alternatives for pellet stove pellets?
Mark
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
Hey guys… I’ve got a friend who bought one of those pellet stoves and now can’t get pellets for it. All of her suppliers are back- ordered because the lumber mills are in such a slow-down mode and not producing the lumber waste. Evidently this is a perfect example of how far-reaching the slump in our industry, and the economy in general can be.
Anybody know of any (affordable) alternatives for fueling one of those stoves?
” If I were a carpenter”
Replies
Some suppliers sell corn as fuel too.
Corn won't necessarily work -- the stove has to be designed for it. And of course corn prices are high too.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
Most of the pellet stoves sold here in Maine will burn either one.
Isn't it a pain in the butt to open up all those cans?"Shawdow boxing the appoclipse and wandering the land"
Wier/Barlow
Yeah, and you have problems with the creamed corn running out the bottom before it can burn.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
"Evidently this is a perfect example of how far-reaching the slump in our industry, and the economy in general can be. "I've said it a hundred times on this board before for people asking about pellet stoves. Pellets are ALWAYS scarce. At least here in MD if you don't have them by October, they always get hard to find. Even the past two winters when the economy was screaming you couldn't find pellets. I'm not sure it's the economy as much as the industry overall.
Yes, they're scarce everywhere. A lot of our pellet people are sending a lot of their production to Europe, which is a bigger market. Some pellet mills are starting up with no source of fibre....and everyone is looking for fibre, including particleboard operations. In this region, sawlogs are getting chipped because there isn't enough residue anywhere.
Personally, I think briquettes are a better strategy right now.....can be burned in any solid fuel appliance (including woodstoves), so you can use briquettes, firewood, or a mix of both. Less demanding to make so smaller companies can get into it as a sideline, burns clean and hot.
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Are you talking about plain ol' charcoal briquettes?
Cause that might be a viable option..." If I were a carpenter"
Hey guys! thanks for all the responses! I knew this would be the place to come..
Sure wish I had something "construction related" to chat about these days....
Things are pretty bleak down here... but at least I'm warm.
" If I were a carpenter"
Just thought of this..Walnut hulls sold for blast media!Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
No...these are briquettes of highly compressed sawdust and chips. They may look like a brick, or sometime like a small log. There are no glues or binders added usually (although you could add a little used canola oil or something like that), just uses the moisture in the chips. Google under 'biomass briquettes' or something like that....you'll see them. Cheap, good, easy to store, burn in any woodstove...lots to like about them.
Cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Raise rabbits, all the pellets you'd ever want.
Actually rabbit, or any compressed feed pellets will work too.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
I've seen peanut hull pellets here in South West Georgia, Mark. Not a lot of market for them here, locally. Don't know where your friend is, but it's supposed to hit 77 degrees here today ! Probably even warmer where you are.
He might want to check w/ the local Farm Cooperative, GoldKist, etc.
Greg
Thought I read in the local Denver paper within the last year, that there were several new plants for producing pellets getting built in the mountains. 'Parently there's huge amounts of lodgepines getting killed by some beetle. Anyone going to the ski hills can see huge swaths of brown pines in the hills.
Plus, the Ash borer tearing up Michigan and the neighboring states.
Perhaps there's hope?
Some can handle pea coal or corn also, but check the manual first
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I don't heat with pellet--but I can see clearly there's no shortage out here in OR.
Even the Home Depot here has pallets and pallets...
Lots of lumber industry nearby too. We also have the (or a) Kingsford briquet factory here.
Must be a regional thing. Here in MD, i have been in Lowes, HD, Southern States, and Tractor Supply recently. NONE had pellets. I don't know why I keep tabs when I don't even burn the things, but I do. Kinda like the guys here that watch the price of 7/16 OSB for something to do.
Do they still have any trees in MD?
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
I'm out in the westward expanse of the state. In and around Baltington (it really is one city anymore) there is only asphalt and concrete. But out here in the western counties, there are plenty of trees left. Getting fewer every year thanks to Gypsy moths, but we still have a few.
maybe you could burn hamsters?
Maybe- but I don't get it.
