Any one notice Lowes $189/ton pellets burn with high ash, and lower heat?

Agway pellet are bagged by Hamer. Hamer makes the Hot Ones brand. They are a dense high heat pellet and hard to compare them with some of the other brands out there. I have notice this for a number of years and started doing reviews with a few measurements to assist in comparing.

Check a few of these.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/60581/

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/50101/

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/42511/

The first link you will notice I have added times to the study. My thinking was high heat output but also wanted a good long burn. I found that the Hardwood Heats(same pellet as the agway) burned pretty fast compaired to the other brands. With a thermostat controlled stove it isn't such a big deal. But with a steady burn you might consider a longer burning pellet. Burn the clean energy in the warmer weather were you don't need as much heat output. And save the Agway brands for the colder days if you can. Or add more Clean Energy to your mix on warmer days. How much was the Agway brands price?

Another thing you might notice is we always state to "try before you buy" if possible. So you don't have to struggle thru a brand your stove doesn't like, Or a pellet that has an issue. I am burning some Clean Energy now, I do notice a little more ash content but still not a bad pellet by any means. I have burned far worse brands in the reviews. ACP and Inferno were pretty bad.

I wasn't overly impressed with the CLean Energy either. The hottest Lowes pellets I've used this year are Maine's Choice, Nation's Choice and American Wood Fibers. Southern Indiana Hardwoods, and Stove Chow were bought at Lowe's in Broome County NY and were at least as good as the Clean Energy for me.

My Lowes carries Nations Choice. I went through 3 ton of stove chow. I just bought 1 tone of the Nations Choice from Lowes. I think the Nations Choice are equal in heat but burn slower. At least 20%.

OMG we just got some nations choice and they are the worst pellets we have ever burnt! They are an average of 4" long. They get jammed coming down the chute and the stove keeps shutting off because it thinks it is out of pellets. We have to vacuum out the hopper tomorrow to get rid of them......I can't believe they would sell pellets like this!

No we only bought 5 bags....I never buy more than that of a brand I have never tried. Hubby is vacuuming out the hopper now and we will get our oakies back in there!

i'm burning clean energy right now.. the heat output isn't bad in my stove but they do produce some ash but it's light and fluffy.. also another funny thing is that my stove hase clinkered every pellet i have ever burned no matter the brand EXCEPT these clean energy..

Natures Choice pellets are vacuumed out and being returned to Lowes! I hope they take the 4 bags we have left back. Our stove is up and running great and that is a good thing because we have some real cold coming in for a few days.

Beth said:

Stove Chow - lol I like that

@xuperman - Interesting you had the same experience I did. Thank you for your input.
@ Indy3 & westcafe - Wow, you guys have the same brand, and different experiences. I wonder if the differences in your stoves makes the difference. westcafe - That sucks your stove jams I would be mad. Hope you did not buy too may...

Thank you,
Beth

Click to expand...

It must be the stove. I have a Englander Multi-Fuel stove. There are maybe 2% long pellets (2" long) in the Nations Choice. They look scary. My stove eats them up. I have better heat output then the Stove Chow albiet slightly more ash. I am now on my 10th bag and love em. Funny how some stoves react different.

I've run a few bags of the Nations Choice through my Englander 25-PDV and I'm ok with the results. They aren't a great pellet, but they aren't horrible either. They definitely produce more ash than the Potomacs that I've been using, but other than that they are burning well. I've had one time where the pellets bridged and stopped feeding, which I suspect is a result of the longer pellets. I quickly cleared it up and haven't had any issues since.

Although I will admit that the Englanders don't really seem to care what kind of pellets you feed into them, they just chew through them. I've run this stove nearly 24-7 for three heating seasons now and I've had only one or two auger jams, which are easily taken care of by shaking the auger motor by hand a few times. Only way I can really notice a bad pellet is the size and hardness of the clinkers I get.

I agree on the comment below...

Englanders don’t really seem to care what kind of pellets you feed into them, they just chew through them.
also I have had only one or two auger jams, which are easily taken care of by shaking the auger motor by hand a few times.

I actually had a small bag of small wood dowls just about pellet size and dumped them in for a test run Englander Munched em up with no jams.

I am burning some of these Nations Choice now and no long pellets but did find some actuall wood pcs in the bag not big just dumped them in the hopper.