Athens Wood Pellets intial review

jen said:

Two places in Waterville, Maine getting Athens pellets next week. After reading about all your thoughts and experiences with these pellets---buy or not? $265/ton.

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We paid $314/ton delivered: $265 is a good price!
If you can, try some first.
Depending on your stove, the ash might not be a huge problem.
They do burn well in our P61. If I let the burn pot go for 2-3 days,
I think the ash would eventually be pushed over the edge by new pellets
fed from the back.

Good Luck!!

Thinking about buying 2 Ton of these. My other question is---are they softwood and do they burn up faster? Right now I am burning hardwood pellets and have my auger feed set to 2 seconds on.
Thanks for the info!

They are 80 hardwood 20% soft.

jen said:

Thinking about buying 2 Ton of these. My other question is---are they softwood and do they burn up faster? Right now I am burning hardwood pellets and have my auger feed set to 2 seconds on.
Thanks for the info!

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We have our feed rate at 4. I am still trying to come up with the best settings.
Because the room it is in is only 12'X12', the stove cycles quite often. (Room temp mode)
We are heating a 24'X32' Cape.
I will have a better idea when it is -10 and the wind blowing!!

jen said:

Two places in Waterville, Maine getting Athens pellets next week. After reading about all your thoughts and experiences with these pellets---buy or not? $265/ton.

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If you have ANY and I mean ANY other pellet available then NO.
If you have a top feeding stove..then NO.

If they are the only pellets you can get then I would make the purchase. However, if you can wait and find anything else then I would wait. These pellets have to many variations per ton and even per bag. Some are good and some are bad. It is clear they do make a ton of ash. I have been dealing with this by mixing the pellets with another brand. I am glad I only have one ton to burn. If I had known about these issues I would have not made the purchase. You may want to purchase a few bags and try them out in your stove. I also know that a member sent an email to Maine Woods regarding concerns about the pellets and is waiting for a response.

fireitup said:

If they are the only pellets you can get then I would make the purchase. However, if you can wait and find anything else then I would wait. These pellets have to many variations per ton and even per bag. Some are good and some are bad. It is clear they do make a ton of ash. I have been dealing with this by mixing the pellets with another brand. I am glad I only have one ton to burn. If I had known about these issues I would have not made the purchase. You may want to purchase a few bags and try them out in your stove. I also know that a member sent an email to Maine Woods regarding concerns about the pellets and is waiting for a response.

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I sent the email and am still waiting.
I'll post their reply as soon as they respond.

Ok, now I have opportunity to buy 2 ton of Corinth Wood Pellets. They claim to be hardwood pellets. Anyone burn these, like these?

I bought my pellets from dysarts, by bulk 1 ton sacks. They told me they were supplied by athens. This would now make sense, since they are extremely small pellets .25" length. This will be the last time I buy bulk without going to dysarts and looking at the pellets before I purchase them.

As far as other sources, in Bangor, Sams seems to be getting regular shipments in, first come first serve basis. My buddy walked in and they just happend to still have a ton that day. Other days you have to wait from 2 a.m., but still worth the try to just pop in and check.

Just found this thread. first time pellet stove owner running a NPI40. I went in with my Dad on enough of these to get us through the winter. I knew there would be some variation between pellet brands but had no idea how much. I though I wasn't using the stove right. After two bags I had rounded up a dust pan with ash and clinkers just from the burn pot and the rest of the stove was a mess. Last night I cleaned the stove and emptied the hopper to fill it with a Canadian brand I had a couple bags of. My Dad started with these and had good luck. He han't burned any of the Athens yet. It burned all night and while the glass is still blacker than I expected there is very little ash in the stove. In in previous night the pot would be almost full of ash. Maybe it wasn't operator trouble after all. We bought so many becuase as others have said they were all that you could get. Should have waited I guess. Expensive lesson learned. Dont know if it is even possible to return them...

We almost purchased Maine Woods pellets yesterday from Home and Hearth in Hampton Falls, NH for $250 ton. After reading this thread I found some NEWP in southern NH for $299 ton. We have good luck with NEWP and like the way they burn with low amounts of ash. For the $50 difference we purchased a better pellet with less mess and what I think is better heat output.

After buying our stove from Home and Hearth they have turned out to be jerks when buying pellets. They will never see a penny of my money again!!

