pellets you bought

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kinglew

Member
Hearth Supporter
Dec 12, 2006
118
new york
let list brands of pellets price purchased from how they burn ash clinkers etc...
tsc supply 207 a ton
lockport ny
HARDWOOD HEAT
lots of ash and clinkers
less heat out put then lingestic
buyers remorse....
 
actually im running some of the hardwood heat in my unit right now, seem to be burning just fine , although i do agree they do not give off as much heat as the lignetics (which are my favorite) they are close and are far from the lowest output brand ive run. might just be a batch that may have gotten damp at some point , this can happen if improperly stored , even before you or the store gets them.
 
I just switched to Lignetics as well and I'm liking them so far.

I burned a couple of bags of Fireside Ultra and didn't have any problems...but again, i only burned a couple of bags.

I bought 2 tons of Energex and I can't wait until they are gone. I have to take a hammer and chisel to the burnpot after two days of burning Energex. In addition to the clinker buildup, the bags contain a large mess of sawdust in each bag compared to the other brands that I've tried. The pellets are also smaller and seem to sneak through the auger more quickly..Right now, I'm alternating between those and the Lignetics until the Energex are finally gone...

This is my first year burning pellets, so these are all I've tried again. The lignetics were a bit pricey, so I may try a few individual bags before committing next year. I'd love to see a pellet brand rating resource...though, I suppose individual results will vary based on a number of factors...
 
I read on here somewhere that the Fireside at HD are the same
as Energex. I am trying out Fireside, Energex and NEWP Canadian
this season and have not decided which I like best yet as my
stove can burn em all.

You have to burn the different brands yourself to find a favorite.
What you like the next person may not.
 
deadeye316 said:
how are new englands pellets,
Im about to order 9 tons for me and my dad.

Between last year and now I've burned almost 4 tons of
the NEWP Canadian (green lettered bag). My stove runs
excellent on them.
 
I bought a ton of Somerset from TSC @ about @229/ton. They seemed to burn really nice, and had low ash.

Bought a tone of Pennington from HD @ $219/ton. They are extremely dusty and leave a lot of ash.

Heat output seems about the same between the two brands.
 
deadeye316 said:
how are new englands pellets, Im about to order 9 tons for me and my dad.

I've had good luck with those 3 years in a row. I burn the hardwood ones (red lettering) and find them to burn cleanly, producing minimal ash. The theme i've heard out here is that people prefer the NE softwoods to the NE hardwoods, but I think generally they produce high quality pellets across the board.
 
This year it is Barefoot. Very clean, low fines, low ash.
Last year mostly Dry Creek. Not as clean, low fines, above average ash.
 
You can go here to see what other people are paying for pellets: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/fuels

I really like the Fuel Price Reports, but they don't seem to get as much use as they should. I always fill out a price report when I purchase pellets or anytime I come across a price, but I am the only one who has ever posted a price from the state of Vermont.

Anyway, I am currently burning Boreal Pellets that I bought from my dealer this past summer for $205 a ton. This is a softwood pellet from Quebec that I am not happy with. Last year I bought 3 tons of Boreal pellets and they were awful. They were very dusty, sooted up the stove, produced a lot of clinkers and the heat output was awful. I ended up doing a 50/50 mix with the 3 tons of LG Granules pellets (which I love) in order to get significant heat output. I swore I would never buy Boreal Pellets again. Fool me once, shame on you...

This summer I go to buy 3 tons of pellets and my dealer is out of the LG pellets. He only has Boreal at the time, but swears they are better this year. He even has an open bag in the shop to show people how different this year's pellets are. They were a lot less dusty. They were a more consistant and shorter size compared to the previous year. They were a little darker in color. They looked like a completely different pellet. My dealer tells me they burn even hotter than the LGs and that he loves them. I bought three tons on his word.

They are less dusty and more consistant in size, but the heat output is still terrible compared to the LGs and they still form large clinkers quickly and soot up the stove pretty quickly. They are better than last year, but I will NEVER (probably) buy Boreal Pellets again. Fool me twice, shame on me...
 
Are any of these pellet manufacturers large enough where they have more than one plant? It seems like different plants would have slight differences in the final product. Maybe somebody in GA would have better luck with brand X then somebody in MI because they came from different plants. I've heard of similar things happening all sorts of things that are manufacturered. The strangest one yet was asphault shingles...

