I'm in NH. And it seems about this time of year is when the pellet inventory in New England starts to run out. Learning my lesson from last year, I have enough. I'm interested in making my own pellets with a wood pellet mill. Anyone have any experience with this? There are wood chips for free usually at the dump from the power company. So I think it's a no brainer. I've seen models online as low as $1,500 for the home versions and seem to put out pretty good pellets per hour. Anyone make their own or know where to get parts? Thanks for reading.
Make Your Own Pellets
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Peterfield
Minister of Fire
There are a few posts on the forum dealing with this and from my recollection from those that tried it was that it was a big PITA for the trouble. I think it was finding the raw material to make the pellets.
FWIW, in most areas in NH, there are plenty of pellets around this year but we'll have to see if that holds as we get into Feb/Mar.
FWIW, in most areas in NH, there are plenty of pellets around this year but we'll have to see if that holds as we get into Feb/Mar.
maple1
Minister of Fire
If it was really a no-brainer, there would be lots of posts on here about people already doing it.
Wilbur Feral
Minister of Fire
As I recall, the moisture content of commercial pellets is about 4%. The moisture content of seasoned wood is about 20%, also from memory - and that's likely drier than wood chips at the town dump. And then there's the additional shredding necessary to make a pellet in a pelletizer. So even if you can ecomically pelletize those chips, success is not likely. Just too many additional steps that only make sense when you have economies of scale.
I see someone locally offer pellets for sale on CL every year. It's always a different person, who thought they could make money if they bought a pelletizer. They last about two months because the quality of pellets is so bad. You see the same thing from people who make pellets for bedding, or for the oil and gas industry. They look fine, but then you try to burn them. Most seem to not make it to the second bag before the experiment fails.
I see someone locally offer pellets for sale on CL every year. It's always a different person, who thought they could make money if they bought a pelletizer. They last about two months because the quality of pellets is so bad. You see the same thing from people who make pellets for bedding, or for the oil and gas industry. They look fine, but then you try to burn them. Most seem to not make it to the second bag before the experiment fails.
TimfromMA
Minister of Fire
You will need a supply of raw materials plus all the necessary equipment to press it into pellets plus dry them out. Unless you plan on making ALOT and selling off the extras, I think you will find it difficult, time consuming and uneconomical.
6 years ago I was thinking the same thing and went to a demonstration where the fellow had several of these Chinese made machines. After watching the whole operation decided it would be more efficient to buy some sheep and goats let them eat and make the pellets. All you would have to do is dry the pellets. The old saying comes to mind ." If it looks to good to be true it probably isn't." Take everybody's advice and skip this idea. The pellets made by these machines will be to long, to soft, and half will fall apart before they get into the hopper of your stove.
You have to grind the wood into sawdust, dry it, buy some material to use as a binder then try to figure out how to make a consistent size. After which you have to dry the finished pellets. When its all said and done you will realize how cheap a bag of pellets really is.
You have to grind the wood into sawdust, dry it, buy some material to use as a binder then try to figure out how to make a consistent size. After which you have to dry the finished pellets. When its all said and done you will realize how cheap a bag of pellets really is.
MarkF48
Feeling the Heat
This past fall I created a virtual mountain of oak and maple leaves cleaning up the yard. Kept thinking it would be pretty neat if these could be manufactured into pellets to burn. 
Actually, this summer, I'm gonna pull the feed auger in my stove and build another one with a faster helix. That way, the spacing between flights will be greater and will allow a larger physical sized mass to pass without jamming. My thrust is to allow my auger to pass wood chips so I can experiment with burning chips made from my pto driven wood chipper than makes dandy wood chips from all the dead limbs and trees I chip on the property. Typically I chip a couple tons of chips yearly. Would be nice to burn them for heat. After all, wood, is wood and most of the wood I chip is hardwood (oak, cherry) and a bit of maple.
I posted about this a while back and basically got similar responses, PITA, and after thinking it through came to that realization also. A friend pitched the idea to me, he had done some research on the equipment and he wanted to also do bio pellets for fertilizer to have something to sell year round. We were looking at more like $3K and from what I can see you would have to do a lot of maintenance because of the moving parts of the system. So add up the initial equipment cost, factor in your labor and then decide if you can get a quality product after all the effort.
There is already a pelletizer here in Michigan that pelletizes chicken manure for fertilizer. I need to get a bag and see if it will readily combust. I'm sure the exhaust smell isn't a sweet as wood pellets but then I don't care what it smells like so long as it makes heat.
