carlin would say, "making bad scheisse less bad." Don't buy crap pellets! Read these posts and learn from the experience of others. There was a shortage the end of last year which carried into this year. Always try a few pellets BEFORE you load up the tons. So now you know pellets are in short supply, what is your plan to add pellets to your stash? Hitting the box stores, dialing for pellets? Lining up a spring buy with a pellet house? Finding like minded pellet pigs on this site, who live in your own Geo's and working in teams to hunt the good stuff down? This year? Next year? 2016?
Click to expand...
I understand your point 100%. This summer I moved into my house, I bought my pellet stove in September and when I went to go purchase pellets they told me 2-3 months wait.! So I went next door , bought a few tons of the only other available pellet on the area to get me through January just in case. Well, 2-3 months turned into one month.

I overdid it with buying 4 tons, but sampling a few wasn't really an option either. And with our winters I didn't want to go from September until December (the quoted wait) without pellets. Next year I will be purchasing only the blazers if they are available, which we also won't know until after they start to arrive.
 
when i had found some bad pellets last year when i first bought my stove i ended up empty they hopper they were so bad. luckily i only bought three bags i was going to though them into dads outdoor wood stove and let that thing eat them up, but then i tried blending them together i only did a few handful's at a time did not change the good one and got rid of the bad took awhile to get ride of them.
 
I spent some of the fall mixing hardwood into my softwoods to get rid of them at roughly 2:1 ratio. They're gone so I'm happy;lol
 
Bkins said:
I bought some pellets, made by a small local concern, the first year I had my pellet stoves. I tried a few bags and for what I knew they burned OK. Well I bought 4 more tons. What a mistake. Their quality control was just terrible. Some bags were ok and others were just plain trash. They wouldn't burn in my Mt Vernon unless I had the speed set on 3 out of 4. Some bags had 2 quarts of fines and were very long like 3-4 inches. They were just crap pellets. They never should of been sold. I had built a slide to get them into my basement and when I contacted the company about the problems they said they would take them back, but not haul them out of the basement. That killed my returning them even though in retrospect they had to be hauled upstairs to be burned.

Pellets were and are very hard to find around here. I was able to get some Juninatas and one other brand that burned much better by themselves. It took me 2 years to get through the crap pellets by mixing them. The bad pellets had to be sifted there were so many fines so I made a big sifting screen and ended up sifting all my pellets for 2 years. I sifted and mixed them at the same time and brought them up from the basement in 5 gallon pails. Yep, a royal PIA.

I am now burning Chows and if I get a tablespoon of fines out of a bag that's a lot. I very much like the Chows but would love to try some softies just to see what they are like.
Click to expand...
Chows are the best that HD sells,[unless they slip up and sell the Awsome Douglas Fir Blazers for the same price like they have done past couple weeks]. 5 Tons in my basement and I still picked up 30 some bags of Blazers afte trying 2 bags of Blazers.
that said Chows are "Ash City" but produce excellent heat.....
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

W
Haman Pellet Stove ash not dropping into ash tray
Replies
5
Views
738
The Pellet Mill - Pellet and Multifuel Stoves
WestchesterPellet
W
A
Ravelli Roma switch from softwood pellets to softwood/hardwood blend
Replies
3
Views
2K
The Pellet Mill - Pellet and Multifuel Stoves
SwineFlue
SwineFlue
Ranckie
Harmon Insert Not Burning Correctly
Replies
2
Views
561
The Pellet Mill - Pellet and Multifuel Stoves
Ranckie
Ranckie
B
Green Supreme pellets
Replies
10
Views
969
The Pellet Mill - Pellet and Multifuel Stoves
bogieb
bogieb
D
Clinkers in pellet stove
Replies
2
Views
382
The Pellet Mill - Pellet and Multifuel Stoves
thewoodlands
thewoodlands
Top Bottom
Back