Matt
 
tsc supply 207 a ton
lockport ny
HARDWOOD HEAT

I bought the Hardwood Heat Pellets as well from TSC, the produce a ton more ash than my Pinnacle brand pellets and I go through a 40 pound bag of Hardwood Heat much quicker than a bag of Pinnacle Brand.

Derrick
 
Just picked up 3 bags of Narragansett wood pellets from my ocal Ace Hardware store. 4.99 per bag, so a decent price for this time of year. They smell very good (like pine) and seem to be of the softwood variety. A little too soon to tell what the qualoity is, but so far no issues in my Hastings, about 1/2 way through my first bag.

Looks like they're made in Rhode Island, so it is nice to see that every variety i've tried this year was produced within 200 miles of my location.
 
Home Depot
Blazer Pellets (www.wowpellets.com)
$239/ton

The first batch I bought burned pretty cleanly, with good heat output.

I bought 25 more bags a few weeks ago from a new shipment at HD.
LOTS of ash and buildup, lower heat - probably due to the clogged burn pot.
 
wilbilt said:
Home Depot
Blazer Pellets (www.wowpellets.com)
$239/ton

The first batch I bought burned pretty cleanly, with good heat output.

I bought 25 more bags a few weeks ago from a new shipment at HD.
LOTS of ash and buildup, lower heat - probably due to the clogged burn pot.

The pellets that I had been using were building a wall of impenetrable klinker on my burn pot. I cleaned off what I could and ensured that the holes were ash free...but my burn pot was never the same. It got to the point where I was very unhappy with the heat output and I had to clean the stove every 24 hours due to burnpot overflow...

I finally decided to try a few unconventional items to try to get the build-up off of the burnpot. I settled on a tool that I couldn't imagine living without. I've been using a wood chisel to get any hard clinker build-up off of the burnpot. It is the only tool that I've found that effortlessly restores the burnpot to like-new condition. As a result, my stove is burning better than I remember it working brand new. The klinkers are under control, the heat output is amazing and my burnpot is not overflowing with ash...even when the holidays caused me to be lax in my routine cleaning schedule.
 
bought 2 ton of energex that I cant wait to be gone. They seem to give me clinkers.
I have burned Cornith and found them to be great. they burn hot and no clinkers little ash.
Got some green heat form Walmart. I think they come from the new Ashland ME. plant and they burned pretty clean and hot.
Also have burned Penningtons from walmart. Had to sift these before burning. quite a bit of ash. but were just ok.
 
I've used Dry Creek, Lingnetics and Cubex. Lignetics had the least amount of dust and burned very well. DRy Creek had a fair amount of dust but also burned well. Cubex has the least amount of dust but has a lot of ash, at least twice as much as the other two brands and creates a lot of klinkers on my Harmon burn pot. I need to scrape the pot every day or the build up is really difficult to remove. I'll not be buying Cubex again.
Unfortunetly, Lignetics are very hard to find around here.
 
We bought a ton of "Clean Energy" pellets and so far these are the best we've used this season. ($211 a ton at Lowes in Waterford, CT) Not alot of ash build up and no clinkers, great heat output. I can go a little longer between stove cleanings with these pellets which makes me oh so happy!
 
Estarrio said:
The pellets that I had been using were building a wall of impenetrable klinker on my burn pot. I cleaned off what I could and ensured that the holes were ash free...but my burn pot was never the same. It got to the point where I was very unhappy with the heat output and I had to clean the stove every 24 hours due to burnpot overflow...

I finally decided to try a few unconventional items to try to get the build-up off of the burnpot. I settled on a tool that I couldn't imagine living without. I've been using a wood chisel to get any hard clinker build-up off of the burnpot. It is the only tool that I've found that effortlessly restores the burnpot to like-new condition. As a result, my stove is burning better than I remember it working brand new. The klinkers are under control, the heat output is amazing and my burnpot is not overflowing with ash...even when the holidays caused me to be lax in my routine cleaning schedule.

I pulled the pot today and cleaned it. Since I used to be an automotive technician, I have a few tools designed to scrape carbon from cylinder heads. I used a carbon scraper that is made up of many "fingers" that are sharpened on the end.

