Personal pellet mill advice please.

[TheDeicide]

I've searched around and not found much. I'm not very good at searching forums apparently because I'm sure this has been talked about before.

Myself and two friends were discussing the possibility of getting our own mill to take care of our own heating needs. I would like input from others who are familiar with it to give some advice on what to look for and avoid on a good product. Even links to other discussions and articles would be great.

 

[TimfromMA]

I think you will find that this endeavor will be a lot more difficult and expensive than you realize. Unless you plan on making ALOT and selling the surplus, you’re much better off buying pellets, even at their current inflated price.

 

[3650]

It may be easier to grow corn around your house and burn it. I'm considering doing that. A bag of seed corn is about $250 approx. An acre will produce 200+ bushels'. Shellers can be found fairly cheap at auctions.....
not having to mow grass......priceless.

 

[TheDeicide]

They are running around $270 a ton right now and typically in February they start limiting you to ten bags per day because of shortages. There are 3 of us currently using around 18 tons per year combined and two others using around 10 tons, so as a group it might break even in year one but save in future years. I'm building a new home over the next 18 months and plan to use primarily pellets for heat so the usage will likely go up. Worse case we break even each year and don't have to deal with shortages.

 

[TheDeicide]

I tried corn once and it was a huge hassle. I couldn't get my stove to burn it. It might have been a moisture issue.

 

[TimfromMA]

Do you have a source for sawdust?

 

[TheDeicide]

Yes I do. We have a few small mills right near me and I'll have an alaska mill running at my property for a while as well.

 

[Cedarjunki]

In the 20-30's + ton range you arent talking small scale or home owner statistics anymore. You would need a full plant to produce what you are thinking about doing.
Dont get me wrong, i love the idea of making my own.. and do plan on doing so eventually.

 

[TheDeicide]

Well that's unfortunate. I'm still looking into doing it regardless.

 

[SXIPro]

A new home and you are considering using primarily pellets for heat. Ouchie.

 

[3650]

Might make sense to buy a stove that does burn corn hassle free to stick in the new house.

 

[rich2500]

I see your from Pa. are you near Brodheadsville,Garden Heat is in Brodheadsville and they mess with the making of pellets and selling the mills and such If your close to them it would be worth your while to stop with them and see whats involved, I did and it's alot of work

 

[Peterfield]

I've searched around and not found much. I'm not very good at searching forums apparently because I'm sure this has been talked about before.

Myself and two friends were discussing the possibility of getting our own mill to take care of our own heating needs. I would like input from others who are familiar with it to give some advice on what to look for and avoid on a good product. Even links to other discussions and articles would be great.

RUN, theDeicide, RUN

 

[Wilbur Feral]

Your problem will be moisture content, and it is largely not solvable at consumer scale. I don't think anyone here can say they have seen a personal mill produce consistently usable pellets.

 

[DrewBoogie]

You may be better off getting a dealer license or distributor license and buying 30 tons at wholesale, no?

 

[Deezl Smoke]

Dont be discouraged by all the nay sayers. I've been daily researching the same thing, but for using agricultural biproducts.

There's not a whole lot of knowledge available yet as most that have a mill either have had enough of the negativity and keep it quiet, or do not wish to share for free what they paid to learn.

But it seems that when relying on lignin as your sole binding agent, you need some pretty good heat to get the lignin to soften enough and work as a binder. But kiln dried sawdust does not have enough lignin left over, so you may have to experiment with mixing wood products to get the pellets to adhere well.

Keep searching and learning. If you can find a friend that has a chemistry background, they may be able to help you more than anyone else. The mechanical part of pushing the sawdust thru a hole is the easy part. It's the chemistry of temperature and adhesion that will make it work. Then you will have to cool the pellets very well before packaging to keep condensation from forming in the package.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Calculate the following...
-Overhead and equipment needs
-Maintenance costs
-Material (incoming sawdust or whatever you are making into pellets)
-Your labor costs (it's not worth nothing, right?)
-Your difference between a manufactured ton and a purchased ton.


Equipment costs/(cost to buy a ton - cost to make a ton)*Qty you need

Those are the inputs you need to get a real ROI calculation.

 

[Deezl Smoke]

I've searched around and not found much. I'm not very good at searching forums apparently because I'm sure this has been talked about before.

Myself and two friends were discussing the possibility of getting our own mill to take care of our own heating needs. I would like input from others who are familiar with it to give some advice on what to look for and avoid on a good product. Even links to other discussions and articles would be great.

Do you and your friends have stoves that seem to work well on most any pellet? Or are they maybe even multi-fuel heaters? For your own heating needs in a smaller group of people, if you all have heaters that are very forgiving of pellet quality or can even burn grains, I think you can make faster progress in improvements if you can burn the first batches yourselves and make notes. But some stoves are pretty picky about the pellet quality. If your stove is picky, it may look discouraging when the first couple batches do not burn well. So since you and a couple friends are looking into this, it might help if you figure your stove's abilities too.
IMO.

 

[Bioburner]

I tried corn once and it was a huge hassle. I couldn't get my stove to burn it

Several reasons as to why your stove probably did not burn corn. Simple easy way to dry smaller amounts of corn without to much $$
Put what stove your using in your signature so others can help solve issues.

 

[burninup]

In the process of building my own pellet mill, should cost me about 600 bucks or so. I do have access to some of the parts but there are some parts I will have to make myself or order. I have a tractor so my version will be a pto type. I was thinking that if it takes more heat to form the pellets...then use a torch, apply heat to the mill on the outside as needed, since the parts are moving inside the mill, it should heat fairly easy and even. I think if given the right situation a pellet mill could be a good option..but you do have to get some what creative to make it feasible.

 

[Advisor]

In the process of building my own pellet mill, should cost me about 600 bucks or so. I do have access to some of the parts but there are some parts I will have to make myself or order. I have a tractor so my version will be a pto type. I was thinking that if it takes more heat to form the pellets...then use a torch, apply heat to the mill on the outside as needed, since the parts are moving inside the mill, it should heat fairly easy and even. I think if given the right situation a pellet mill could be a good option..but you do have to get some what creative to make it feasible.

I did look at some small pellet mills and they seem to be real slow at producing pellets? Are all the small setups the same I wonder?

 

[burninup]

From what I could gleam from the websites not much difference, most seem to be Chinese. I do like the Buskirk line but not cheap!

 

[burninup]

I mean how many people have access to three phase anyway..not me.