A bit of a story to begin with.
I have been having some issues with my PS-35 this year and a bunch of you nice folks have gone out of your way to try and help me figure out what the troubles were. After many different suggestions and trying almost everything involving the mechanics and cleanliness of the stove I decided to look at the one thing I was trying to keep constant through the whole ordeal......the pellets. I installed this stove in December of 2011 and we have purchased our pellets from a local supplier until today. I went to Lowes this morning and picked up 10 bags of Green Supreme pellets. I really like dealing with my local small businesses but if the product they sell doesn't work for me then I have no choice but to go elsewhere. The ten bags should be enough to make it through a week and give me a much better idea of whats going on. My basic issue to begin with was having to close the feed gate all the way down to get the stove to function. With the gate open to it's normal position I would get a flame that would touch the top of the stove most of the time and was quite lazy. It was also very dirty and the ash needed to be taken out of the stove surrounding the pot every 3 days. The pot had to be emptied at least once a day due to a clump of ash that would build up and begin to block several of the air holes. I also had to clean the stove pipe every week on the horizontal run to keep it from closing up. I would take about 1.5" of ash from that pipe every week. Low air flow was suspected but I know how I clean this stove and I do it religiously every Sunday. I kind of like doing it. With the Green Supreme pellets I now have my feed gate open just a touch more than I would have originally and the stove is working better than it ever did. It lights quicker with way less smoke and the flame is more consistent.
Now for the question,
Are my pellets just a bad batch or did they take on some moisture? I bought 2 tons this fall (only use about 3.5-4 tons total to heat our 1500 SQ FT home in upstate New York) and we are now down to about 25 bags. We used these same brand pellets last year with out too many issues. I store them in a shed on pallets. There is ventilation in the shed but no way for them to come in direct contact with rain or snow. They seamed to work OK for the most part in the very beginning of the season but we quickly started having issues with the stove once we really started to use it full time. I notice the ash from the old pellets likes to "stick" to things inside the stove like the ceramic cover on the thermocouple. It's very black and course. If it's just bad pellets then I will suffer through the rest of them and buy the Green Supreme pellets from now on. If they took on moisture, how long will it take before they will dry out enough to be used? We keep a 10 bag rotation inside our house. We use 2 of the 10 bags and bring in 2 more. I like them to come up to room temp and stay that way for a week before we use the bag. I plan to build a garage but that won't happen until next year. Is there any way to moisture test the pellets? I though about taking a sample to a local fertilizer/grain/feed business that I deal with on a daily basis (I work on a farm) and see if they could test them with the grain moisture tester they we use to test our corn and soybeans. Not sure if it would work.
Thanks again to all the great members on this forum that have helped me trouble shoot my pellet stove.
Phil in NY
I have been having some issues with my PS-35 this year and a bunch of you nice folks have gone out of your way to try and help me figure out what the troubles were. After many different suggestions and trying almost everything involving the mechanics and cleanliness of the stove I decided to look at the one thing I was trying to keep constant through the whole ordeal......the pellets. I installed this stove in December of 2011 and we have purchased our pellets from a local supplier until today. I went to Lowes this morning and picked up 10 bags of Green Supreme pellets. I really like dealing with my local small businesses but if the product they sell doesn't work for me then I have no choice but to go elsewhere. The ten bags should be enough to make it through a week and give me a much better idea of whats going on. My basic issue to begin with was having to close the feed gate all the way down to get the stove to function. With the gate open to it's normal position I would get a flame that would touch the top of the stove most of the time and was quite lazy. It was also very dirty and the ash needed to be taken out of the stove surrounding the pot every 3 days. The pot had to be emptied at least once a day due to a clump of ash that would build up and begin to block several of the air holes. I also had to clean the stove pipe every week on the horizontal run to keep it from closing up. I would take about 1.5" of ash from that pipe every week. Low air flow was suspected but I know how I clean this stove and I do it religiously every Sunday. I kind of like doing it. With the Green Supreme pellets I now have my feed gate open just a touch more than I would have originally and the stove is working better than it ever did. It lights quicker with way less smoke and the flame is more consistent.
Now for the question,
Are my pellets just a bad batch or did they take on some moisture? I bought 2 tons this fall (only use about 3.5-4 tons total to heat our 1500 SQ FT home in upstate New York) and we are now down to about 25 bags. We used these same brand pellets last year with out too many issues. I store them in a shed on pallets. There is ventilation in the shed but no way for them to come in direct contact with rain or snow. They seamed to work OK for the most part in the very beginning of the season but we quickly started having issues with the stove once we really started to use it full time. I notice the ash from the old pellets likes to "stick" to things inside the stove like the ceramic cover on the thermocouple. It's very black and course. If it's just bad pellets then I will suffer through the rest of them and buy the Green Supreme pellets from now on. If they took on moisture, how long will it take before they will dry out enough to be used? We keep a 10 bag rotation inside our house. We use 2 of the 10 bags and bring in 2 more. I like them to come up to room temp and stay that way for a week before we use the bag. I plan to build a garage but that won't happen until next year. Is there any way to moisture test the pellets? I though about taking a sample to a local fertilizer/grain/feed business that I deal with on a daily basis (I work on a farm) and see if they could test them with the grain moisture tester they we use to test our corn and soybeans. Not sure if it would work.
Thanks again to all the great members on this forum that have helped me trouble shoot my pellet stove.
Phil in NY
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