It worked very well to remove the buildup, and I wire-brushed the pot afterward for good measure. I lit the stove a few minutes ago, and it is burning very well. I will include the scraping technique in my future cleanings....Thanks!
 
I bought 2 ton of Empire Pellets (made by Associated Harvest Co. in LaFargeville, N.Y.) with my stove. Dealer sold them to me for $240.00 per ton. Dealer normally sells them for $272.00 per ton. Bag claims: Premium wood pellets, Low ash content, Made with natural hard woods. No other ratings on the bag, like ash content percentage or sodium, ect. I have burned all of them and they burn ok, and seem to produce good heat, but produce a lot of ash and after 2 days the burn pot has a very thick and hard ash build up that starts to plug up the air ports in the burn pot. Also these pellets have a lot of dust. I have just purchased 2 tons of Dry Creek pellets at $229.00 per ton. So far there is less ash, less build up in the burn pot, and little dust in the bags. Heat from these pellets maybe just a slight bit more than the others, but it is hard to tell right now due to the outside temperature being alittle warmer. Tonight is suppose to be down in the teens maybe colder, so it should show then if they burn hotter or not. I know about how well the empire pellets heated at that outside temp. so i'll see if the dry creek does the same or better or worse. Hope fully better. I also did a little test on each pellet by breaking them down by soaking each with a little water. The dry creek came apart quicker but had mostly larger particals, the empire pellet took forever and I actually had to break it apart and it had more finer particals. Don't know how much that really means, but I thought I'd add that in here. Anyone else try doing this?
 
jed12674 said:
I bought 2 ton of Empire Pellets (made by Associated Harvest Co. in LaFargeville, N.Y.) with my stove. Dealer sold them to me for $240.00 per ton. Dealer normally sells them for $272.00 per ton. Bag claims: Premium wood pellets, Low ash content, Made with natural hard woods. No other ratings on the bag, like ash content percentage or sodium, ect. I have burned all of them and they burn ok, and seem to produce good heat, but produce a lot of ash and after 2 days the burn pot has a very thick and hard ash build up that starts to plug up the air ports in the burn pot. Also these pellets have a lot of dust. I have just purchased 2 tons of Dry Creek pellets at $229.00 per ton. So far there is less ash, less build up in the burn pot, and little dust in the bags. Heat from these pellets maybe just a slight bit more than the others, but it is hard to tell right now due to the outside temperature being alittle warmer. Tonight is suppose to be down in the teens maybe colder, so it should show then if they burn hotter or not. I know about how well the empire pellets heated at that outside temp. so i'll see if the dry creek does the same or better or worse. Hope fully better. I also did a little test on each pellet by breaking them down by soaking each with a little water. The dry creek came apart quicker but had mostly larger particals, the empire pellet took forever and I actually had to break it apart and it had more finer particals. Don't know how much that really means, but I thought I'd add that in here. Anyone else try doing this?


My experience is that you'll like the Dry Creek. I used them the last two years. They do have a little more dust then the other brands I've used but do burn hot and clean leaving little clinker build up in th pot.
 
Here in Wisconsin Marth makes a hardwood pellet that sells for around $176.00 per ton (local stove co. buyers club price). I have had a lot of ash from these as well as lots of clinkers.

Now I'm burning a few bags of Fireside Ulta pellets and they seem to be much cleaner although, at $255.00 per ton, they are pretty expensive. The local dealer bags his own brand of softwood pellets, Uncle Jed's Cold Remedy, and these sell for about $195.00 per ton. I think I'll buy a ton later this week.

this is my first year heating with pellets and I'm pretty happy finally having a WARM house and lower heating bills!
 
[quote author="fletchtb" date="1198042002"]You can go here to see what other people are paying for pellets: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/fuels

I really like the Fuel Price Reports, but they don't seem to get as much use as they should. I always fill out a price report when I purchase pellets or anytime I come across a price, but I am the only one who has ever posted a price from the state of Vermont.

I don't get a lot of use with it either. I think a lot of the time its hardly worthwile reporting it when you buy like I do. I grab a lot of em when I score a deal. I got 3 tons of pellets at Sams club a few weeks ago for $3.88 / bag $190 / ton and it wasn't worth reporting as they were out a couple days later. Thats how they operate. Ya gotta grab em when you see them or you are SOL. I notice that you can't ever see much of anything in there referring to Northern NY and Northern Vt.
 
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