TimfromMA
Minister of Fire
Now THOSE are crap pellets.
I'm in NY and it seems about this time of year when the pellet inventory is wherever it is, someone starts to think...I can make these things myself!
When supply is around, buy what you need and some extra to buffer yourself through a cold winter!
Bill
Are they doing them for heat/fuel or for fertilizer? The guy I was talking to wanted to use that type of bio waste as a pelletized organic fertilizer.
It's hen litter actually and they sell it in supersacks (1 ton) pelletized for 160 bucks a ton picked up at their chicken farm. I just called them. They also deliver via dump truck (minimum 23 ton load) or in 50 pound bags, 40 to a skid, plus freight of course.
It's fertilizer but it's still biofuel just like processed wood waste and I'm sure they are using the same pelletizing equipment. Extruders are extruders.
I need to get a couple bags and see if it makes heat (and don't stink too bad......)...lol
The Hurst Solid fuel boiler in my avitar burns wood ships and is uderfed via an auger. Of course the auger is appreciably larger than the ones in your pellet stoves (6' in diameter) and the flighting is coarser as well but it handles wood chips straight from tree service companies and utility crews no problem. It don't handle road signs, chainsaws, mailboxes and the ocassional shovel very well, it has what we call a clairifier which is basically a set of revolving fingers spaced 2" apart that 'comb' out trash so it don't jam the auger. Got some nice tools from wood chips.......
I'm certainly not short on pellets, just looking at alternatives (like I usually do).
If it's a Chinese extruder it won't be much. Very varible length pellets. The Chinese version is basically an oversized meat grinder.
It might be imported and sold through a Michigan company but I don't know of any domestic manufacturers of plate extruders. Even the commercial ones are built in Europe. The Chinese ones are crude in design. Basically a stationary extruder plate with a rolling anvil and production is entirely predicated on consistency of product to be extruded, moisture and lignin content and the temperature of the product itself. I looked at them seriously a few years ago.
You can shove about any homoginized material through a hardened tool steel sieve plate but getting consistency is another matter entirely.
Commercially produced pellets (produced in controlled enviroment in commercially sized extruders) are really a bargain considering whats involved in machinery and up front cost.
You can shove about any homoginized material through a hardened tool steel sieve plate but getting consistency is another matter entirely.
Commercially produced pellets (produced in controlled enviroment in commercially sized extruders) are really a bargain considering whats involved in machinery and up front cost.
Thanks for the quick response and the info. If I can find an easy way, I'll be sure to share and post it here. Thanks!
Ok, so i was thinking about making my own wood, I have access to FREE dry eastern white pine sawdust where I work, year round. I have one pellet stove that heats the whole house and with an addition i'm adding, I'm looking at another one to heat that room and other parts of the house. i do have the room to dry the pellets once made. i would just have to figure out the binder. does anyone know of a web site I could find out some information on that sort of stuff???
Thanks
Thanks
Chinese pellet mill. Goggle it. You don't need a 'binder' the lignin in the wood sawdust is the binder. I thnk you'll find pretty quickly that commercial pellets are really a bargain compared to 'rolling youir own'.....lol
Have fun
Have fun
TimfromMA
Minister of Fire
It's all about economy of scale. Unless you plan on setting up a full scale commercial pellet making operation you will never be able to make enough pellets to be cost effective.
You might need a binder with a small machine. The smaller machines probably don't reach the correct pressure (70,000 psi) and temperature (200F) to create pellets with lignin as the only binder.
You also need to have the moisture correct before pelletizing, not after. After pelletizing the pellets have to be cooled (the moisture content will drop another 1%) but before pelletizing you need to have furnish at 10% to 11% moisture. That's with an industrial sized machine. With a small home pelletizer it would probably have to be dryer as you won't have as much pressure and heat. It would take some experimentation.
They do have some videos of small pelletizers using no binders, so maybe you can get it to work.
Your source material is all softwood, so you would need a die for the machine that is sized for softwood (longer effective length).
You also need to have the moisture correct before pelletizing, not after. After pelletizing the pellets have to be cooled (the moisture content will drop another 1%) but before pelletizing you need to have furnish at 10% to 11% moisture. That's with an industrial sized machine. With a small home pelletizer it would probably have to be dryer as you won't have as much pressure and heat. It would take some experimentation.
They do have some videos of small pelletizers using no binders, so maybe you can get it to work.
Your source material is all softwood, so you would need a die for the machine that is sized for softwood (longer effective length).
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