Make Your Own Pellets !

[Fairwind]

I stumbled across an ad for a homeowner sized pellet mill! It's probably not very practical, but for the man who has everything......www.GardenHeat.com Model D150G

 

[NYBurner]

1500 and a junkyard mower engine....not bad really. How the heck do you source the wood shavings though?

 

[maple1]

It's quite a bit of work turning tons of trees into cords of ready to burn wood, if you burn wood.

But finding tons of suitable stuff to make pellets with, then making it into ready to burn pellets and all that would go with that, if you burn pellets - no thanks.

 

[Fairwind]

Yeah, this is only for the pellet obsessed..They come with a 13hp gas engine...By the time you are all said and done, your homemade pellets would end up costing you thirty bucks a bag not counting your labor......I'd like to see a sample of the pellets produced....

 

[Dwig]

If I could rent one I would definitely try it out. Could be fun! I'm not going to buy something like that though.

 

[sportbikerider78]

This is a great idea, if you have tons of sawdust just lying around.

 

[Peterfield]

Fool's errand.

 

[rona]

We had a stove dealer get into the pellet machines and he held a open house for his customers. These machines are a joke. First you have to have dry material, Next it has to be ground fine to almost a dust. Next comes the pellet machine. These are feed grade capable but not enough pressure to create a binder so the ground wood will stick together so you end up adding water and finally have to buy a additive to make a pellet. Next is the problem of size. They have no way of keeping a certain length and will vary from nothing to 2 1/2 inches long. Finally they have to cool off and when they do a significant number will simply fall apart.
We spent a day trying different formulas and basically at the end of the day it was obvious the best pellets were made by large commercial pellet companies. Save you money and time.

 

[rich2500]

Yeah, this is only for the pellet obsessed..They come with a 13hp gas engine...By the time you are all said and done, your homemade pellets would end up costing you thirty bucks a bag not counting your labor......I'd like to see a sample of the pellets produced....

I have seen the pellets and they actually look like any other Pellet except for the variations in color depending on what was used to make them.They claim the best burning Pellets are the ones they make from grass clippings, It's a hobby for those guys and they claim they can make enough pellets to heat both their homes for the winter.I don't know just repeating what they told me.They supposedly have connections with someone from a wood mill.To much work for me and I got plenty of other hobbies.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

I did'nt look very far into the site, but by the color and shape of the machines, they might be imported from India? There's nothing wrong with some of these machines. In fact when gas was near 5 bucks a gallon, and the bio diesel manufacture hits it's high, many of the Chinese oil seed crushers were bought and paid for in a week crushing canola and other oil seeds.

When the next up turn in oil prices occurs, we'll see if people change their minds about making their own pellets. If you have any shopping experience, like using coupons or looking for the best price on consumables, you'll start to learn how to buy raw materials from farmers and other sources that you can make pellets from. Pellets can be made without additives from anything with "lignin" in it. Lignin is an organic polymer binding agent naturally occurring in most all plant life.

But I can see how it would be somewhat difficult to understand how easy it actually may be to make your own pellets if one does not have a mechanical or improvisation type of background.

 

[maple1]

I'm pretty mechanical & improvisational, but I think I would go to burning wood before I would start at making pellets even if I had to buy wood at a premium price. If it was that good a prospect, there would be all kinds of posts on here from people doing it now.

Just my thoughts on it....

 

[SXIPro]

I'd just use a Play-Doh fuzzy pumper barber shop. Same deal. Dump crap in one end, extrude it out the other.

 

[rcook430]

I'd just use a Play-Doh fuzzy pumper barber shop. Same deal. Dump crap in one end, extrude it out the other.

Why didnt I think of that ?

 

[Deezl Smoke]

I'm pretty mechanical & improvisational, but I think I would go to burning wood before I would start at making pellets even if I had to buy wood at a premium price. If it was that good a prospect, there would be all kinds of posts on here from people doing it now.

Just my thoughts on it....

You do not know me, and I must try my best to preface replies with my emotional intention in hopes that others do not take offense to what I say as I do not possess the proper vocabulary to make my intentions immediately recognized. So please try to understand that my reply to you is meant with all good intentions and in no way meant to be disrespectful.

And if you can not burn wood? There are getting more and more places that are restricting wood burning unless you can prove that you are considered low income or that wood is your only source of heat. A lot f back yard burning is being prohibited and restricted as well.

What is premium priced wood in your area? Oak here about 250-280 USD per cord. Coming from a wood burning background and still burning wood in the shop, a cord wont last half as long as a ton of pellets "here".

But it matters not really. Each of us has to heat with whatever means makes us happy or what is economically feasible, and/or physically possible. Elderly may not be able to handle wood or bags of pellets. Apartments may not allow any other heat source but electric or gas. Etc., etc.

But I have found that usually once someone gets going producing their own products of many kinds, they see areas of bottleneck and takes steps toward improving them so that production can be faster and easier. Usually people tend to not make changes until it is either required to do so, or the economic difference is too great.
IMO.

