Totally Nuts

[Snowy Rivers]

The day dawned clear and nice today, went outside, unhooked the dump truck from the transfer and headed off to the nut plant.

Picked up a load of fresh hazelnut shells and headed home.
Got home about 8:45 and started barreling the stuff up.

All tolled, I was able to store about 9000 pounds.

$175.00 for the load and I had to dump some out on the ground as I did not have enough space to store it all.

A few weeks ago I scrounged up 10 more 55 gallon drums and now they are full.

All considered, it cost about 2 cents a pound.

This figures down to about 50 cents a day to heat the house.

When it gets blistering A$$ cold it will then jump to about $1 a day to heat the entire house.

Got all done, the truck washed out and hooked back up to the trailer by 12:15

Showered and off to work (My gun shop) by 1:15

Great days work.

To rain tomorrow and then again later in the week.

There are times that scheduling this task can be tedious due to the weather.

I was down to just 2 55 gallon drums of shells left. Last season was a short one and we ended up starting this season with most everything used up pretty much.

The season this year is good and the plant will be running until late Feb/Mar so I will refill everything then to make sure we are all set for the Shoulders next fall.


Sits enjoying a cup of coffee and glad the work is done.

Snowy

 

[jdempsey]

Thats great. Wish i hat my hands on some of those shells. A dollar a day during full blown winter, thats sick man. Im jealous. Anyway good luck and happy heating.

Oh..by the way hows the heat output when burning them. Also whats the name of the plant you get those from?

Thanks

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

There ya go fuel is all bunkered.

Have another cup of coffee.

 

[jtakeman]

Glad your all set for the season. Whats totally nuts is how little it cost you to heat your house for the season. What we all switched to pellets for was to save money, But you have us all beat! ;-) Still very jellous here! :red:

Anyone else burn nut shells in your area?

 

[gyingling]

Do you go through about all the 9000 pounds for the entire heating season?

That would be great to be able to burn nut shells like that at that price.

 

[nailed_nailer]

Lets see,

Snowy heats by what is available locally.

I can do the same......I'm on the Cape.....Ocean Water (H2 and O) and Sand (Si and O2) gotta be a cheap way to break them molecular bonds and get some flame.

Do I hear Pellet fueled fission reactor, anyone, anyone?

---Nailer---

 

[76brian]

Nice.

Makes me wish I'd bought a multifuel stove. Not that I have a source or a way to transport that much, but it would be nice to be able to burn them if I could get my hands on some.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Get the stuff from a Mom and pop nut processor plant near my home.


The stuff burns a tad hotter than pellets, but with about half again the ash residue.

Stove ash pan on the Large Whit gets cleaned once a week and the entire stove gets cleaned along with a leaf blow job every two weeks.

Slight adjustment to the feed rate and generally run the stove on the low setting.

If it gets really cold, we fire the Little Whit and run it on low to add just a tad more BTU's to the shack

Not quite as clean as bagged pellets, but not bad. Just have to sweep up the floor around the barrels every so often to make sure there is not stuff to attract Rodents

Have to screen every bucket full to make sure there is not any sticks or ???? 3/8" hardware cloth on the bottom of a 3 gallon pail

The little Whit will need a tad more care of the vent running on low as it can get enough residue to have a flue fire even with only a 2 foot direct vent. "very exciting" I might add when flames start blowing out the end.

The big whit will always keep a very dry vent at about 4 feet direct out the wall.

Hey all happy now with my nuts all squirreled away for the winter.

The big reason the stuff is cheap is that its a waste product and the plant has to be rid of it.
Selling it has its issues as it has limited uses other than burning it or using it as ground cover for landscaping.

The local paper mill buys a lot of it and uses it as hog fuel for there Co Gen Plant.

Not too many people use it in Pellet stoves as the dealers all tell the owners that they can't burn the stuff or that it will ruin their stove.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa been doing this for over 20 years now and it works JUST FINE :cheese:

I bought an Avalon pellet stove many years ago and the dealer decided that the stove would have no warranty if I used shells. I called the manuf, they sent out a rep who spent half a day at my house watching the little Avalon happily munch through shells and burn away just fine.

My warranty was just fine thank you.

I sold that stove as it was just too small for the house.

The Big whit is now sitting about where that stove used to be.

Takes a big stove to heat 2400 sq ft ranch style home.

later troops

Snowy

 

[jtakeman]

When I first started burning pellets, They all said it was a waste product. Prices where really cheap back then(about $100 to $125/ton) and not many peeps were burning them either. Look at what we have today.