Got 5 tons of Athens delivered in July ,"OINK OINK" . Put my 1st bag in last nite. Set at 64 & at 5 this morning had to jack it up to 70 then at 10 i had to put it 74 , finally at about 11 the house is warm . The pellets are mostly broken pieces . I am so screwed :sick: I have 3 ton in cellar & 2 ton in garage . No way am i gonna be able to bring them all back . When i am up for the day , i like to keep the thermostat at 70 & run on auto & low but i won't be able to the rest of the winter cause of these pellets . Good luck to anyone else out there with these early pellets . Paid $219 a ton plus $30 each ton delivery . $249 each but hell, if they are all chitty pellets then i'm f@#ed. Muss

Just put in another bag of Athens . Was about 50/50 . No jam as of yet .Hopefully i won't have to keep it at medium with this bag to get good ,decent heat. I've been kinda straining 'em in a big collander but it's a major pain as the room gets full of dust ,more so than the other 4 brands i've burnt :shut: Muss

compressedwoodsupplier said:

I have burned pellets for five years and these pellets dont seem any different. Put out a nice heat and im not getting the ash content you all are talking about.. Not sure whats wrong but not sure its the pellets.

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What color are the pellets - real dark or light like the picture on their website?

redbullguy said:

We almost purchased Maine Woods pellets yesterday from Home and Hearth in Hampton Falls, NH for $250 ton. After reading this thread I found some NEWP in southern NH for $299 ton. We have good luck with NEWP and like the way they burn with low amounts of ash. For the $50 difference we purchased a better pellet with less mess and what I think is better heat output.

After buying our stove from Home and Hearth they have turned out to be jerks when buying pellets. They will never see a penny of my money again!!

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Where did you find the NEWP?

East Coast Lumber in Hamstead, NH

I have been using the Athens pellets in my Harmon Stove for about 2 months now. They burn very well and I have not had to clean the glass yet. This is a record for my glass staying clean in the 15 years that I have owned pellet stoves. The ash is slightly more than some and this weekend will be the first time I empty my ash pan. However I don't have any soot on the inside of the stove . I have burned approx 25-30 bags so far. The pellets are shorter than most but I don't have a lot of dust in the bags. In the 15 tears that I have burned pellets i have burned a lot of different pellets in 3 different stoves that I have owned. I have found that every time i changed brands of pellets i needed to change my stove settings to get the maximum efficiency from my stove. I have found the Athens pellets burn best in my stove at a feed setting of 1.5. I set the room temperature to what I need and adjust the circulating fan to a level that does the job. I would prefer to have the stove run longer to maintain temperature than constantly turn off and on.
I know several other people who have different model stoves with dampers who have increased the air and reduced the feed rate and are having good luck with the pellets. As with anything this probably won't work for everyone but may be a start.
Hope this helps.

After trying some bags from my second ton I purchased, I suspect we're all seeing the problems of a startup company, that just can't take a pause to get things in order quickly. The second ton of Athens pellets burns OK, still has an enormous amount of ash, but less dust, and some longer pellets. I had to empty my ash buckets after 8 bags of pellets with the first ton, but after 15 bags with this lot.
I'll probably keep mixing my purchases, half NE and half Athens. My PF100 furnace should have no problems with the increased ash, and certainly has a larger ash bucket. The P68 will get mostly the NE ones.

I do agree, that everytime you change pellets, or even between years , you have to try changing flow settings until you find a good setting. But, I think a lot of us have learned there are tims when you want the temp to remain steady, and there fore a higher blower setting, and sometimes at night, a lower blower setting and more temp variation.

I bet we all also agree, there are some folks who are going to have a had time going to anything after a set the thermostat oil or gas furnace ! I little more weekly cleaning work but a lot less work writing oil payment checks !

I don't get soot and they burn nicely but the ash is unbelievable. 6 cups per bag. Setting can not improve ash amts. can they?

I have to agree after burning about 15 bags that some are better than others. Also, I think we learn to deal with certain things. The ash is definitely more, and I think the heat output isn't quite up to par but other than that I am not finding clinkers and no problems feeding. I think that I also, will mix with other brands. Everything should be okay doing that. I do think that the first year in business is a trial just like the first year burning pellets is a trial. I don't think they meant to put out any bad product so I will give them another shot. (I won't buy three tons at a time though!!) HAHA>

You will find that a bottom feed stove like Harman will burn them better because by nature the bottom feed pushes most of the clinkers and ash build up out of the burn pot. My top feed Lopi Yankee hated these pellets.