 

[maple1]

You do not know me, and I must try my best to preface replies with my emotional intention in hopes that others do not take offense to what I say as I do not possess the proper vocabulary to make my intentions immediately recognized. So please try to understand that my reply to you is meant with all good intentions and in no way meant to be disrespectful.

And if you can not burn wood? There are getting more and more places that are restricting wood burning unless you can prove that you are considered low income or that wood is your only source of heat. A lot f back yard burning is being prohibited and restricted as well.

What is premium priced wood in your area? Oak here about 250-280 USD per cord. Coming from a wood burning background and still burning wood in the shop, a cord wont last half as long as a ton of pellets "here".

But it matters not really. Each of us has to heat with whatever means makes us happy or what is economically feasible, and/or physically possible. Elderly may not be able to handle wood or bags of pellets. Apartments may not allow any other heat source but electric or gas. Etc., etc.

But I have found that usually once someone gets going producing their own products of many kinds, they see areas of bottleneck and takes steps toward improving them so that production can be faster and easier. Usually people tend to not make changes until it is either required to do so, or the economic difference is too great.
IMO.

Have to say I agree with most all of that.

I'm not getting any younger, and seem to be always thinking about what is next when the day comes that I can't or don't want to do wood. Right now we have an electric boiler for backup. But that will never be used for anything more than just backup, and only if used very infrequently. After that, choices go to mini-split heat pumps, or maybe (especially with the way prices have gone this past year) even putting another oil tank back in & burning oil again. <shudder>. Most likely it will be multiple heat sources though (as is now with wood & electric boiler). With the local pellet supply & price situation, those would likely be down on the list after that - but that's also due to the fact that if I was not wanting or able to do wood, I would also not likely be wanting to sling bags of pellets. I am virtually 100% sure though that I would not be making pellets - way more time & work involved than in just putting up a few cords of wood every year, as I see it.

 

[fedtime]

My brother in law has a wood flooring business. His plant produces piles of sawdust - hard and softwood.

He tried a pellet mill. I'm not sure what it cost (maybe $20,000?), but he spent countless hours trying to make it work without success. Mills tend to be really finicky - you just get the correct combination of moisture, pressure and type/size of material, only to have the whole process thrown off by a slight change to any of those three variables. The use of a binding agent helped, but again the variability of the result was all over the map.

He figures he would need to spend in the six figure range to get equipment that would address these issues properly and produce a quality pellet consistently, reliably and economically.

 

[rona]

I did'nt look very far into the site, but by the color and shape of the machines, they might be imported from India? There's nothing wrong with some of these machines. In fact when gas was near 5 bucks a gallon, and the bio diesel manufacture hits it's high, many of the Chinese oil seed crushers were bought and paid for in a week crushing canola and other oil seeds.

When the next up turn in oil prices occurs, we'll see if people change their minds about making their own pellets. If you have any shopping experience, like using coupons or looking for the best price on consumables, you'll start to learn how to buy raw materials from farmers and other sources that you can make pellets from. Pellets can be made without additives from anything with "lignin" in it. Lignin is an organic polymer binding agent naturally occurring in most all plant life.

But I can see how it would be somewhat difficult to understand how easy it actually may be to make your own pellets if one does not have a mechanical or improvisation type of background.

Have you ever been up close and tried to make one of those toys produce wood pellets? Or have you tried grinding dry leaves or grass then grinding the same and after that try to get it into and through one of those so called machines? Have you seen the pellets that resulted?
Typically these machines were designed to make feed grade pellets to feed animals in a third world country. There is a huge difference in food grade pellets and typical wood pellets for burning stoves. I had the experience of going with a stove dealer to watch these types of pellet machines work and helped the people who were trying to make pellets suitable for burning. I actually felt sorry for the dealer who was demonstrating these machines as it proved to be a waste of time from the beginning to the end. Basically no matter what you did to produce decent pellets something would happen to prevent that from happening. Basically you could run around behind half a dozen sheep and scoop up more pellets then these things would produce. Both type of pellets require drying.
By far a better idea is to buy a multifuel stove and burn grain, cherry pits , or similar material.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Have you ever been up close and tried to make one of those toys produce wood pellets? Or have you tried grinding dry leaves or grass then grinding the same and after that try to get it into and through one of those so called machines? Have you seen the pellets that resulted?
Typically these machines were designed to make feed grade pellets to feed animals in a third world country. There is a huge difference in food grade pellets and typical wood pellets for burning stoves. I had the experience of going with a stove dealer to watch these types of pellet machines work and helped the people who were trying to make pellets suitable for burning. I actually felt sorry for the dealer who was demonstrating these machines as it proved to be a waste of time from the beginning to the end. Basically no matter what you did to produce decent pellets something would happen to prevent that from happening. Basically you could run around behind half a dozen sheep and scoop up more pellets then these things would produce. Both type of pellets require drying.
By far a better idea is to buy a multifuel stove and burn grain, cherry pits , or similar material.

Not the pellet mills, only the seed crushers.

 

[rona]

Not the pellet mills, only the seed crushers.

I am not trying to insult you but there is a world of difference in crushing seed for oil and making pellets to burn.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

I am not trying to insult you but there is a world of difference in crushing seed for oil and making pellets to burn.

No offense taken.