American Wood Fiber (AWF) Pellet Issues

[GranvilleDave]

I recently purchased two tons of AWF Premium Hardwood Pellets at our local Mill. The first ton that I purchased burned well, were fairly clean, and I had no issues with auger clogging.

However, this last ton that I purchased is full of chunks of wood that keep jamming my auger plus there is a lot more dust/fines in them. I've attached a couple pics to show what I've found.

Have you ever run into this? Manually screening each bag and removing the pieces is necessary to keep my stove working. It's dirty and too time consuming.

I am going to return the remaining pellets to the mill. The second pic below shows a partial stack of the debris that I removed from one bag of the pellets.

 

[boo boo]

looks like floor sweepings in the second pic

 

[heat seeker]

I had a similar experience with Spruce Points. I bought 2 tons, and they were delivered to me at the same time. Both stored indoors. The first ton was great, the second ton was well below average quality - low heat, ashy. Same bags, pellets looked the same, just didn't burn well. Definitely not worth the extra cost. The TSC pellets I'm burning now are cheaper by $40/ton, and much better overall.

I had a philosophy professor who summed things like this up very well: That's the way the ball bounces!

 

[MuchoBueno]

looks like floor sweepings in the second pic

I was thinking the same thing. The broom used the pellet silo as his garbage can at the mill.

 

[fmsm]

I would call, that is not acceptable

 

[SidecarFlip]

Those need to go back for exchange or refund. Glad you said something, my local TSC got a load of them in. I don't need any but my neighbor does, I'll warn her.

 

[bags]

Did they charge extra for the dimensional lumber? That's junk! Mucho has a nice photo of the saw dust. Maybe I can turn some more profit when we clean the job site every day. Just bag it up and sell the mess as bio-fuel.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

Tried them last year. Horrible. No more for me unless there's no choice.

 

[stellep]

No excuse for that. Return them.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Did they charge extra for the dimensional lumber? That's junk! Mucho has a nice photo of the saw dust. Maybe I can turn some more profit when we clean the job site every day. Just bag it up and sell the mess as bio-fuel.

Dimensional lumber...thats funny.

 

[SXIPro]

See if they'll let you trade up for the AWF Softies.

 

[JimEvansCT]

I found a small piece of wood like you show in your second pic in a bag of AWF white pine. Since them I have been paying really close attention and just about a 1/2 ton burned and that was the only piece so far.

 

[M@dMinute]

I had the same experience, I really like the 1st ton of AWF I had.
I have been seeing the same pieces of wood in the ton I picked up this weekend (Only been through 4 bags). I have seen 3 pieces like this, just threw them in the trash I will get some pictures as I refill if more show up.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Could be that housekeeping at the AWF mill is top priority and a worker-bee is sweeping all the stuff on the floors into the to-be-bagged pellet bin. Stranger things have happened.

 

[MommyOf4]

I'll never buy American Wood Fiber pellets again. My stove just isn't burning like it used to. Everything still burns dirty. I even did a full clean out after I used up all the AMF's.

 

[jjk454ss]

I'll never buy American Wood Fiber pellets again. My stove just isn't burning like it used to. Everything still burns dirty. I even did a full clean out after I used up all the AMF's.

Same here, it's not the same anymore. I returned 3 tons for Magicspark. Much better, but still seems to be not the same, not as reliable. The dealer I got the stove from said they've had so many issues after using MEF pellets that they can't get stoves to run the same again afterwards.

 

[M@dMinute]

Here's what I saw and grabbed as I dumped a bag and a half in. These all came from the 1st bag.

I don't screen bags or filter out fines. I go straight from bag into hopper. That is just what I saw when I dumped the bag in.

I am a rookie with pellets but I really don't see how these pieces could hurt much. Not much longer than a pellet, seems like they would go through and burn.

 

[heat seeker]

The issue is not whether they'll burn or not.

When pellets get caught between the auger and housing, which happens ofter, they just snap in two, making the noise that we're all familiar with. Those chunks would probably just jam in there, maybe stopping the auger, maybe not.

 

[Skier76]

I'm burning the AWF softwoods. I saw maybe one bit of wood half the size of a toothpick in what I've burned so far.

 

[M@dMinute]

When pellets get caught between the auger and housing, which happens ofter, they just snap in two, making the noise that we're all familiar with. Those chunks would probably just jam in there, maybe stopping the auger, maybe not.

That makes sense. I was not really thinking about the auger jamming up like that, those pieces would not break as easy as a pellet.

 

[GranvilleDave]

This is the last time that I will post on this topic, but here is a picture that I took this morning of the 'stuff' that I pulled from the last bag of AWF pellets that I will ever burn. I did reach out to the company and sent them the pictures. They seemed interested but have not responded to the emails that I sent (polite and professional btw). They told me to look for an identifier on the top of each bag but that wasn't there either. So, they have no way of identifying when/where the bags were produced and also reflects on their production standards.

The fact remains that there is no way these meet an industry definition of 'Premium' Pellets'. They were full of fines and chunks. I had to filter each bag by hand and threw away the last of each bag because it was all fines. AWF has a production issue that became my issue and I hope that from this post I can help prevent it from becoming your issue.

 

[M@dMinute]

I sent them an email. Haven't heard a thing. I will also be looking for something different as well if I can find it.

It seems to be random for me in that ton I bought, most bags are perfectly good and then a random bag will be full of those pieces.

 

[GranvilleDave]

I sent them an email. Haven't heard a thing. I will also be looking for something different as well if I can find it.

It seems to be random for me in that ton I bought, most bags are perfectly good and then a random bag will be full of those pieces.

Every bag in the ton that I purchased had at least one piece that clogged\stopped my feeder. We really need to be able to trust that when we dump a bag of pellets into our stoves that the stove won't go out in the middle of the night because of this sort of debris. I was up more than once in the middle of the night cleaning out my hopper, un-jamming the feeder, and restarting the stove.

This is the person that I spoke with there:

Michael J Scanlon
National Sales & Marketing Manager

MD Office: 443-545-1903
NH Office: 603-488-1772
Cell Phone: 603-345-6972
Fax: 443-545-1959
(broken link removed)​

 

[Johnny_Fiv3]

I understand wanting a quality product and agree on that point.

But looking at the picture with the dime has me wondering: Your stove seriously can't chew that up? Is the Auger motor made in San Francisco and is potentially a little limp wristed? Short of rocks, I can't imagine something like that jamming my auger. I just had O'Malley's that had wood chunks in the bags just like those pictured and I just burned it.

 

[GranvilleDave]

Yeah, your stove is tougher than my stove.