Anyone else experience this with Tractor Supply

[Lousyweather]

I stand by my original statement in that pellets are a commodity. I sell em. I burn em. My stove doesnt care WHAT it burns, burns them all fine. Ive burned 11 different brands of pellets, all premium. Maybe I need to take the ashes out a little more often...so what? 3 weeks versus 2 weeks? Again, not an issue to me.....Im going outside at some point anyways....

Ive spent quite alot of time here reading posts where folks say something such as...".....if pellets are over $x/ton, ima gonna burn oil".....or...."Ima gonna lock in on oil at $y/gal, and not burn pellets this year"...or...."natural gas is cheap right now, I think I'll buy that instead...".........you might want to pull up the definition of commodity, say its a black/white issue, and that pellets arent a commodity, but when people make the concious buying decision to COMPARE them to a commodity, and then make a value judgement based upon the conclusion, they BECOME a commodity, regardless of whether they fit the definition perfectly or not. Also have to say that many folks who call for pellets just ask for price, NOT branding......again, commodity. Just because it isnt traded as a futures item on the Big Board (yet), doesnt mean it isnt such.

 

[Lousyweather]

thats for sure, BTU

 

[stoveguy2esw]

our tsc gets pellets in about 4 to 5 times a season , generally they will get at least 3 different brands a season , the guy at the store says , "we order pellets the regional warehouse sends em , we do not have any wait time usually but we get what they send us". granted the brands i have purchased at tsc have all done quite well for me and i like to experiment anyway (call it professional curiosity) here in VA we have goten eastern and western lignetics , rocky mountain, pennington , and corinth. all have burned well in my stove. the guy at the store usually lets me know when they get somthing new in and i'll buy a few bags to try em , he says if i dont like em i can bring em back and he will try to get somthing else but he says he hasnt had any complaints on anything he has recieved yet i imagine not as the stuff he gets seems to be fine in my stove.

 

[Stentor]

I stand by my original statement in that pellets are a commodity. I sell em. I burn em. My stove doesnt care WHAT it burns, burns them all fine. Ive burned 11 different brands of pellets, all premium. Maybe I need to take the ashes out a little more often...so what? 3 weeks versus 2 weeks? Again, not an issue to me.....Im going outside at some point anyways....

Ive spent quite alot of time here reading posts where folks say something such as...".....if pellets are over $x/ton, ima gonna burn oil".....or...."Ima gonna lock in on oil at $y/gal, and not burn pellets this year"...or...."natural gas is cheap right now, I think I'll buy that instead...".........you might want to pull up the definition of commodity, say its a black/white issue, and that pellets arent a commodity, but when people make the concious buying decision to COMPARE them to a commodity, and then make a value judgement based upon the conclusion, they BECOME a commodity, regardless of whether they fit the definition perfectly or not. Also have to say that many folks who call for pellets just ask for price, NOT branding......again, commodity. Just because it isnt traded as a futures item on the Big Board (yet), doesnt mean it isnt such.

Just about ALL commodities are graded to a pretty tight standard. Pellets ..not so much. There is a HUGE difference between the bottom end of "Premium Grade" and what is commonly known as the higher end pellets. They both compete in the same market and can vary as much as $50 per ton at retail .. This where we as distributors and even manufactures of product has a problem having to be bunched together in a grading scale that has such a wide margin of difference. Then throw lack of education or ignorance about the product and it's no wonder why most of the buying public end up with bad information about pellets or no idea on what is good or not. It's problamatic for dealers and the general public and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't have someone tell me my price is too high...Too high compared to what?... Garbage from the south or something that has bark in it, or maybe ground up pallets...yeah maybe I am when compared to that...but when you compare apples to apples...you will find that most of the products that are similar in BTU output, ash content, to a lesser degree, fines and salt content...those brands are usually pretty competitive with each other...Throw on top of that, different demands from the many types of stoves and it will get messed up fast.

I would like to see a much tigher grading standard, but untill this industry matures some more, I think that might be a few years away. In the meantime, the best that one can hope for is word of mouth and actually trying product to see if it meets your individual requirements. Easier said than done sometimes.

Lousyweather,

Please re-read what I said. Maybe you will agree. Here it is:

1. It’s just not that simple. One reason we have so many posts about pellet quality and their price is that we see pellets both as commodities and also as products that differ by supplier and quality and price. I buy unleaded regular gasoline for my car no matter what state I’m driving through. But I don’t think pellets are exactly like that.


Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I'm trying to say that as a consumer with less than one year of experience I learned that pellets are not all alike. Similar, yes. Identical, no. They are in one way a commodity but in other ways not like a commodity. For example, they are not clearly graded the way some commodity raw materials are. And there are differences as you yourself admit when you say that some pellets create more ash than others. No one is asking you to consider ash important if you don't want to but for some people it matters. If you sell pellets, I hope you don't tell your customers that all pellets are the same. That would not be fair to new users like me if I had walked into your store just after I got my first stove last December.

Let's not get caught up in definitions. I posted the definition of "commodity" to shed light, not heat. This industry would benefit from standards. I'm quoting BTU's comment because he explains the grading problem clearly as he always does and I'm encouraged to see that you say you agree with him.