Anyone try out the new pellet brand at TSC..........

I'm trying everything I can in the area. A few bags of this and that. At TSC I bought six bags of what they had yesterday, pine equine pellets. I'll use the other five bags for the horses, what a waste. It was the forth of July, with the settings for LG's. They charged $6.00 a bag, obviously not a dense softwood pellet.

I just bought 20 bags of natures choice @ tsc

i liked em a lot.the burned real hot and clean in both my harman advance and vf55..i know fellow member alternative heat is a big fan also.my tsc has em right now but not stored well and a lot of damaged pallets.im down to about 35 bags of somersets which will finish out the season for me.if tsc gets in a fresh load of these then i may snap up 2 ton.

MCPO said:

I bought 4.5 tons of LG`s last year believing softwood pellets might just be better than anything I`ve burned before . Unfortunately they were nothing special. They are ok but not any better than the Lignetics that i burned the year before.
I just buy my years supply , always in the spring and burn em , good or bad. They all produce heat . I find that the difference in price can often be more than the difference in heat output .

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A few days ago I ordered the Maeders and just picked up the LG's. I had reached the same conclusion. The LG's were $75.00 per ton more delivered. So far they gave me my longest burn per pound, so I'll keep some around for extended burn times. Six tons of Maeders saved me $450.00. I'll clean the stove a few more times with a smile.

Ambient said:

I'm trying everything I can in the area. A few bags of this and that. At TSC I bought six bags of what they had yesterday, pine equine pellets. I'll use the other five bags for the horses, what a waste. It was the forth of July, with the settings for LG's. They charged $6.00 a bag, obviously not a dense softwood pellet.

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I'm confused, you say they are a waste but you say they burn like the 4th of July?? I've found they burn great except for the high amount of fines. But I got them a heck of a lot cheaper than that.

OhioBurner© said:

I'm confused, you say they are a waste but you say they burn like the 4th of July?? I've found they burn great except for the high amount of fines. But I got them a heck of a lot cheaper than that.

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Yes, for the price it's a waste. The fourth of July was a reference to the flying spark show, the combustion settings were on for the LG softwood pellet. The average length of the pellets was 1/4 to 5/16's, so they had a tendency to just fly up; yes there was a mess when all was said and done. If all I had to heat were those, mums the word.

We just got a TSC about 40 miles away so it will be interesting to see what pellet brands they will stock. May go up there this weekend and check it out. Brand will probably depend on locality so will probably end up with Heartland as usual, lol.

stmar said:

We just got a TSC about 40 miles away so it will be interesting to see what pellet brands they will stock. May go up there this weekend and check it out. Brand will probably depend on locality so will probably end up with Heartland as usual, lol.

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Don't forget the horse pellets if they have them in stock. I tried them a couple of times and they burned better and had less ash than some "real" pellets I tried this year. Some folks turn their noses down about them but they come from the same pellet mills that "real" pellets come from, they are softwood and they can't have some of the crap used as binders because of equine allergies.

I have burned a few bags of equine bedding pellets,and I liked them.The price on them jumped a $1.00 a bag,when pellet supplies got low.

I have seen that there are two types of the equine pellets both n the same bag, one is darker than the other and rather than smell of pine they smell like crayons, I have only burned the darker ones and they were jus so so in my agp

TSC have put them on sale at $5.00 a bag. At $5.99 a bag, many say they will by "real" pellets rather than the equine pellets, but the thing is they are the same thing with less additives/binding agents so they don't smell like glue when you open the bag.

TSC does not and does not claim to stock any particular brand . They take what the vendors send them. I've burned several brands from them this year bought in 6-12 bag lots filling in between my stash of pellets.. Each time I go back it's a different brand. The two best I've burned from them is first by far AWF Pure white Pine. Second and still a decent pellet and what they most consistently seem to get in in these parts is, Pure Fire. I'm burning Pure Fire right now @ $5.59 a bag. I would easily take a ton or two of these for shoulder season and beyond for next year but for the really hot burning season of Jan and Feb I'd use these but prefer the AWF WP ( 8600 btu and .25 ash).

