Anyone ever get "bad" pellets?

[petejung]

Hey all... All of the sudden, having nothing but problems with my p-stove...

Been on the phone 4x today with Englands - what they say about their customer service is right on the money - they go the extra mile to help a brother out. If I could give Mike a beer through the phone line, he'd be drinking a cold one courtesy of me right now.

Anyway, my new problem is that my pellets wouldn't ignite through the auto-igniter, they smoldered, but wouldn't light. I lit my fire w/ a little bit of that fire starting gel, and, granted, there was a big pile of pellets in there from running it through on start up a couple of times, but it was really smoky! And the exhaust coming out the chimney was black... usually, all I can see is "heat" (no color to the exhaust). I'm going to run it a while, and see how it goes.

Nothing on my venting has changed since yesterday, same pellet stove... albeit we've found some issues with vacuum switches (but that wouldn't effect this problem, I don't think)... Only thing different is the bag of pellets.

The other thing I though of was maybe the combustion blower isn't strong enough, like it's going bad?

Anyone have any ideas? I'm going to give Mike and his crew a call in the morning... I'm sure he's looking forward to hearing from me

Thank's y'all...

P.S. I'm NOT bashing England's in any of my posts! Just want to make sure everyone understands that...

 

[mtalea]

what brand of pellets did you just use?

 

[petejung]

They are Somerset, bought from TSC, stored in my basement. My house is 6 yrs old, poured foundation, no leaks. I would think I was pretty safe storing my pellets down there, as far as humidity goes (have de-humidifier running down there, too)

 

[mtalea]

I have never heard of somerset but thats not unusual as I am from Connecticut and there are way to many brands to keep track of.I keep mine in the garage all winter..never had a problem with that either.Pellets are sealed in air tight bags anyway.
Out of curiosty have you done the water test on those pellets?

 

[petejung]

Nope. what's the water test, and how is it done?

 

[tinkabranc]

I am a newbie myself but my first thought was wet pellets too. I also store my pellets in an unfinished
portion of my basement. However, I still have to be sure they are not sitting on the bare cement floor
nor touching the walls. They can still pick up moisture from the cement if they touch it,
even if your basement is dry.

 

[eernest4]

fyi
I bought 4 bags of bad pellets last year. I think that the pellet factory did not cure them long enough. they had a bad chemical smell sitting the the hopper and stunk up the living room.since it was a 60 mile ride to return them & not worth the gasoline , i opened the bags and spred the pellets out on newspaper so they could stink up my garage, instead.After 3 weeks,the smell was gone and i eventually burned them all up.

Please try removing your fire cup and cleaning out the ash trap under the fire cup. The ash trap
is actually part of the cold air combustion intake air system so if it has more ash volume that 20% ash in it, you are actually clogging off your air intake and adversely affecting combustion.

I'm not sure that this is true for all pellet stoves,but for the majority, yes,i believe so.
I have not made a study of every pellet stove ever made.

wont hurt 2 look see.

If your pellets got wet or otherwise absorbed moisture, they might act similar to your description. Try what i did above for the bad smell, they will eventually dry out sitting on newspaper.

Somebody here on hearth.com once said "your wet pellets could take a spin in the cloths dryer.
I think he was joking, not serious. It could work but pellets would release a lot of sawdust
into your dryer basket and you might have a tough time cleaning up the inside of the dryer
plus complaints from wifie or mom about what the hell you did to her dryer; so this be last resort of desperation after all esle fails.

Can you take the pellets back for a refund, I would.

If you have an old sales reciept or lost it, go buy 2 new bags of pellets, as long as the bags look just like your bags, because this wont work if the bags look different and next day say you tried the pellets and they smoke up your house and ask 4 refund. but you bring back your old pellets & keep the new ones. Could open both new bags and dump them in your hopper and refill bags with old smokey pellets from out of your hopper.

