My stove is an Englander and really hates burning hard wood pellets for an unknow reason. When I burn hard wood I get a large pile up of burning embers. It really does not matter what brand hard wood. Recently I purchased a ton of AWF soft white pine.. The only problem is the soft white pine does not have enough lignin in them to make them have a smooth finish. So they have a tendency to hang to the sides of the hopper. Recently I have started to mix the soft woods with hard woods to attempt to eliminate the hanging problem. Since I've started I have not had a problem yet. I move my pellets by 5 gallon buckets from my shed to the stove. I put 1/3 soft woods then 1/3 hard woods and top it off with more soft woods. I think by doing this I've increased the out put of BTU's coming from the stove. As she seems to be burning better and hotter. Has anyone else attempted to do this ?
Mixing pellets
- Thread starter Jigger
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Lake Girl
Moderator
My stove seems to prefer softwoods but all I could get at the end of last year was Trebios (hardwood). I ended up having them bridge in the hopper and creating voids with the stove going out. I've been mixing them with the softwoods just to get the last 6 bags gone...
Wilbur Feral
Minister of Fire
Interesting what we each prefer. I find softwoods just a little bit hotter, but the ash is sticky. I like my hardwoods, especially Hamer's. Mixing them sounds like a good plan, I think, if you want the best of both worlds.
Bioburner
Moderator
I have been mixing corn for several years as its cheaper and corn is very hard and slippery unfortunately some stoves burn pot systems can't handle the ash clinker of corn. Others resort to polishing or painting hopper with graphite or moly or a coat or two of auto polish a few have used foil tape on seams too.
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