North American Pellets

As a follow up to my last post on the quality of North American Pellets....
I have been burning these pellets for the past few weeks now, I am completely satisfied with these. In fact, they are burning hotter and cleaner than the Green Team I was burning before. With temperatures in the teens and single digits over the past week, and as the only form of heat in my house, we are staying VERY warm. 1,900 sq ft home on 2 levels...downstairs where the stove is located is a toasty 70 degrees according to the T-stat, and upstairs is holding steady at 67 degrees.
I still am a firm believer that it has a lot to do with the stove, and not as much to do with the pellets...but who am I to say, I am still a novice at all of this.

I should also mention that I have a VistaFlame VF55 and also have not changed any of the factory settings on my stove, and am burning at a heat level of 3. the Mag setting was tested and was at the recommended setting from the beginning. I am not using an OAK.

I would not buy them, unless there was a consensus on the forum that the company had improved them. One of the poorer pellets I've burned. And I've burned some poor ones (Inferiors, NEWP, Instant Heat-less).

But hey, that's in my stove.

I got very good heat out of the few bags of north americans i burned. they are a bit ashy.

Imac thats your thought not everyones i burn them and have no problems in my stove.vistaflame 170

And I DID say, that was "in MY stove".

If they burn good for you, great.

I just got done burning 3 bags of them. My results: Alright heat, Not great. Very ashy. Left me a good sized carbon deposit in the burn pot. I wouldn't run them again.

This was my experience as well. I burned a ton of them last year and while we were warm I had to clean ALOT of ash. I think I paid $209/ton for them maybe $220. I wouldn't pay more than that though.

I like these pellets. They burn pretty hot in my stove. It also takes the burn pot longer to fill up with their ashes than it does the crappy brands we buy from TSC. I'm not all scientific about this sort of thing so I go by how close I can stand to the stove. If I can have my butt up against the blower on medium setting then it's a bad pellet. If I have to stand away from the blower on medium because my butt feels like it's on fire, then it's a good pellet. LOL!

Pick a brand of pellets out there, any brand, and I do not care which brand it is. If we take a poll, there will be people who like that certain brand and there will be people who do not like them. Furthermore, most of these "Big Box" pellets' quality are about as consistent as New England weather. So someone could try brand "X" one week, and someone else could try brand "X" the following week and they could literally be two totally different pellets. Any one can post their opinions of certain brands, and although it is entertaining to read, and fun to hear other people's descriptions and experiences, it is really about as relevent as an albino pigeon on a Chinese beach when it comes to how they will burn for you in your stove. Best way to do it, burn them, sit in fron of your stove, take copious notes, draw diagrams, print out excel spreadsheets, and then, when you find a brand you like, spin your arse back to the store where you bought them before a new batch comes in

My first three tons were these pellets and I agree that they are OK, but not spectacular. I have since bought Cubex, barefoot and Okies and the extra cost of these premium pellets was well worth it. I will not go back to box store pellets. The delivery of the three tons cost $65 for the NA and $16 for the 3 tons of the others (1 ton each), so that brought the cost of the premiums down a little. During these very cold days I can either burn 2 bags of the north americans or 1 bag of the top shelf. My stove is cleaner, the heat is better and I gotta lug less bags around so it is a win for me.

Hells yeah!

I did a 5 bag run of these and they did o.k.... Heat was average and Sh, well, I don't care about ash. Heat was o.k.

My biggest gripe is the smell. It's chemical...

They ain't Somersets..

No, you're right. They ain't Somersets. Somersets are a very good, consistent pellet. They should use the slogan "pride in every pellet" but unfortunately, that one's already taken!

Almost as bad as the warm fronts i tried a while ago, check out my post link. I'm with CT pellet. Once you go premium you never go back! http://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/anyone-have-a-laxative.105185/#post-1366986

I agree except the smell. Very subjective, I like the crayony - woody smell of NA. Somerset is my least fav smelling pellet but thats not real high on my priority list as long as they dont stink up the room and neither does.

Been burning NAs for years, yeah they are ashy....yeah they sometimes smell like crayons and okay they're not the hottest pellet for sure but...

Their cheap, I'm supporting my dealer and region (they are made about 100 miles from me) and I don't get clinkers or carbon build-up - most importantly however, they work for me as the sole source of heat for my house and family. That being said, the ash is driving me crazy this year and I think i'll move on to something else next season.

having a boiler that is not at all fussy and has a large ash pan...I am $$$ driven. I like em

I agree This years have alot of ash. burned 15 bags last year and they worked good heat was average and ash was average this year heat average and excessive ash. next weeks batch who knows. I agree with CT if you try ANY pellet and like it Run back to the store and buy them up because the next batch will be different. I wish they put the lot number on the bags so customers can be more informed about when they were made and can purchase the same ones that they ran in there stove. Also think they could better track there quality controll if you can point to a certain batch of pettelts that were either great or had problems

haha - can't imagine which brand that might be...

i get good heat out of them-- yes alot! of ash but the extra heat is worth it on really cold nights
buying more for the colder nights

They don't doit for me but have decent luck when I mix them with Somersets about 50/50 giver take.

Hmmm, Wonder what they could be?