If you had to choose... Clean Energy, Stove Chow or Penington?

Want to get set up now for the winter with prices being down.
Both Lowes and HD have the same deal going on... $209/ton when buying 5 tons, and my choices are coming down to Clean Energy, Stove Chow or Pennington Pellets. (Unfortunately, Lowes just sold out of their latest stock of Greene Team, which I'd have grabbed if I could.)

This is only my second season on pellets, and I burned between 4-5 tons for the winter last year, and paid almost $300/ton! OUCH!! (Was for Eureka pellets, which seemed quite good and get good reviews here.) So I REALLY like the prices I'm seeing now, but no one in my area is carrying the Eurekas - or the Lignetics, which seem to get some pretty high praise here too.)

Whatever anyone can say about these brands - Clean Energy, Stove Chow & Pennington Pellets, I'd be grateful. (I know there are already some comments about Stove Chow and Penington here... but they're sort of inconsistent. Just looking for a refresher on what folks think of these...)

Thanks!

PS- I posted a request regarding other brands about a month ago, and based on the feedback I got decided to hold out. Cost wise, I'm glad I did. (Thanks to all who replied to me last time!)

macman said:

Terrier Lady said:

......Lignetics I was somehwat disappointed. They seemed to burn a tad hotter than the Clean Energy, but there were a LOT more fines with the Lignetics.........

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Sorry if I "hijacked" this thread a little..... %-P

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Are you kidding? You give some of the best answers on here. You can hijack a thread of mine anytime!

But seriously, it's good to have seen this little back and forth... certainly Terrier is giving a solid review to the Clean Energy pellets which is the first strong opinion about them one way or another I've seen. And with all the great reviews here for Greene Team, I'm thinking Lowes is really on the ball this year. I was starting to lean towards ordering the Stove Chow from HD, but now I'm back on the fence. Nothing like being decisive!

Wow! Just paid $178/ton (yes, you read that correctly!) for 5 tons of Clean Energy or possibly Greene Team pellets from Lowes! (The brand I'll get will depend on what the store gets in by my Sept 28 delivery date.) I am absolutely thrilled to say the least.

For those who care to read on, here's the not-so-straightforward tale of how I got such a ridiculously low price...
I had read here in the forums about the ol' 10% coupon for Lowes contained in the change-of-address packets at the Post Office, so I stopped by there and grabbed one on my way to the store. My plan was to stop at Lowes and see if I could get them to accept the coupon on a bulk order. If they would, I would order 5 tons (oink oink!) of either Clean Energy or Greene Team depending on availability. (If they would not accept the coupon, I was then going to go forward with an order I already had on hold at Home Depot for 5 tons of Stove Chow.)

Once at Lowes, I decided to go directly to the seasonal department and place the pellet order with them instead of at the service counter, and then head to the register to pay. The guy in seasonal took the order no problem, scheduled my delivery for 9/28 and told me I was in line for the Clean Energy pellets but that he'd write me in for Greene Team as a preference, in case they get a truckload of those in the meantime. I then told him that I had the 10% discount card and asked whether they'd accept it at the register. He simply told me to give the cashier the card when paying. I then proceeded to the cashier and she called up the order and I gave her the card. Now, if their system would have accepted the card at that point, without hassle, then the regular bulk discounted price of $209/ton would have come down to $188/ton, which would have certainly been fantastic! But the system did not accept the card because of the already discounted bulk purchase price. So ok, I told the cashier that with this being the case, that I wanted to cancel the order and I'd head to Home Depot where they head a pellet brand I preferred. She said, "Oh no, no, don't do that... let me call my supervisor." ;-)) So the supervisor gave her the ok to use the coupon and override the system. Great! But then the cashier proceeded to have some massive issues getting the system to actually accept the override, and after numerous attempts she just decided to manually punch in a 'per bag' price which would get us to the correct amount. But with this as well, she had issues to accomplish. So I just stood there waiting for her to figure it out... this entire process took about 10 or 12 minutes. Finally she said 'Ok, got it, and after the 10% coupon your total comes to $890." I thought ok, that sounds pretty close, so I paid and left. But when I got home and did the math and came up with $178/ton instead of $188/ton I then noticed on the receipt that she had entered in a 'per bag' price of $3.56/bag, multiplied it by 250 bags (5 tons), and lo and behold... $890! So of course it seems I just got pretty lucky with that extra $10/ton off, but for getting them to accept the 10% coupon (and thus a price of $188/ton), that was as simple as saying I was going to Home Depot if they couldn't take the coupon! These stores hate knowingly losing business to each other.

So... I can now say that with a quick stop at the Post Office and a little nuance at the store, you can probably get your pellets out of Lowes for as low as $188/ton! (Or only a few dollars more per ton if you're buying 3 or 4 tons instead of 5.) Certainly worked for me... and then some!

Good luck to all of you with your pellet buy for the season.
Oink oink.