I believe next year will be a take what you can get year and no 'a little bit of this and that'. Pellets are going to become more scarce and more costly as the mills export in bulk to the EU.

Makes me wonder how a P61 would make out with rice coal. But I hold out hope, for sure the EU won't be taking all premium pellets. I doubt AWF WP will be exported, I doubt Oakie Gold or DF will be exported. But I certainly hear what you are saying.

Probably not too well. Rice coal needs a push block/carpet feeder arrangement, not an auger to run efficiently. You might be able to mix rice coal and pellets like you mix corn and pellets but you'd have to experiment with it.

SidecarFlip said:

Probably not too well. Rice coal needs a push block/carpet feeder arrangement, not an auger to run efficiently. You might be able to mix rice coal and pellets like you mix corn and pellets but you'd have to experiment with it.

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I was reading over in the coal forums where a guy was burning coal in a P61, he stated before trying it he looked up the specs on the auger system and it was basically the same as the Harman auger system used in the Harman Coal Stoker. He claimed no issues. Feed rate changes etc, dry coal. Coal can get wet and not be damaged but it won't feed well wet apparently.

Someplace else I read where a guys auger melted off burning coal in a Harman but who knows what he was doing for settings.

Someone else suggested a mix as you did.

I believe there is only one manufactured multi fuel (coal and pellet) stove made and thats a Leisure Line and it uses an auger for delivery. All the others use either a pusher block arrangement or a carpet arrangement (including Harman's now seperate coal stoker stoves)(Harman sold off the stoker division btw.)

Burning coal takes much different parameters than burning pellets or corn. Other issues with coal is excessive CO and venting issues unique to coal. You cannot use a pellet vent with coal.

SidecarFlip said:

I believe there is only one manufactured multi fuel (coal and pellet) stove made and thats a Leisure Line and it uses an auger for delivery. All the others use either a pusher block arrangement or a carpet arrangement (including Harman's now seperate coal stoker stoves)(Harman sold off the stoker division btw.)

Burning coal takes much different parameters than burning pellets or corn. Other issues with coal is excessive CO and venting issues unique to coal. You cannot use a pellet vent with coal.

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Well there !

Yes I knew Harman sold off the auger fed coal stokers.

If I'm not mistaken, Harman employed a horizontal feed, not an auger. You'll find that all the auto stokers use the flat feed arrangement, Harman uses a multiple angled flat burn plate, not the flat (no angle) burn plate the pellet units ude.

SidecarFlip said:

I believe there is only one manufactured multi fuel (coal and pellet) stove made and thats a Leisure Line and it uses an auger for delivery. All the others use either a pusher block arrangement or a carpet arrangement (including Harman's now seperate coal stoker stoves)(Harman sold off the stoker division btw.)

Burning coal takes much different parameters than burning pellets or corn. Other issues with coal is excessive CO and venting issues unique to coal. You cannot use a pellet vent with coal.

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I would agree. I burned coal for many years, if your stove could burn coal, I wouldn't consider it. The gases given off carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury need to be fully burned off to be safe. The chemical compounds would tend to cause a degradation of your pellet vent and stove. The heat given off would distort most metal burn pots. Just an opinion

It's ok, there isn't any rice coal around here anyway. If there was I'd have bought a coal stoker when I replaced my 35+ YO coal stove I built and used all those years. Pellets are relatively new to me, coal is not as my signature implies.

Peterfield said:

TSC have put them on sale at $5.00 a bag. At $5.99 a bag, many say they will by "real" pellets rather than the equine pellets, but the thing is they are the same thing with less additives/binding agents so they don't smell like glue when you open the bag.

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I got them on sale for $4.05 / bag. They were the light color ones that pretty much resemble AWF white pines (only softies I've ever had though). If they go on sale for that again, and they are the lighter colored ones, I'll probably buy a few tons for next year.