Hopper HangUp - What is this weird stuff?

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Is there any way during the pellet making process some pellets got hung up and started to smolder and then got loose and continued into the bag...where the smolder was then suffocated? Just throwing it out there....have no idea if its a possibility

No.. Pellets do not go from Mill/Die to bag. They are allowed time to cool and dry before throwing them in a bag.

If they were bagged immediately, the heat would cause lots of condensate inside the bag and ruin the pellets.

Another reason why making your own pellets would be a pian. Need Lots of drying racks :(

Don. Thats a clinker. Every one has seen one. Including yourself. It should have been obvious. As far as believing the customer? I have Best friends that still lie to me. Take there word with a grain of salt.
 
No.. Pellets do not go from Mill/Die to bag. They are allowed time to cool and dry before throwing them in a bag.

If they were bagged immediately, the heat would cause lots of condensate inside the bag and ruin the pellets.

Another reason why making your own pellets would be a pian. Need Lots of drying racks :(

Don. Thats a clinker. Every one has seen one. Including yourself. It should have been obvious. As far as believing the customer? I have Best friends that still lie to me. Take there word with a grain of salt.


I agree Dexter they are clinkers, the torch did not set them on fire because they already burned. Just so large and strange shape compared to Imacman's photo in link I posted above.
 
yea, those clinkers are *probably* from elevated chloride levels.....change brands, see if there are clinkers....but try a good brand! Spring for a something such as an Okanagan, Cubex......
 
yea, those clinkers are *probably* from elevated chloride levels.....change brands, see if there are clinkers....but try a good brand! Spring for a something such as an Okanagan, Cubex......


Agree, but my customer had trouble trying to return 2 tons and getting something different. I think she has different ones now. I really hope so!
 
Is there any way during the pellet making process some pellets got hung up and started to smolder and then got loose and continued into the bag...where the smolder was then suffocated? Just throwing it out there....have no idea if its a possibility
Well ya, pellets smolder out of the mill all the time, look at your pellets and sometimes you'll see smooth black ones... There you go. To get clinkers like that you would have to have the mill catch fire, somewhat burn down and then bag up the remains.
 
My Astoria has produced clinkers like that. They only happen when I change pellets and don't adjust the damper. Some pellets(infernos) need special settings otherwise they clinker up badly. Once adjusted they burn fine.

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Totally. In the end I had 3 burn holes that went from the top to the bottom of the clinker. I set it outside and it still hasn't broken down fully. That was back in February.

I upped the air intake and they burned fine. I used more than I had on hand last year and had to take whatever home depot/lowes had. This year I grabbed four tons instead of three. You really are better off w/ the good stuff pellet wise.
 
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Very large snipeth ...

As a tech our job is to be a detective not a lemming.

Don,

Over the edge you go when you take the ole I cleaned the stove so well you can eat off of it type of response.

Pink insulation in the combustion air path, bird carcasses in the combustion fan, toy cars in the air intake, ash plugged ash traps, acorns in the ash traps, and on and on it goes.
 
Totally. In the end I had 3 burn holes that went from the top to the bottom of the clinker. I set it outside and it still hasn't broken down fully. That was back in February.

I upped the air intake and they burned fine. I used more than I had on hand last year and had to take whatever home depot/lowes had. This year I grabbed four tons instead of three. You really are better off w/ the good stuff pellet wise.

You lucked out and had enough air flow adjustment to be able to get the ash ejected before it reached the required cooking time to sinter.
 
I had another customer that put one bag of pellets in from a different brand and it was like a creasote BOMB! All his parts were covered with sticky creasote that almost ruined his fairly new pellet stove. It took us 8 hours to clean the auger, hopper everything with Acetone to get the stove to work again. Explain that?

Are those the pellets you are selling in your store now? LOL That explains it. :)
I wish you wouldn't go back and add to a post that I already quoted a response to! If you have a customer with creosote in the stove:

1. Don't use acetone at a customers house to clean creosote, harmful vapors in a living environment not to mention fire hazard. Pull the stove back to your shop, burn the mess out with a torch or just use soapy water. 8 hrs? The worst stove I ever encountered took me 2 or 3.

2. Creosote is the condensation of smoke or wood resin as a vapor. If creosote is present then I would suspect that air is not. Dirty stove, slow exhaust motor, bad gaskets, clogged burn pot (hey, we're back to the clinkers again) etc...

In all of your 5000 or so posts, the countless hours you spend here, you think you'd have learned some basics by now. Go to school man go to school.

I'm getting a little too busy to police this sorta thing. Don, some pellets are just plain crappy. Some users are just plain lazy or uneducated doesn't mean you have to follow suit.
 
I wish you wouldn't go back and add to a post that I already quoted a response to! If you have a customer with creosote in the stove:

1. Don't use acetone at a customers house to clean creosote, harmful vapors in a living environment not to mention fire hazard. Pull the stove back to your shop, burn the mess out with a torch or just use soapy water. 8 hrs? The worst stove I ever encountered took me 2 or 3.

2. Creosote is the condensation of smoke or wood resin as a vapor. If creosote is present then I would suspect that air is not. Dirty stove, slow exhaust motor, bad gaskets, clogged burn pot (hey, we're back to the clinkers again) etc...

In all of your 5000 or so posts, the countless hours you spend here, you think you'd have learned some basics by now. Go to school man go to school.

I'm getting a little too busy to police this sorta thing. Don, some pellets are just plain crappy. Some users are just plain lazy or uneducated doesn't mean you have to follow suit.


That is total crap, soap and water would not take that mess off the stove! These customers wore not lazy or uneducated they just tried 2 bags of another brand and it wiped out their stove. I never saw anything like it! Acetone saved the day, we cleaned the stove up and got it running like new again!
 
That is total crap, soap and water would not take that mess off the stove! These customers wore not lazy or uneducated they just tried 2 bags of another brand and it wiped out their stove. I never saw anything like it! Acetone saved the day, we cleaned the stove up and got it running like new again!
You talk about education then why did you drop out of college?
I dropped out cause I discovered a was as smart as the people teaching me. Doesn't mean I would presume to know everything, but what I do know I know well. You found the meteorite in the burn pot and assumed it came from outer space, not me.
 
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Popcorn? I think boxing gloves are going to be coming out soon. The innaugural hearth.com Pellet Mill Cage Match, sponsored by CHI Associates. Live on pay per view Monday, August 19, 2013.

Differences of opinion are OK, but this seems to be degrading into personal attacks.

Ya'll both got big, ummm, stoves. Maybe its time to take a break and fondle a pellet or two.
 
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