Does everyone sift fines before loading hopper?

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jdempsey

Feeling the Heat
Aug 21, 2011
263
kentucky
I know alot of you have shopvacs hooked up to a homemade fine sifter and i plan on doing something like that soon.

In the meanwhile is it ok to pour directly into the hopper? I do shake the bag and get most of the fines settled to the bottom.
 
jdempsey said:
I know alot of you have shopvacs hooked up to a homemade fine sifter and i plan on doing something like that soon.

In the meanwhile is it ok to pour directly into the hopper? I do shake the bag and get most of the fines settled to the bottom.

I'm not sure on other stoves. Have been using mine for the past 10 years and never needed to sift anything and my stove/auger work great.

Seems like extra work for no reason imo but hey.....just my......2 cents
 
jdempsey said:
I know alot of you have shopvacs hooked up to a homemade fine sifter and i plan on doing something like that soon.

In the meanwhile is it ok to pour directly into the hopper? I do shake the bag and get most of the fines settled to the bottom.

I pour everything in the hopper. Then again I am relatively new to pellets. I didn't know about shaking the bag to get fines to the bottom. That's a good idea.
 
Major91 said:
jdempsey said:
I know alot of you have shopvacs hooked up to a homemade fine sifter and i plan on doing something like that soon.

In the meanwhile is it ok to pour directly into the hopper? I do shake the bag and get most of the fines settled to the bottom.

I'm not sure on other stoves. Have been using mine for the past 10 years and never needed to sift anything and my stove/auger work great.

Seems like extra work for no reason imo but hey.....just my......2 cents
Like your way of thinking. Unless its absolutely necessary i would prefer skipping this step also. I guess maybe really depends on the stove.

Seems ive read somewhere that the auger bearing get cruded up with alot of dust on certain models.
 
Does everyone sift fines before loading hopper?

Not me.
 
Fines burn in my stove like the rest of the bag, no need to waste time or BTU's. To each their own!!!
 
Utilitrack said:
Fines burn in my stove like the rest of the bag, no need to waste time or BTU's. To each their own!!!

^^ What he said..........
 
No way! - too much work.

Stove burns em right up.
 
I sift all my pellets, even break the long ones. The 6 bags of Maine Choice has a few long ones. I inspect all my pellets, don't want any
unauthorized pellets in my stove.
 
richkorn said:
No way! - too much work.

Stove burns em right up.

If enough fines clog up the chute ,the auger WILL stop turning and you can expect to do a little work cleaning everthing out before the stove will work again. This doesn't happen on every stove, but it does on my St. Croix. I would say don't bother sifting, but if your stove quits working some time and it turns out to be the auger jammed by sifts, then you can decide which is more trouble. Cleaning out the auger or sifting the pellets before use. I made my own sifter and I do about a dozen bags in about fifteen minutes in to a storage bin.
 
my stove has a blade on the auger to cut any longs.
i just dump right in, dust and all. it burns.
 
slls said:
I sift all my pellets, even break the long ones. The 6 bags of Maine Choice has a few long ones. I inspect all my pellets, don't want any
unauthorized pellets in my stove.

Your stove has a "Screw and Cylinder" style auger. The 10-CPM should make light work of the fines.
SLLS and I have a Quad, which has a Spring(literally) as an auger. Onlu pellets get taken up the chute. Fines and even real small pellets will sit in a little square pocket at the bottom of the hopper and end up cutting back on tje supply of pellets. Decreased pellets is decreased heat. So for us its not a Must Do. But if we dont sift them now, we must vacuum the hopper fairly often.

Only takes a minute to do a couple bags. I have Ten 5 gallon buckets. Thats 5 bags I do at a shot. For $20 in materials (less shop vac) its a pretty simple set-up..

In your case its up to you. Forum member imacman has the same stove as you and I got my build specs from him.

I can post pics later if it will help. Not at home right now.
 
I only screen for pellet reviews to catch the fines for show and tell! Other than that its dump and go. I'll do a hopper vac depending how bad the fuel is.
 
relxn88 said:
richkorn said:
No way! - too much work.

Stove burns em right up.

If enough fines clog up the chute ,the auger WILL stop turning and you can expect to do a little work cleaning everthing out before the stove will work again. This doesn't happen on every stove, but it does on my St. Croix. I would say don't bother sifting, but if your stove quits working some time and it turns out to be the auger jammed by sifts, then you can decide which is more trouble. Cleaning out the auger or sifting the pellets before use. I made my own sifter and I do about a dozen bags in about fifteen minutes in to a storage bin.

To each his own... and I DO know about clogs -->The only pellets that clogged my auger were the 2008/2009 crappy Maine Woods, and it wasn't the fines that clogged it, it was the caking industrial pellets. And yes, that was a pain clearing the clogs. That's why I only get good pellets now. No sifting - no clogs - no worries;)
 
I've burned about 3 tons through my St. Croix so far - just dump the bags and walk away. No problem with fines so far. Every 10 or 12 bags, I let the pellets run out and vacuum the bottom of the auger area, but there's never much in there.
 
Not in a million years....way too much work. I take the bag, place it on the front, cut the bag open with knife, open the hopper and in it goes....

Arguably there might be some fines and dust at the very end, that I do not intentionally dump in (meaning I dont shake the bag to make sure all the crap falls in), but I am not careful to avoid any dust either. If the stove can not handle that, it would be buy buy stove.
 
I have sifted some pellets in the past rather than throw them out. Of course, I never bought that brand again.
 
I don't sift for the fines either. My stove has burned everything I've thrown at it with no problems. I just about dump a bag of sawdust in my stove once when I wasn't paying attention and the bag must of got wet. I didn't even bother to clean it out and it burned through it ok. Made a cool show when all the fines were jumping all over the place in the burn pot.
 
I sift mine. Its just a habit from cleaning the field corn that I was burning.
 
Here is my sifter. Right next to the Pellet crib that holds 7 ton. The other 2 are off to the right, kinda behind the steps.
 

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Does everyone sift fines? Nope - Not Me.

With the exception of one or two really crappy bags that got wet, I have not sifted
out the fines nor do I intend to. In the hopper they go with the pellets.
 
no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ..also would not want a stove that would require me to do that
 
Another Quad owner here. Yep, I sift them using an inclined double layer of hardware cloth. I sit the bag on a platform at the top, slit the bag and let the pellets and fines run down the slide. Pellets go into 5 gallon buckets and the fines go into the space below the screening. I have to split the bags up into 3 5 gallon buckets anyway to carry the pellets into the house so why not avoid the problem with fines that Quads have? No big deal and the fines are not that many. Maybe 3 gallons in 3 tons.
You can mix the fines with paraffin and make starter blocks for wood fires if you camp during the summer.
 
I don't put too much effort into removing fines. They burn up and one of the technicians at the place where I purchased my Fahrenheit furnace stated that the fines were beneficial to the auger system, though I can't remember exactly how he explained that.
 
I did the first few moths. That was 3 years ago. Now I just watch while they pour in. I do vac out the hopper from time to time, but never have seen any issues. Whatever I vac out, I save and put in the burn pot for each time I have to fire it back up. Why waste?
 
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