Potomac Premium Wood Pellets

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swalz

Feeling the Heat
Jan 2, 2008
280
Newark, DE
Not much here about these pellets, I picked a bag up today and vurtualy no fines. My choices are Clean Energy or Potomac premium wood pellets made from yellow pine. Anyone burn the Potomac pellets, they are at the Lowes right next to my neighborhood and I am leaning toward them since I can save $75 by picking them up myself. The other Lowes has the Clean Energy and Potomac but it is arround 10 miles from my house and I would need to get them delivered.
 
I burned these. I got a couple bags at lowes. They seemed to be a good pellet. I would buy a ton.
 
corie burned some n our lab , they did quite well according to him in our units. i'll be burning some this season when i get done with the ones im just setting up to run now, a mississippi pellet called "Piney Woods Pellets" jury is out on them as i just loaded the first bag of a half ton im going to run. i'll post results once i get a look at how they do size and consistancy seem good almost no fines in the first bag stove has only run them for about a half hour as i type this so i dunno yet, but initially they seem to burn readily and heat output is fine so far.
 
Thanks for letting us know your thoughts on these pellets. Looked at them earlier this year but couldn't get any feed back. Do you mind letting me know how much their going for? Please keep us updated as you burn more
Thanks
JB
 
Lowe's in Peabody,MA is now selling Potomac at $5.38 a bag = $215 ton. Price is the same at Home Depot for Firesides.
 
BTU said:
countk said:
Lowe's in Peabody,MA is now selling Potomac at $5.38 a bag = $215 ton. Price is the same at Home Depot for Firesides.
At $5.38 per bag x's 50 bags in a ton = $269 per ton, not $215, but maybe they teach a new kind of math these days.......

I think it was times by 40 not 50, 40 x $5.38 = $215.20
 
jbmaine said:
Thanks for letting us know your thoughts on these pellets. Looked at them earlier this year but couldn't get any feed back. Do you mind letting me know how much their going for? Please keep us updated as you burn more
Thanks
JB

I have 4 tons waiting to be burned, the first 2 bags I burned burned good the other 2 bags I burned burned terrible. Couldn't figure out why until I went to clean the burn pot and found that there is a crack in the auger tube. So now I am waiting for Harman to get back to the dealer to get it fixed. :down:
 
BTU said:
swalz said:
BTU said:
countk said:
Lowe's in Peabody,MA is now selling Potomac at $5.38 a bag = $215 ton. Price is the same at Home Depot for Firesides.
At $5.38 per bag x's 50 bags in a ton = $269 per ton, not $215, but maybe they teach a new kind of math these days.......

I think it was times by 40 not 50, 40 x $5.38 = $215.20

A standard pellet bag is 40lbs..so it takes 50 bags to equal a ton...thus $5.38 x's 50= $269 per ton... Now if they put 50 lbs in those bags then you are correct it would be $5.38 x's 40 = $215.20...but they didn't put 50lbs in there, it is only 40lbs, I am willing to bet my life savings of $1.49 on it...check the bag, it is only 40lbs not 50.

BTU, Those bigbox reps probably think there is only 40 bags in a ton. They are giving away a few bags in the process. Good for the buyer.
 
BTU said:
swalz said:
BTU said:
countk said:
Lowe's in Peabody,MA is now selling Potomac at $5.38 a bag = $215 ton. Price is the same at Home Depot for Firesides.
At $5.38 per bag x's 50 bags in a ton = $269 per ton, not $215, but maybe they teach a new kind of math these days.......

I think it was times by 40 not 50, 40 x $5.38 = $215.20

A standard pellet bag is 40lbs..so it takes 50 bags to equal a ton...thus $5.38 x's 50= $269 per ton... Now if they put 50 lbs in those bags then you are correct it would be $5.38 x's 40 = $215.20...but they didn't put 50lbs in there, it is only 40lbs, I am willing to bet my life savings of $1.49 on it...check the bag, it is only 40lbs not 50.

Yea I know its 50 bags, was just pointing out that it was times by 40 and not 50.
 
Alright already, just got back to see all the replies about my new math! Swalz was right and here I was thinking SUCH A DEAL! Oh well! At any rate what is the consensus on whether these pellets are good or not!
 
so far so good. I have burned 5 bag so far. Got them when they were on sale at Lowes. Me and some friends got 6 tons at $230 a ton. Returned probably 20 bags that had gotten wet or torn. Lowes took them back and replaced them no problem
 
swalz said:
jbmaine said:
Thanks for letting us know your thoughts on these pellets. Looked at them earlier this year but couldn't get any feed back. Do you mind letting me know how much their going for? Please keep us updated as you burn more
Thanks
JB

I have 4 tons waiting to be burned, the first 2 bags I burned burned good the other 2 bags I burned burned terrible. Couldn't figure out why until I went to clean the burn pot and found that there is a crack in the auger tube. So now I am waiting for Harman to get back to the dealer to get it fixed. :down:

That sucks, how long have you had the stove and how do you think it happened?