There was also sand or by my hypothesis roofing material in my Athens pellets given their dark color and the fact that I found something that looked very much like a nail in my first bag. Some creosote build up on the surfaces in the stove instead of just ash and my burn pot would get clogged every half a bag or so with a plug of sand/silica that was pretty much solid, I saw someone compare this to a pumice stone elsewhere and it's pretty accurate. If I had kept these pellets I figure I would have come home from work just about daily to a stove that had shut down because of the clogged burn pot. I found myself needing to clean the stove about every 1/4 of a bag or just about daily to keep the stove burning reliably and it's not even cold out yet.

I would guess these are industrial grade pellets in a premium pellet bag. I've burnt 2 bags of Corinth pellets since I returned the 2 tons of Athens and they are still burning the creosote out of my stove.

Being a first time burner I didn't know if this was normal or not but you are right about the grit in these pellets. When I clean out the burn pot there literally is sand in the bottom. Some of the granuals are pure white like salt but hard as stone. This is some strange stuff.

I may have found something which could help Athens pellet burners.
After reading a few articles online, I came to the conclusion that
my problem (High Ash) may be due to incomplete burning.
Some of the ash I have had to deal with had what looked like
a caramel glaze on the top. There were also clumps of ash.

Yesterday I increased the speed of the combustion fan. (Hotter Fire in burn pot??)
I turned the adjustment screw maybe 1/8 of a turn clockwise.
Unless the pellet composition has changed in the last week (Highly Unlikely),
the burning does look better and more complete.
There is a bit more ash left behind as compared to LG pellets but the
color is now light gray as compared to the very dark gray color before.
The ash is now only about the height of a pellet as compared to almost 1 in.

After about 25 bags I decided to emplty the pan on my Harmon Advance and take a look at the ash. I was pleasantly suprised that the ash pan was only 3/4 full and I would estimate about 6-8 pounds of ash. Not too bad The ash pan was not sooty and the ash had a granular quality. I believe this may be caused by the higher mineral content of hard wood chips in any case My hands were still remarkably clean so i decided to do some more observations. I should tell you I don't use a vacumm or gloves or any of that stuff when I clean the stove and I normally spend more of my time washing my hands and cleaning up soot than cleaning the stove.
First i found only a small amount of fines in the fire pot. No clinkers. ( I usually brush off the firepot with the tool once a week or so (never any clinkers). The glass only had a small amount of fogging and dust and cleaned up with warm water on a cloth (This was the first glass cleaning this season) In general the inside of the stove looked clean, dusty and had the ash on surfaces but clean. I actually brushed the ash from the surfaces with my hand and only got dusty no soot. I checked the heat exchangers and found them to be pretty clean they were lightly and evenly coated they didn't need cleaning nor would I usually expect them to at this time. I believe that the quality of the ash makes it more apparent in the visible areas of the stove but your heat exchanger and flue etc may stay cleaner.

After I was finished I went to the sink to cleanup and my wife came over to get the dish soap out (this was the only thing that would normally get the soot off my hands). Not only did I not need it but I only needed warm water and a small amount of hand soap.

I wish everyone was having the same experience with these pellets as me.
I tend to agree there must have been some QC issues on some earlier shipments during their startup and ramp up times and this could account for some of the radicly different experinces. Also I believe that stove adjustments are key and uncombusted product ( poor combustion) could appear as ash and would certainly soot up the works. Don't forget pellets are combusted not burned and need an efficient fuel air mixture. Most of the owners manuals have these instructions as well as proper cleaning procedures. You people new to pellet burning remember there isn't any substitute for regular cleaning and learn to think about the money you are saving and the environment when you are doing it. Don't be afraid to experiment until you get the results you want.

What works for one may not necessary work for you. Just don't give up. Call the stove suppier,manufacturer, and pellet manufacturer. No one wants you to be unhappy and they are all trying to do the right thing.

"I found something that looked very much like a nail in my first bag. "

This is the second time I have heard of this. The first time the guys auger jammed becuase of a nail in the bag. These pellets are awful