Wood Pellets

[RCW]

Been using them for close to 10 years. Burn about 5 or 6 ton/season.

Last year was tough - used 6.5 tons, but only burned 14 gallons of fuel oil.

As usual, had 5 ton home early, but its not going to do it this year.

Nobody has them, and they've been in short supply since November. Might have a line on a ton tomorrow.

Any pellet users?

Short supply in your area, too?

I hear part of the shortage now is attributed to foreign exports, especially Europe.

 

[Tooljunkie]

5-6 ton a year. Wow. I guess you source them in bulk. I heat my small shop and supplement my house. Guessing 3 tons/year. 6 dollars for 40 lbs
Have 5 or 6 tons of wood chips waiting to be ground and pelletized for next winter. Just need to come up with storage for them.
Hope you find enough to get through the rest of the winter.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

There are not in short suppy here, there are made right in town.

How much does a ton run you?

 

[RIDETOEAT]

We switched to heating completely with wood pellets this year. I am projecting 5 ton and they have remained easily available and I keep an eye on supply as I have only put 4 ton back so far and may need 1 more but prefer to end at zero if I can due to moving out to our new place next summer. We pay $4.50/bag or as low a $200/ton in southern Indiana.

It got down to zero here last eve. for the first time of the season and the stove was failing just slightly to keep up, house was holding about 2-3 degrees below target so I kicked on the heat strips in the regular hvac heat pump system and it ran 15 minutes 3-4 times over night best I could tell.

 

[sheepfarmer]

RCW, can you use the pelleted sawdust horse bedding instead? I see the bags stacked next to each other at places like TSC and they look the same, about the same price.

 

[Tooljunkie]

Pretty much anything pelleted will work. Dust is a concern in some burners, loads up and locks the feed. Corn, soybeans aparrently work well in some units. Wheat burner would be handy, as one farmer i know would give me all i can burn.

 

[Tooljunkie]

Harman pellet stove burn wheat,some models.

 

[sheepfarmer]

If the horse bedding pellets will work they may also be available at feed stores and elevators. Ours gives us a price break if you buy in bulk. They are not dusty until the pellet breaks down in contact with moisture, and then dries.

 

[RCW]

My Harman XXV will burn most wood pellets, its not real picky. It can also do up to 50% corn, but I never tried it.

I have a huge corn bin 300 yards of the house, but I hear its a challenge to clean the stove because the sugars in corn carmelize. The farmer had the dryer running just the other day - he's still picking.

I've looked at the horse bedding and wondered.......

Wolfman - Pellets this year have been running ~$250/ton. They are available occasionally, but get snapped up quick. Still much cheaper than oil for me. I figure a normal winter day is ~5 gal. fuel oil, or ~2 bags of pellets.

I won't run out until March. Hopefully something will turn up before that happens. It's the tightest I've seen supply in a while.

Several years ago, I had 6 stored by May. Glad I did - real hard to come by later that season.

 

[RCW]

See - even he is worried!

Boxers are not noted for being cold tolerant; favorite spot is right there by the stove.

 

[Tomcat]

I gotta wonder about burning food for heat!

 

[skeets]

They make pellets from any thing that burns that includes CORN, SOY BEANS WHEAT OATS what ever you got plenty of laying around, that is of course unless you are planning on making some adult beverages from the properly distilled rendering of said grains,,

 

[Daren Todd]

Skeets, you got my vote why burn it when you can drink it

 

[Tomcat]

unless you are planning on making some adult beverages from the properly distilled rendering of said grains,,

I like adult beverages

 

[RCW]

I might have one after work while unloading.

Beautiful sight!!

 

[skeets]

YUp a Chevy truck is a beautiful sight all the time oh you meant the pellets

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Pellets pretty easy to get here, especially by the ton. Have had a pellet uh... corn stove for around 25 years. All but 2 of those (winter 2010-11 & 11-12) have burnt corn exclusively. Those 2 years pellets were considerably cheaper than corn so we bought bulk pellets and burnt that instead. The break-even between corn and wood pellets here is about $5.50 corn, this year I bought corn at $3.80 (it's back up just a little now). My corn stove is just supplemental heat though, not big enough to heat the whole house, still have to pay the propane man. But at $3.80, corn is just a fraction of the cost of propane per btu. so we burn as much as we can.

As for the burning food comment... I understand, but corn's a renewable fuel just like wood, I can grow more corn in a year, wood takes a while. No different than turning it into ethanol for a car, I just use it directly from the bin instead of turning it into a liquid.

Oh, yeah... we've burnt the bedding pellets on occasion, usually at the end of the season when I'm too lazy to drag the wagon out and get more corn.
Be careful! The bedding pellets are pine. they have marginally more heat per pound because of the pitch content, but if you're using in a moderate climate where you run your stove on low settings a lot you run the risk of creosote formation and a chimney fire (yeah, it can happen with a pellet stove too, done it, not a good feeling).

 

[85Hokie]

I like adult beverages

I'll toast you to that !!!!

 

[D2Cat]

The pellets I use are about 26"-28" long and 8"-10" in diameter! Three of them pretty much fills the stove and last for several hours.

 

[Kubota Newbie]

Yeah, I've seen those big pellets... just gave two truckloads of those away!