Mark
 
countk said:
Alright already, just got back to see all the replies about my new math! Swalz was right and here I was thinking SUCH A DEAL! Oh well! At any rate what is the consensus on whether these pellets are good or not!

Now here's a deal. Saw this on craiglist, http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/for/1426851670.html which is a couple towns away from me. ONLY $400 a ton. He will even help you load them. What a guy!

Did the math right on this one! Okay, so if you want to get technical he only has 40 bags which would equal $320

What's this guy smoking!!
 
countk said:
countk said:
Alright already, just got back to see all the replies about my new math! Swalz was right and here I was thinking SUCH A DEAL! Oh well! At any rate what is the consensus on whether these pellets are good or not!

Now here's a deal. Saw this on craiglist, http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/for/1426851670.html which is a couple towns away from me. ONLY $400 a ton. He will even help you load them. What a guy!

Did the math right on this one! Okay, so if you want to get technical he only has 40 bags which would equal $320

What's this guy smoking!!

Wow, $8 a bag. He must be smoking some really good stuff or those are some of those "MAGIC" pellets I keep hearing about.

Careful with those big box pellets. Its been hit or miss for me. Better to try a few bags before a commitment. Or spend a tad more for the good stuff! I am not sure buying these bargain pellets, Is really a bargain. So far they have been shoulders at best for me. Spend a little more and get your moneys worth anyway!

So far I have been spending money traveling here and there to try to save a few bucks. When it all adds up I don't think I saved a nickle from what my Local pellet house is selling. And I haven't found anything worth dumping in my stove!

Take care
jay
 
Mark Fellows said:
swalz said:
jbmaine said:
Thanks for letting us know your thoughts on these pellets. Looked at them earlier this year but couldn't get any feed back. Do you mind letting me know how much their going for? Please keep us updated as you burn more
Thanks
JB

I have 4 tons waiting to be burned, the first 2 bags I burned burned good the other 2 bags I burned burned terrible. Couldn't figure out why until I went to clean the burn pot and found that there is a crack in the auger tube. So now I am waiting for Harman to get back to the dealer to get it fixed. :down:

That sucks, how long have you had the stove and how do you think it happened?

Mark

Under 2 years, most likely was a defect to begin with.
 

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Burned 2 bags of Potomac in my St Croix insert
Seemed to be high ash.

Stained my back brick on low (1) but cleaned itself on 3 (out of 1-5 setting)
Seemed to burn well, flame was active and hot.

My ony concern is the middle ash pan filling up after 1 1/4 bag.

So Ill probably use Lignetics at 60 cents more /bag.

But I may get stingy and get a 1/2 ton of the Potomacs
 
I bought 2 bags just to test burn,but its been to warm the one thing I did notice with these pellets is that they stink real bad,must have something to do with the yellow pine used.
 
+1 on the smell

2 bags so far (been warm out) - I have to clean the burn pot ("Ultra grate"than normal but not annoyingly so (once a day when the thermostat is off). Every once in a while I can hear the auger crunch a long pellet. One thing I did notice is they don't seem to slide down into the auger as well as other pellets so when it gets about time to refill the stove can go empty even with a pound or two left (I know - keep the pig fed).

The ash seems denser than the ash from hardwood pellets and this may be why I need to clean the burn pot as it doesn't get blown out as much.


Aaron
 
mnkywrnch said:
I bought 2 bags just to test burn,but its been to warm the one thing I did notice with these pellets is that they stink real bad,must have something to do with the yellow pine used.

I also noticed they stunk real bad. Smelled a lot like ACP but burned much better.
 
Yeah it was cold enough last night to burn them,the heat isn't to bad ash is what I consider normal in a pinch I would burn them if they were priced decently.Lowes wanted 269.90 per ton which IMO is to high, when I can get a quality pellet like spruce pointe for 255 per ton.
 
On second thought,just finished both bags of potomac pellets and I must say they are by far the worst pellet I've ever burned,now mind you before burning these pellets my exhaust was totally clean I had just ran the brush through a few days earlier.Looking in the exhaust after just two bags there was a thick film of creosote I was burning on low to low medium but I've done that with other brands and never had this,so I cleaned the exhaust again and now I'm running the north country pellets gone through about two bags of these and no issues at all,which led me to my conclusion on the potomac's,if anyone has been burning these pellets on low I would highly recommend checking you exhaust.
 
stoveguy2esw said:
a mississippi pellet called "Piney Woods Pellets" jury is out on them as i just loaded the first bag of a half ton im going to run. i'll post results once i get a look at how they do size and consistancy seem good almost no fines in the first bag stove has only run them for about a half hour as i type this so i dunno yet, but initially they seem to burn readily and heat output is fine so far.

what did you think of these piney woods pellets? i just picked up a couple bags from home depot to try them out.. they have them on sale for $249/ton. they seem very rough and long compaired to the potomic i just got done testing
 
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