anyone ever use a residental pellet mill?

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ad356

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Dec 25, 2009
156
north java, ny
i have seen videos of people making pellets out of junk mail and grass among other things on the internet. i noticed that you can buy one of these things for sub $2,000. i was wondering if anyone has any experiance with them. i have a 2 acre lot so i would have no problem getting grass clippings and i also throw out a ton of junk mail and could probably raid the post office for more. the price of wood pellets has gone to the highest level i have even seen since i have owned my stove with $220 now the local going rate. i love my pellet stove and being freed of natural gas but would like to have cheaper pellets. one of my major reason for not using gas is hydro-fracking that the gas companies have been doing, its my way of boycotting them, which i will continue to do. many people around the country have had their well water contaminated by gas drilling practices, i will not support the gas companies and their processes of destroying drinking water.

anyways has anyone used a pellet mill, because i for one think it might pay for itself. i would probably buy a bunch of 55 gallon garbage cans and fill them up. i know i probably wouldnt be able to produce enough pellets for an entire winter but if i only had to buy 1 or 2 at the most tons of pellets i could save allot of money with the mill paying for itself in a couple seasons of heating.


also why dont pellet producers make pellets out materail other than wood? grass and paper waste is probably more plentiful that wood. think of all of the scrap cardboard that could be turned into heat as well. i could probably get a ton of that from work for free.

well are these things worth the money or are they a total waste of time and effort. if i could save thousands than i think it would be well worth it.
 
All that other stuff has a lot of ash content.

Tons of info on this forum and the web regarding homeowner mills.
 
I can speak from the paper side of things having been a paper maker my whole life - 35 years. A lot of paper will have upwards of 14-15% ash content. That is how paper is made to be so white and bright. Some papers contain smaller amounts of ash but most, if not all you'll find is much over the ash level of wood pellets.
Most ash added to paper is cheaper then using wood fiber.
 
I've looked it all over a million times and just can't find the justification. To pelletize yard waste, paper, etc., you have to at least run it through a hammer mill to break it down into the right size for extruding into pellets. You have to find the right binder to hold it all together. I've heard of people getting used cooking oil from restaurants. Say you have a huge supply of waste materials and perfect the process....you still have to make and use at least drying racks to allow the extruded pellet to dry to proper moisture content. You get all of that licked and you have to store them. Maybe not a huge problem for some...but for most of us that means a bagging system for efficient storage.

Figure all of that in with burning efficiency and higher maintenance and I just can't make it work for myself.

Now, if one had an unlimited supply of free sawdust and could get his formula just right and make a decent wood pellet....or high percentage wood with some other biomass mix, maybe it would be enough for someone to press foward and try it.

I love the idea, especially since there are a couple of neighbors starting to burn now.

It just doesn't add up for me when I can buy Somersets for $3.47 a bag almost anytime.

I'd love to know your results, however, if you try it as this is one topic that comes up upon occassion with a burning buddy of mine. We're always revisiting to see if we can make it work.
 
Hey ad356, looks tempting, but don't think just paper & yard waste will do it.. N. Java huh, where you getting your pellets from? I got mine from Sheldon Wholesale. PA's.
 
I looked into a small mill, Pretty pricey and also very time consuming to make the fuel. Plus space to store the equipment and also a drying of the fuel makes it a non option for me. I might as well just burn firewood.

There are some larger mills out there that produce multiple tons per day. I have a contact that has one and he has givin me small samples of leaf, grass, junk mail, cardboard, sticks(small trees with bark on) and corn stalks. All were pretty dirty. But its an option. Cost overall is about the same as out the door pellets sales once you figure time spent and mileage. I would have to get my own feedstock and deliver it to him. He'd pelletize and charge a nominal fee. Then I would have to pick them up. I may try to aquire some bamboo feed stock and have a couple of hundred pounds pelletized to see who it goes. But having a hard time getting the feedstock in my area. There are a few other options, But to early to tell if it will even be worth it in the long run. Hard to beat the clean burning wood fiber!

I did see a service that would bring a pellet mill to your field. They would harvest you crop and pelletize it for you on site. They are doing it for field grasses like timithy and switch grass. I'll see if I can find the info if you need it?
 
As a fairly self-sufficient guy, the first thing I did was try to find a pellet mill to make my own fuel. The cheapest and most readily available are basically animal feed extractors and are chinese made. They seem to be either 3-phase electric or diesel. I currently do not have 3 phase and the cost of installing it quickly outweighs the benefit of the machine. Diesel just doesn't make sense, I have a pellet stove to prevent myself from burning expensive fuels... At they are pretty expensive too. It seems the cheapest way to get out of it is to get the 3pt hitch one for the tractor, assuming you have one. But again its more diesel and hours on the machine.

I have enough space to put a whole manufacturing plant im my back yard, so thats not an issue and between the guy that owns a log company across the street and his friends saw mill, material is not in short demand.

It would be nearly a full time job to run a small backyard/residential plant, including gathering, processing, drying, moving and storing. All time that I don't have anyways. I could get a grapple load of wood cut, split and stacked cheaper and WAY faster than I could even think about making a ton of pellets.

If I could get a mill for a $500, it would be fun to mess with, but thats about the extent of my interest any more.
 
I looked into this subject last year.

The Cost of the Pellet mill, the hammer mill top pound the stuff up, drying racks.

I have 45 acres so stuff to make pellets out of is not an issue.

I currently use nut shells for fuel and it is cheap and I already have barrels to store the stuff in.

The cost to change over to making pellets, plus the extra work of scrounging up the materials is just not worth all the extra work.

