Hardwood Heat Pellets - anyone use these?

[mgambuzza]

I was running out of pellets and wanted to buy a 1/2 ton to see if I could ride out the remainder of the CNY winter. One dealer was asking $275 for a ton of Dry Creek, and the local TSC was selling pellets for $240 a ton. I purchased a ton of Lignetics a couple of months ago and was satisfied with their product, so I thought I'd buy another 1/2 ton from TSC. When I arrived, they had another brand available - Hardwood Heat. The rating and designation all looked the same - Premium, Hardwood Blend,.5% Fines, Less than 1% Ash, Less than 300ppm Sodium. These were the similar ratings as the Lignetics, so I went ahead with the purchase.

What I've found is that this stuff chokes my P61 and Quadrafire! In the Quad, the burn pot fills to the top with ash/clinkers/unburnt portions within 12 hours! When breaking up the clinkers, it isn't like others as it is a very fragile and breaks apart easily - still the same I have to shut down and clean out every 12 or less hours. In my Harman, the ash piles up then starts to back up eventually choking out the fire. I have to scrape every 6 hours when running at higher temps. I am tempted to try to get my money back on the remainder of bags and try to locate another brand as these burn terribly! I've included a snapshot of the P61 and as you can see the flame is becoming lazy and needs to be scraped again - this is after 4 hours from the last scraping.

 

[GVA]

I had a brand of hardwoods premium do that once, it was a very dark looking pellet which typicly means there is more bark in the pellet or that's what i've been told.
I'm not sure about the quad but the P-61 will burn it. If you haven't cleaned it in a while do a thorough cleaning. The airflow is being choked a bit, the holes in the burnpot should be clear. It is a heavy ash and the limited airflow is preventing the ash from being essentially blown off the burn pot.

Make sure you clean the ash out from under the burn pot too..
My stove is in maintenance burn right now. And I haven't scraped for 3 days.

 

[mgambuzza]

When I did the scraping, the burn pot holes were clear. I've been burning this stove - installed new for only a week. When I burned Dry Creek or Energex (or even the Walmart $168 a ton cheapo pellets) this didn't happen. Ash from the burn would blow off the end of the pot effortlessly and I had to only do minimal scraping. Only when I started burning this brand did the ash seem not to "blow off" and the fire backup began.

I just ran the stove dry, and I will clean and fill with a bag of Energex that I have left and I'll let the forum know what happens.

 

[GVA]

You still will have a tremendous amout of ash that builds up under the burnpot that will choke the airflow a bit. The ash will fall through the holes.
Also if you are not using outside air check the air intake flapper and make sure it is open.
anyway let us know what the pellets do.

 

[begreen]

Yikes, that sucks. It would freak me out too. I've only burned softwood pellets and never had a Quad burnpot overflow or even come remotely close to that.

Is there any possibility of returning them? Does the store carry any other brands that you might be able to exchange them for?

 

[mgambuzza]

Just cleaned out stove including space under airpot. There was a little sediment, but nothing that would even come close to choking out. The ash that was resulting from the "Hardwood" pellets were like pieces of fused sand. Harder and solid - sized almost like kosher salt grains fused together. This is unlike any other pellet ash that I have seen in the past. I have thoroughly cleaned this out and just installed a bag of Energex and I can't wait to see if there is a difference.

 

[mgambuzza]

Nine hours later with the Energex pellets and what do we have? A strong flame and the only ash buildup is minimal on the sides of the burn pot as shown in picture. Before I bring the remainder bags of pellets back to the store for refund, I will follow the Energex with a bag of Hardwood to see whether this is a fluke or if it is in fact the brand of pellets that is causing my issue.

 

[mgambuzza]

After scraping the burn pot, I then added a bag of Hardwood Heat knowing that by tomorrow morning, I should be burning into that brand by morning. This morning at 5:am what did I find??? It looks like I'm going to be looking to return the remainder of the supply that I bought.

This is the first time that I have found such a dramatic difference between pellet brands! Very disappointing....