If you have a lot of smokey pellets, go someplace else & buy another 2 bags, open bags , keep new pellets and refill with old smokey.

only works with 2 bags because most hoppers only take 2 bags. And it is normal for someone with a empty hopper to open both bags and dumb them in, not expecting to have any truble with the newly purchased pellets.

ok this best i can do 4 u, so good luck.

 

[petejung]

Yeah, I thought about them sitting on the cement floor. The bottom row IS sitting right on the cement, but other than that, they are sitting in the middle of the basement, not near any walls. And it's a "fresh" stack of pellets, so I'm grabbing from the top of a 4' high stack...Although, that was also the BOTTOM of the skid of pellets.

If/when I get down to the bottom couple of rows, I'll probably buy another ton of pellets, and then put a skid down on the floor and re-stack, saving those pellets that were on the concrete until much later.

 

[eernest4]

How 2 water test pellets

Take handfull pellets & put in glass with lid safe for microwave heating. Dont use plactic.

Heat in microwave, on high 1 or 2 minutes. As soon as done, microwave shut off "ding" or "beep", take glass out and take lid off. Look for condensated water on lid & if the water enough to drip off lid when you turn lid sideways, you have too much moisture content in your pellets to burn.
The condensated water under the lid came from out of your pellets; the more water, the wetter your pellets are.

option:
I suspose you could run all your pellets through the microwave to that out excess water, but you will have to stop every 12 minutes for 12 minutes to let the microwave transformer & magnetron cool off or you risk burning out your micro wave & needing to buy a new one.Also,it would take several days or forever to do,whichever comes first. %-P

option:
That cloths dryer idea is begining to sound better to me by the minute.

option:
bake all your pellets in the oven, 1 hour at 200 deg.
If it smells like the pellets are ready to eat, they are done. :lol:
so lower the temp to 180 deg and the cooking time to 45 min & try again with the next batch!

DONT BURN THE PELLETS IN THE OVEN, IT VENTS RIGHT INTO YOUR KITCHEN.

Its like frying a egg sunny side up liquid insides, you cant afford to walk away from the range, even for a minute, until you get the tecnique down dead perfect.

 

[drizler]

Only had one bad batch and luckily it was only 5 bags and they were premium pellets at that. Best thing to do is get something else in there and get the stove running right with those. Just like troubleshooting a car you need to start with a "know good item" and see where it goes from there. You can almost surely get use of the poor ones if you mix them in with decent pellets. The last thing you want to do is toss them. You don't say how old your stove is but one of the most sure fixes for any of these stoves is a GOOD CLEANING. Sounds simplistic but its very true. Try the new pellets first and see where that goes. I have left both pellets and corn sitting on a poured concrete floor all summer with no problems. Still though its best to at least set them on pallets or boards.

 

[North of 60]

How 2 water test pellets

Take handfull pellets & put in glass with lid safe for microwave heating. Dont use plactic.

Heat in microwave, on high 1 or 2 minutes. As soon as done, microwave shut off "ding" or "beep", take glass out and take lid off. Look for condensated water on lid & if the water enough to drip off lid when you turn lid sideways, you have too much moisture content in your pellets to burn.
The condensated water under the lid came from out of your pellets; the more water, the wetter your pellets are.

option:
I suspose you could run all your pellets through the microwave to that out excess water, but you will have to stop every 12 minutes for 12 minutes to let the microwave transformer & magnetron cool off or you risk burning out your micro wave & needing to buy a new one.Also,it would take several days or forever to do,whichever comes first. %-P

option:
That cloths dryer idea is begining to sound better to me by the minute.

option:
bake all your pellets in the oven, 1 hour at 200 deg.
If it smells like the pellets are ready to eat, they are done. :lol:
so lower the temp to 180 deg and the cooking time to 45 min & try again with the next batch!

DONT BURN THE PELLETS IN THE OVEN, IT VENTS RIGHT INTO YOUR KITCHEN.

Its like frying a egg sunny side up liquid insides, you cant afford to walk away from the range, even for a minute, until you get the tecnique down dead perfect.

