Fall is here and the Nuts are falling

[Snowy Rivers]

Watching the local hazelnut growers out geting started on the harvest.

Will be time soon to stop by the plant and get a truck load of shells for the winter season.

Takes a couple tons of the stuff to heat the place.

We have had a few fires so far but its been relatively warm yet.

Had two days that we had morning only fires and a couple others that we ran one stove all night.

Last year my main source of shells was down part of the winter due to an issue with contamination of some nuts.

Turned out to be a bunch of B S but still kept them off line most of the winter.

The one plant has better materials than the others. The shell pieces are larger with far less fine materials.

Stuff thats about the size of your little finger nail is the best and burns real well.

The fines tend to make a lot of fly ash.

Snowy

 

[Nicholas440]

How do you get the nut shells to start to burn? Do you add some pellets to the mix to get the fire going? I've not heard of hazelnut shells for fuel but I imagine if we can use cherry pits, etc, why not?

Does it take a lot of shells to get you through the winter season? And do they burn hotter than pellets, or about the same BTU output ?

 

[Snowy Rivers]

The amount of shells needed is similar weight wise as compared to pellets.

The heat content is slightly higher in the shells but close enough to compare side by side.

Depending on the outside temperature I will go through 2-3 tons of the stuff for a typical winter season.

Starting the fire is not really any different than starting with pellets.

I usually place a handful of pellets in the pot, turn on the exhaust fan and then stick my propane torch into the pot to get the fire lit.

I do this with the door just far enough open to get the torch nozzle into the burn pot.
The exhaust fan keeps the smoke from entering the room for the most part.

Once the pellets are burning good across the pot, I shut the door and allow the fire to get going a little more and once the pellets in the pot are going well, I flip the fuel feed on and let the shells start feeding.-

The nut shells can be started directly but the smoke from them alone while starting is not real pleasant if it gets in the house.

The shells have a lovely cooking smell once the fire is going good (Outside) but if the startup is a sloppy one and a poof or two of smoke gets in the house its a tad nasty. (worse than burnt toast)

The shells burn great leaving a fine light gray ash. There is a bit more ash than with pellets though


This fact requires the stoves to be cleaned more often.
The little Whitfield Prodigy needs to have its fire pot cleaned twice a day. Now this is an on the fly thing. I simply turn the feed to off and allow the fire to drop to glowing coals in the fire tray and then lift out the clinker with a long handled scraper.

Once this is done I will scatter the left over coals acroos the tray and turn the fuel feed back on.

This usally happens when I first get up in the morning and then again around 8-9 in the eavening.


A complete shutdown and removal of the ash pan and contents is a weekly thing.

I do an abreviated shut down with the fire out but the stove not completely cold or possibly spark free.

I scrape the fire pot out, brush the ash into the pan and dump it outside.
Once this is done I quickly rekindle the fire and its off to the races.

A complete cold shutdown and vacuuming of the heat exchanger and such is a monthly thing depending on how hard we have been running the stove.

Little bit more maintenance than with pellets but, with the very low price of the stuff its well worth the small amount of time required to do it.

I also have to screen the shells before placing them into the hopper.
There can be sticks the size of your thumb left in the stuff and these will jam an auger real quick.

We scoop the stored shells from 50 gallon lid top drums and dump it through a screened bottom bucket into 6 gallon plastic buckets.

Any sticks or ??? will get caught in the 1/2" screen and stop there.

This is a winter ritual and everything falls into a regular routine as soon as the weather turns cold.

Other family members make sure the stove is full duirng the day or eavening before retiring but, I usually do all the cleaning and such.

The biggy, especially on the Prodigy is the cleaning of the glass in the door.

We run this stove on low most of the time and the glass gets a tad dirty in a few days.
This stove will do the same thing on pellets, just that the stuff left from the nuts is more like cleaning the oven glass in the kitchen.

On higher settings the issue is less. This seems to be a normal thing with many stoves.


Hope this answers the questions on Nut shells.

Great stuff, and renewable, every fall season.

Snowy