 

[hooligan]

I am new to this game, but one question I would ask is:
Isn't the make up of pellets a determining factor in your feed rate? Don't you need to adjust the feed rate of the pellets, depending on their make-up? I do not fully understand the difference in "residue" in the pot, but if the fire is being choked by excessive pellets it would stand to reason that the ash would have a different make up, not efficiently burning. Did you try to adjust the feed rate?

 

[begreen]

The issue here is what is called "clinkering" What is happening is a large dam of clinkers are forming that blocks the smooth feed of pellets. Adjusting the feed rate won't fix the problem when pellets are this bad. Only very frequent cleaning will help.

 

[GVA]

The issue here is what is called "clinkering" What is happening is a large dam of clinkers are forming that blocks the smooth feed of pellets. Adjusting the feed rate won't fix the problem when pellets are this bad. Only very frequent cleaning will help.

Or checking the draft, and or maybe cranking up the combustion blower since one can adjust the speed on the harmans..

 

[mgambuzza]

Well - as I said earlier I added a bag of Hardwood Heat pellets this morning before the Energex was exhausted. in the numerous hours that the Energex pellets burned, there was never a significant buildup of ash. Upon my return this afternoon I found that the burn pot was so filled that there was a 1" hole in a mound of the crystalline ash. That was the last straw and this afternoon I loaded my truck with the remainder of the bad pellets and returned them to TSC. To their compliment - they accepted and gave me my money back with no questions asked. I accompanied my return with a picture of the burn pot filled with ash and they apologized wholly for the bad experience - they haven't heard of any negative experiences so far with this brand. I informed them if they every stocked the Lignetics again, I would be first in line to buy.

So with only 2 bags of Energex left, I will have to expedite my search for pellets tomorrow afternoon.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

i've actually ran about a half ton of hardwood heat from our local tractor supply and had no such trouble with them, might be a bad batch or somthing , do they store the pellets inside ( here they are loaded into the bac k warehouse of the store when they arrive and see the sun only when they are loaded in my vehicle to take home) but if stored out in the weather they may soak up a few percentage points of moisture which can be the difference in the burn. dunno for certain about why they are burning that way up there in your unit , but ive not had that problem with them. i will agree too about the lignetics , they have done great for me as well being the primary brand i use.

 

[HarryBack]

my guess is an elevated chloride level in this particular batch, causing the fusion temp of the silica to lower greatly, and thusly, creating more "clinkers"

 

[pete]

I also had very high ash problems with the Hardwood Heat pellets. I received 30 bags for free when I purchased my used Harman Advance, so until I ran out of these I had no comparison as far as brands goes. I just recently bought a few bags of Lakewood Industries premium pellets. Less than .3% ash, less than .5% fines and less than 300 ppm sodium. what a huge difference as it seems as though the ash is much lighter and just blows off the burn pot with little remaining on it. The flame appears to be much better without the blue colour. Much lighter in colour than the Hardwood Heat as well. They were $4.99 per bag Canadian so I guess its good idea to try different brands to see how each performs.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I've had nothing but awesome experiences with Energex (and their associated Canadian brands). My old Thelin liked the very short pellet size which were about half the size of New England. The heat output difference was amazing! It pained me to send my $$ to Canuckistan as opposed to the boys up the road but business is business.

 

[alfio]

Hi , i burn new england hard wood premium ant standard on mine , and the ash those build up on mine to , but not to the point that it stares the fire. When it gets to that point i ether burn it at max for a bit , to clear out sum of the ash build up, or i open the door and with a spatular knock the front edge , living a bit in front of the fire . And that works for me . But it could be thats a bad batch of pallets . And watch your feed rate because hard wood burns slower and if your not careful it will aver flow the burn pot.

 

[HarryBack]

I've had nothing but awesome experiences with Energex (and their associated Canadian brands). My old Thelin liked the very short pellet size which were about half the size of New England. The heat output difference was amazing! It pained me to send my $$ to Canuckistan as opposed to the boys up the road but business is business.

Ive burned the Energex as well, and it burns ok, but have never been thrilled with the sooty deposits it left quite readily on the glass and inside the stove. I prefer for softwoods the western Canadians, and most hardwoods, with sub- .4% ash content. Seems to burn cleaner. My 2 cents.