Maybe I can get the squirrel's to save the acorn shells for me? hehe!

 

[imacman]

Maybe I can get the squirrel's to save the acorn shells for me? hehe!

LAST year you could have had as many tons of acorns as you could store....the crop was UNBELIEVABLE. It made the rear tires on my lawn tractor just spin going up a small incline near the tree.

This year, you'd be hard pressed to heat much....a very "off" year for acorns.

That said, next year if the crop is good, I'm going to scoop up 30-40 lbs of them, set the stove for cherry pits, and see what happens.

 

[jtakeman]

Maybe I can get the squirrel's to save the acorn shells for me? hehe!

LAST year you could have had as many tons of acorns as you could store....the crop was UNBELIEVABLE. It made the rear tires on my lawn tractor just spin going up a small incline near the tree.

This year, you'd be hard pressed to heat much....a very "off" year for acorns.

That said, next year if the crop is good, I'm going to scoop up 30-40 lbs of them, set the stove for cherry pits, and see what happens.

Not much if any acorns here either. But man did we get a bumper crop of beachnuts. I should have saved some???

 

[Don2222]

Maybe I can get the squirrel's to save the acorn shells for me? hehe!

LAST year you could have had as many tons of acorns as you could store....the crop was UNBELIEVABLE. It made the rear tires on my lawn tractor just spin going up a small incline near the tree.

This year, you'd be hard pressed to heat much....a very "off" year for acorns.

That said, next year if the crop is good, I'm going to scoop up 30-40 lbs of them, set the stove for cherry pits, and see what happens.

I know some big pellet furnaces can burn acorns
Remember my may post https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/75229/

He has a Maxim M175 wood pellet boiler and had to lay them out to dry no more than 6 inches thick.

However they may have to be chopped or cracked for our stoves. We just need a way of cracking them.
Then we can make flour with the inerds.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Snip .... We just need a way of cracking them.
Then we can make flour with the inerds.

You should try a small batch, I understand it is quite a bit of work.

 

[nate379]

Huh, I didn't know nut shells would burn in a pellet stove. Sounds like a real cheap way to heat!

 

[Snowy Rivers]

THINK BIOMASS

Any nut shells that you normally would eat, including hazellnut, walnut, peanut, and so on.

The only issue is to keep the size of the pieces no larger than your little finger nail.

Too small (Crumbs) and the stuff flashes off when it hits the fire and creates a lot of ash.

Cherry pits, Olive pits also work well. The big deal is getting the stuff in a large quantity.

If you have to pay to get it all bagged and easy to handle, then the cost heads north at warp speed

My situation is unique in that I own a large truck, although a pickup with side boards could make a couple trips and do the job.

Having the truck to haul a large amount easily, then barreling the stuff to store it, keep it dry and keep rodents out.

Biomass

The idea of using a little home pellet mill to make pellets from Grass, leaves and waste materials is no different.

With the shells, the job take me about 3-4 hours total time to haul and store my winter fuel supply.

To go get a couple tons of Pellets, haul them home (I have to drive farther) then pack the bags in and stack them, takes about the same amount of effort and time and costs far more.


The close source of supply makes this a viable alternative.


Snowy

 

[smoke show]

no pics=never happened :lol:

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Will have to see what we can do about that little issue.

Looking at a bunch of barrels all sitting in the basement is pretty boring, but we can do that.


Snowy

 

[Eatonpcat]

I want to see them too

 

[76brian]

I can't believe you're all in a hurry to see this guys nuts...

 

[Eatonpcat]

I can't believe you're all in a hurry to see this guys nuts...

Edit...No comment

 

[jtakeman]

Um fella's, Snowy is a girl/lady!

Be nice. ;-)

 

[Eatonpcat]

Um fella's, Snowy is a girl/lady!

Be nice. ;-)

OOPS...Sorry!

 

[76brian]

Um fella's, Snowy is a girl/lady!

Be nice. ;-)

Even the girls have to appreciate a good nut joke, no?

 

[dw06]

Boy that is really something, I heard and read some about heating with nut shells, cherry pits and the like. But never knew it could be done that cheaply. I learn more everyday! Thanks for sharing!!

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Lets see,

Snowy heats by what is available locally.

I can do the same......I'm on the Cape.....Ocean Water (H2 and O) and Sand (Si and O2) gotta be a cheap way to break them molecular bonds and get some flame.

Do I hear Pellet fueled fission reactor, anyone, anyone?

---Nailer---

sell it and use the money on pellets.

Eric