do i need to do something to pellets before i burn them??

[emmittjames]

ok, talk to me about these "fines" -- i gather that this is referring to the crushed up dusty stuff in the bag, right? the post yesterday about somebody building a cleaner got me worried. is there something else i should know about? the installers should be here in the next couple of hours! just in time for what appears to be ct's first snow??? really its just sleet, but shocking nonetheless in november!

 

[DMZX]

ok, talk to me about these "fines" -- i gather that this is referring to the crushed up dusty stuff in the bag, right? the post yesterday about somebody building a cleaner got me worried. is there something else i should know about? the installers should be here in the next couple of hours! just in time for what appears to be ct's first snow??? really its just sleet, but shocking nonetheless in november!

Some folks sift out all the fines: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/23999/

Some do not, opting to clean out the auger every five or six bags.

I sift the bottom 1/4 of each bag and clean the auger every so often with a shop vac.

 

[magsf11]

you are right, it looks like saw dust. I dont do nothing about them, the bags I have really dont have a lot of fines and they dont mess up my stove. I just vac out the hopper once a week. the only probblem that I have had was the dust in the house after loading, so now I dump the pellets in a 5 gal bucket and most of the fines are just blown in the air. It also make for a happy wife, less dust.

 

[Panhandler]

I have never sifted pellets. It has never caused a problem with my stove. If a batch of pellets causes dust during loading into the hopper, I stick the shop vac hose in one end of the hopper and pour pellet from the other end underneath the hose.

 

[jtakeman]

I am a straight dump them in the hopper guy too. I vac the hopper every week on the cleaning day. But if I get some bad ones I built a cando screen to sift them. Been doing it for 11 season now and no jams except a bolt that was in a pellet bag. I'll make a vac setup one of these days. Most of the time when I get the real dusty ones. I set them on the floor uprite and give the bag a little shacking. This will settle most of the fines to the bottom. I scoop the pellets into the hopper until I get to the bottom 1/4 of the bag. I then shift the bottom in my screener.

You will see many ways to handle the fines. You will just need to pick the best one for you or the one you like the best.

 

[tjnamtiw]

this is what I made. I draped window screen between the two small pieces of wood on the inside walls of the sides and stapled it in place. you stand the bad of pellets on the upper shelf and slit the bottom corner, letting the pellets slide down and into a bucket. Make the legs any height you want to fit your bucket. There is a shelf inside to collect the fines.

www.pensandcalls.com/pellet_cleaner.rtf

 

[cncpro]

Apparently some stoves handle this better than others. My CB1200 has had about 10 tons run through it and I've never cleaned the hopper or auger. I do not sift the pellets either. So far no trouble at all and everything I put in the top eventually makes it's way out the bottom.

 

[tjnamtiw]

I just do it to eliminate one possibility. In four tons so far, I've collected over 5 gallons of fines.

 

[Utilitrack]

I burn it all, fines and all. I have a top loader though. I assume that makes a difference.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Yes, you do need to do something with the pellets before you burn them, you need to light them.

Now that's out of the way. It depends upon your stoves tolerance for fines and small broken pellets, and the pellets you are burning.

I only screened the first 3 ton batch of pellets I burned, they were the only ones to form a fines plug that the auger spun in but blocked the pellets from being delivered.

So it is likely that you can just dump and burn.

 

[poconoman]

Give them a quick rinse.

 

[JBlank912]

I had 3 tons of Pellets that had a lot of fines, what I did was shake the bag to get the fines to the bottom. Purt the pellets in but grabbed the bottom 1/8 of the bag with my hand to keep the fines in the bag. I would put that on the side. After a dozen bags or so I would sift the remains and use them. About once every 1-2 weeks I would vacuum the hopper to get the fines out. Once I got thru that batch, I then just dumped the whole bag in without any siftting. About once every 2-3 weeks, longer if I have a really clean batch of pellets, I vacuum the hopper to get the fines.

 

[nailed_nailer]

I'm another open the bag and dump them in guy.

My Enviro eats them up...fines and all.

I find I can damn near eliminate the dust by opening the entire top of the bag and flip over the bag and drop it into the hopper cut end down. Then let it sit a few seconds then slowly pull the bag up off of the pellet pile. The fines stay on top of the pellets and get burned. Have not noticed much in the way of house dust (except Golden Retriever furballs).

Good Luck,
---Nailer---

 

[kofkorn]

Mark me down for another one who just dumps them in. lt really does depend on what stove you are running. The Englanders with the double auger setup seem to not really be phased by fines or significant differences in pellets. Actually the only problems I've ever had were long pellets which caused the augers to jam.

I can imagine some of those stoves that have the single auger at an upward angle might be particularly susceptible to fines, as they would tend to collect at the bottom of the auger and possibly interfere with the function.

Good luck!

 

[save$]

Just dump them in. Did sift for the first year, but stoped for now. Do vac out th hopper from time to time. Save the fines and stray pellets for the handful put in the pot when start the fire up. Can't stand wasting them.

 

[caledoniacars]

I prefer a cold Bud Light draft as a rinsing agent

 

[Xena]

Add me to the dump it all in club. If ya buy quality
pellets there won't be hardly any dust in the bags anyway.

 

[briansol]

even my POS stove eats 'em. dump it right in. lol

 

[teetah222]

Yes, you do need to do something with the pellets before you burn them, you need to light them.

Actually, I was thinking maybe they should dump them out of the bag before burning, but... Personally, I'm a "dump 'em in and clean if needed".

 

[Nicholas440]

I pour them in the hopper slowly this will help keep the dust to a minimum. I think a lot depends on the quality of your pellets, and how the bags were handled. I have had a few bags that were very dusty, and others that had almost no dust at all. Every so often I put the shop vac hose down into the auger area in the bottom of the hopper to get any accumulated sawdust out of it .