Sounds very efficient.

 

[mtalea]

What I was told by my stove manufacture was take a few pellets put into a glass of water and watch how long it takes for them to swell......drain water if they crumble easily they are not compressed enough..also smell the pellets they should smell fresh and clean.

 

[tinkabranc]

I agree with Driz about cleaning out the hopper and try mixing the pellets with another bag.
I would not waste them either if they do not look wet or swollen. I do not have enough room
in my basement to store the pallets with my pellets, so the bottom row sits on rubber mats.
The goal is to keep them off the cement and so far so good.
Hopefully this is reason for the problems you are encountering.

 

[GVA]

Pellets are sealed in air tight bags anyway.

Those bags are not air tight.... They have at a minimum tiny holes that are not easily seen but the bags get perforated then filled then sealed.... the perforations allow the excess air to escape for neat compression of the bags for palletizing... Otherwise it would be like stacking 50 bags of doritos. ;-)
So yes they can absorb moisture from the surrounding that it is in... Dehumidifier is a plus but also keep them off the ground on a pallet....

 

[mgambuzza]

I agree with above. I store my pellets in the basement as well as the house and they sit on pallets suspending them from the concrete floors. I've had bags that were dated better than a year sit on these pallets and burned quite well.

Also - regarding starting and smoking - one of my stoves is a Quad Castille. If I don't clean the burn pot properly I will get a ton of smoke trying to ignite the pellets. I use the scraper side edge and scrape the entire vertical surface of the burn pot especially where the ignitor is which allows the ignitor to fire up consistently.

 

[eernest4]

North of 60,

your right ,it is not very efficient, just an option that works, 1 out of 7 options the poster
now had available to him, including the trick of buying 2 bags of new pellets, saving his reciept
& filling up the new bags with the old wet pellets & going back & getting a refund.

that is efficient! lots of ways to skin a cat, some better than others.

In the end,opp.......other peoples problems.
at least i give him a menu of solutions.
and all the solutions work!
let him pick which one he likes.

 

[North of 60]

North of 60,

your right ,it is not very efficient, just an option that works, 1 out of 7 options the poster
now had available to him, including the trick of buying 2 bags of new pellets, saving his reciept
& filling up the new bags with the old wet pellets & going back & getting a refund.

that is efficient! lots of ways to skin a cat, some better than others.

In the end,opp.......other peoples problems.
at least i give him a menu of solutions.
and all the solutions work!
let him pick which one he likes.

Sorry EE Looks like I am almost pickin on ya. Dont really mean it that way. Just some of the comments loop me. I know ya mean well. I was just tryin to imagine explaining to my wife why the hydro bill was so high while trying to dry pellets/ fire wood in the oven to burn in the pellet/wood stove to save on oil. ;-P

 

[eernest4]

aaaarruggg,


:lol: Coffee up my nose, yet again! rotflmao
got me good with that one & funny as putting a rock inside someone's hub cap,to boot! I needed a good laugh. And its getting hard to find a car that still had the kind of hub cap that will hold a rock, to play that trick on.

Its hellaroius to watch. Guy starts his car ,moves 20 ft. stops & looks under car, moves another 20 ft,stops & looks under car,moves 14 ft stops again.looks again.moves real slow ,listening hard for the noise.Then,just before he calls a tow truck,you walk over & say you saw someone else put something inside his hub cap & leave immediately,before he figures it out.

No doubt the pellet stove poster's best bet would be to clean his ash trap under fire pot and mix the wet pellets with new ones @ at 10 % wet to 90% dry & increase % wet in to dry accordingly as he goes.

Well, if stupidity was illegal, we would all be in jail by now.
even smart people are often stupid and the really smart ones know & try to avoid it,not always sucessfully.
The older i get, the more i forget.If i could remember everything i forgot,would i be young again?

 

[petejung]

Thanks, everyone, for your help. It's much appreciated!