The concept is great.

IF you had a great supply of leaves, you might be able to make leaf pellets and make it cheap.

A local fellow here goes around with his ridding lawn mower and cleans the local parks in town.

He bags the leaves up, hauls them home and then runs them through his home made hammer mill that makes a leaf "Fluff" from them, then through the pelletizer.

He has been doing this for several years and it seems to work for him.

Most folks just don't have the time to spend. Sort of like driving to the woods every weekend to cut wood, haul it home, stack it.

One can spend all their spare time fooling with this stuff.

As far as the ash goes, the nut shells have about twice the ash as pellets, but it just means I have to clean the stove every weekend.

Snowy
 
I also was very close to 'pulling the trigger' on purchasing a mill setup. I had a quote in-hand from a Chinese manufacturer for a pellet mill, three extra sets of dies, a hammer mill and two extra screens. They were both powered by 16 hp diesel engines. The engines are crude but are used in China for EVERYTHING so I was assuming that they would last. They use about a quart of fuel per hour. Anyway, I also contacted an importation company and my total bill for the equipment to be purchased, clear customs and be delivered to my door was just at $4000.

I tried to justify that against me using 3 tons of pellets per year. I could have either used wood chips from local tree services at no charge or bales of hay at 1000 lbs per bale. Yes, more ash and more cleaning but basically free pellets EXCEPT for the above mentioned investment in labor and purchase of binder, which I have a source for if anyone is interested. You would have to have help to feed the hammer mill, feed the pelletizer, spread the pellets on cooling racks, and then package them either in barrels or, as I was planning, in 'sand bags' that are available very reasonably. It would be a 'family affair' or several pellet users could pool their efforts on several weekends during the summer and fall. It's certainly do-able if you want to commit to it.
 
gfreek said:
Hey ad356, looks tempting, but don't think just paper & yard waste will do it.. N. Java huh, where you getting your pellets from? I got mine from Sheldon Wholesale. PA's.
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im actually burning the same exact pellet right now. they burn well and i dont have any complaints except the price of pellets keeps going up. i hope it doesnt continue to go up. the first year they were 178 per ton and now 220 per ton. not cheap but i like pellets more than natural gas.
 
If one had a home mill, does anyone have any idea how many scrap pallets (readily available around here) it would take to make a ton of pellets?
 
tjnamtiw said:
I also was very close to 'pulling the trigger' on purchasing a mill setup. I had a quote in-hand from a Chinese manufacturer for a pellet mill, three extra sets of dies, a hammer mill and two extra screens. They were both powered by 16 hp diesel engines. The engines are crude but are used in China for EVERYTHING so I was assuming that they would last. They use about a quart of fuel per hour. Anyway, I also contacted an importation company and my total bill for the equipment to be purchased, clear customs and be delivered to my door was just at $4000.

I tried to justify that against me using 3 tons of pellets per year. I could have either used wood chips from local tree services at no charge or bales of hay at 1000 lbs per bale. Yes, more ash and more cleaning but basically free pellets EXCEPT for the above mentioned investment in labor and purchase of binder, which I have a source for if anyone is interested. You would have to have help to feed the hammer mill, feed the pelletizer, spread the pellets on cooling racks, and then package them either in barrels or, as I was planning, in 'sand bags' that are available very reasonably. It would be a 'family affair' or several pellet users could pool their efforts on several weekends during the summer and fall. It's certainly do-able if you want to commit to it.
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so your free pellets, well are costly. 4000 dollars buys 20 tons premium pellets which will last 8 years
plus fuel maintanence, bags and help and your time
it will be 10 years before they are free and about that time the mill will die
and you will be dealing with inferior pellets
not trying to rain on your parade
just some things are not worthwhile
 
That's exactly why I didn't go thru with it!!!!!!!!!! And you also ASSUME that pellet prices won't go up........
 
RKS130 said:
If one had a home mill, does anyone have any idea how many scrap pallets (readily available around here) it would take to make a ton of pellets?
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it would take a ton of pallets :) pallets would be a tough way to go. You have to remove all nails which are screw nails. Then cut into small enough pieces to fit into hammer mill
 
There are companys that rebuild skids, they usally have a sign outside "free firewood". Used some this summer for firewood they were clean of nails. Might be a thought. Lowes is at 6 dollars a bag with no discount per ton.
 
oldmountvernon said:
tjnamtiw said:
That's exactly why I didn't go thru with it!!!!!!!!!! And you also ASSUME that pellet prices won't go up........
Click to expand...

ya but like he said take that 4k plus 10 years of gas wear and tear labor materials and whatever costs you will have buy all you can now

they are predicting HHO to double within 5 years guess its very possible. i didnt own a home a few years ago when it hit what ? 5.00 a gallon i think it was
i would imagine pellets will follow suit
Click to expand...

Definitely there are two sides to the equation on this one! You need a crystal ball. If you research the companies here in the US that resell the exact equipment I had quoted from China (confirmed by my source that they sell to at least one of the US sources), you will see that the equipment and spares total over $10K.
Like I also said, if you find a like minded pellet user, you can pool your efforts and expenses and cut the cost in half for each person. Find 3 others and your total investment is $1000. A few weekends of fellowship and brews and you're set for the winter. It does take a commitment, though, which seems to be hard to find today.

There is also a US company making a good quality pelletizer called Buskirk Engineering. They've been bugging me for a couple of years to buy one of theirs. You cannot ignore the hammer mill part of the equation either. Without it or a good source of fine sawdust, your pelletizer is useless.
 
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