Nature's Heat Garbage!

bought 5 bags it had decent heat but a lot of ash,bought them for 4.42 a bag at sams just to try.won't buy again unless 3 dollars or less(on sale)

Some of the batches seem decent. I tried a few this season and they were better than the ones I burned in 2009. But still nothing to write home about. At best IMHO they are an average pellet. But below average seems to be what most are saying.

If you see their all Oak brand in a yellow bag, They maybe worth a try. Best pellet I hear they make!

The few bags i burned had the 2009 date code they were awful. I would not take them if they were give to me.

No heat. Would barely even burn. I just wonder how many new pellet stove users buy natures heat and infernos and all these other sorry pellets thinking that they wish they had not purchased a pellet stove for its lack of heat.

Ive learned alot from this forum.

Well, I guess I know what NOT to buy today. I have been going around getting a few bags of different brands of pellets to try as suggested by a lot of folks here.

i bought a ton of those worthless pellets last year.

I don't want to start anything, but there was a post maybe a week ago where the poster was trying to argue that it is not cost effective to buy premium pellets at a premium price. This thread is an example of why there are good reasons to buy the "good" pellets, and some, emphasis on some, of the lower end pellets are just not worth burning.

I saw these at Wal Mart this morning when I went go get stuff for an oil change on the car. $5 a bag seemed high, especially when Menards next door is selling Michigan bran pellets for $3.39 a bag. I stopped at Menards and got the last 15 bags they had left.

they are $3.94 at my local wally---I bought some and they burned fine....same as other cheap pellets like fireside ultra, corinth, newp and better than the worst pellet of all time Big Heat.

At the local Walmart, yesterday they were $197 per ton or $5.00 per bag. I wasn't tempted at all.

I think the summary from other threads is:

1) The quality of Nature's Heat brand varies greatly. They obviously require multiple mills to generate the volume for Wal-Mart and Sam's.

2) A second thought is that different stoves respond differently to pellet quality. My stove really does not seem to care.

Personally, I have not had an issue with Pennington Nature's Heat and found they had less ash than the Pennington Oak and less clinkers than Hamer Hot Ones.

Storage is also important. Some Wal-Marts have these outside in the garden center where moisture is an issue. Lowe's is guilty of the same thing.

Bought 4 bags last month, could barely get them to burn, worst pellet I've used. Gave the other 3 bags to a friend with horses.

Their regular pellets are real junk....not far off from Infernos, IMO.

But as Jay mentioned above, if you ever come across the bags that are marked 100% Oak, THOSE are real good pellets. Problem is, they're hard to find.

I was running fireside utlra and NEWP all week and stove kept house at constant 70 degrees. After reading this thread I waited until hopper was empty and poured in a bag of regular Pennies. The house temp went up 9 degrees to 79....don't know what that means but heat ouput would not be a complaint from me. I waited 4 hours thinking stove(harman P61) would correct for new pellet but finally I had to lower thermostat setting to 60 before i went to bed and this morning house is now 69 degrees.

Long story short. I am a pellet newbie. I picked up 10 bags of Nature's Heat at Walmart for $5/bag. Seemed a bit high since HD had AWF @ 3.94, but want to try whatever is available around here.

Pellets were dark color. Good heat (to my inexperienced back of hand). Very low ash and minimal fines.

BUT . . . many pellets were VERY long, averaging 2" with some as long as 3".

Now to the good part of the story. I called Pennington and customer service could not have been better. They asked that I send an empty bag (presumably to trace which mill it came from), a copy of my receipt and a few long pellets. I did so, splinting the pellets on a Popsicle stick to keep them from breaking.

I have received a full refund, including tax + the cost of mailing the stuff back to Pennington. That is customer service. I still have the remaining 9 bags of pellets and the kids are hard at wok breaking the too long pellets into smaller pieces.

The company should be commended for their excellent response. I will try them again next year, for they have earned a bit of loyalty. For the record, my bags seem to be from Madison, Georgia and had a date of 09/15/11 on them.

I picked ten bags up at local Walmart for $3.88. Just dumped the first couple of bags in the hopper. Lots of longish pellets, around 1.25". It'll be interesting to see how the Big E handles them.

karl0525 said:

bought 5 bags it had decent heat but a lot of ash,bought them for 4.42 a bag at sams just to try.won't buy again unless 3 dollars or less(on sale)

Click to expand...

I bought 11 bags that were opened (splits) for the right price of 2$ a bag.. as long as it's forty out they are in the hopper

So I let the burn overnight, and the early results are not so good. Glass is the dirtiest I've ever seen it. The aie wash system usually does a good job keeping the glass clean. With these pellets half the glass is soot covered. It didn't get this dirty after 2 days of MWP. 8 hours of the Penningtons and the glass is filthy.

Flame is inconsistent too. I attribute this to the long pellets. Average is close to 1", some are as long as 1.75".

Best thing I can say about these is they're cheap, and the heat is on par with the MWP.

Im a bit of a noob - here is what I have noticed so far - harder wood pellets seem to have more long pellets mixed in.....softer wood pellets have almost none.... Is this a valid observation? Could be when they are being pressed out of the dies the harder wood does not break off as the softer wood does.

No. It's got more to do with moisture content, fiber strength, and sharping of the cutter blades...