You know, they're small........ pellet like. Maybe easily had around christmas time.
bad joke.
Sorry......
Still holding at around $6.44. snorK*
94969.19 In the beginning there was Breaktime...
Mark,
After several months of reading, researching, and pricing, less than a week ago, I went through the dilemma of making a choice between a fireplace insert design of either wood or pellet fuel... With Propane still selling for $2.60 a gallon, even though gasoline is $1.46,(Propane vendors have got to be Gouging!!!) I'll pay for the cost of the insert in 4 to 5 winters...
Most of the newer models will say that pellets can be mixed up to 50/50 with corn, but in addition to the pellet supply/demand issue, it's the maintenance, multi-motor and circuit board parts/replacement, and weekly/monthly/yearly cleaning of the unit that has to be pulled from inside the fireplace itself...
Generally, the wood inserts with a 3.1 cubic foot firebox seemed to require at least a 6" stainless steel flu which can make running the new liner from the insert up through the smoke-shelf offset and sealed inside the old chimney, and then out the top of a new stainless steel cap. Any future cleaning with the fiberglass rods and wire brush rakes any buildup straight down into the firebox of the insert for easy and quick clean up and never any pullout....
The upside to the pellet stoves seems to be that because one of the fan blowers that cause the pellets to superheat and burn, actually pressurize the stainless steel flue so only a smaller 3" size is needed. I'll tell you, a 3" size of part flex and the rest solid SSteel tubing would have been so much easier to install for the installation guys, that in my case, it would have cut their work and fitting time in half...
The one other issue beginning Jan. 1, 2008, is that stoves and inserts can qualify for an IRS tax credit...if they are at least 75% efficient. All the wood fired models I could find said they were up to 79% efficient, but on the tags attached, they were sold as 70%... The EPA ratings on the same models were even less, usually around 63%... But most all pellet stoves were rated around 80-85% efficency.
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits
Still, I made the choice and bought the wood fueled insert, and so far so good... ;>)
Bill
Bill,
Good choice for another reason...............
No power....no heat. Especially when you need it most, storms that knock everything out. We were recently without power for a week. Neighbor had his shiney new pellet stove. We have our shiney and dependable wood burner. Guess who stayed warm?
No matter the cost of wood or it's source. You can still burn. In emergencies all regs be damned, (my opinion only, of course) you can even tear down a fence or a bad old shed or porch and find some fuel.
Edit to add: Ambiance is nice. But, effective emergency heat is better and it can still be had with "ambiance".
...The unspoken word is capital. We can invest it or we can squander it. -Mark Twain...Be kind to your children....they will choose your nursing home....aim low boys, they're ridin' shetland ponies !!
Edited 12/24/2008 2:26 am by oldbeachbum
You can get a pellet stove with a thermoelectric generator that produces its own power.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
"Propane vendors have got to be Gouging!!!"Please don't make accusations based on assumptions like that.EVERY time a port for bringing in the liquid gas has been proposed in the last dozen years, the NIMBYs have shot it down leaving the US with short supply in rising demand.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
My propane co hit me with almost 5.00 a gallon last delivery, even though all the other local co were charging 2.90. I overbought on the pre-buy last year and the contract states that any amount over has to be applied to gas purchased this year at "market prices", which is apparantly defined as whatever the y want to charge regardless of what the average price in NH is.
I did manage to get them down to 3.50 a gal but I'm still pretty pissed about it.
Edited 12/24/2008 5:19 am ET by TomW
"Propane vendors have got to be Gouging!!!"
Please don't make accusations based on assumptions like that.
Piffin,
When gas was lower than Diesel, the oil companies saw that the Average Joe would complain LOUDLY about gas pump prices going up. When Diesel went up and stayed much higher than gasoline, the oil companies hid those "gouges" in the trucking industry just passing the higher Diesel cost on to the freight senders and as a "fuel surcharge" to receiving customer.... Way back in 2005, I bought a large 1,000lb. woodworking machine. Total shipping freight cost was under $250.000. Now, that same machine is shipped for 50 cents a POUND.... When my asphalt shingles were delivered just last October, I got a copy of the inventory off-loaded. At the bottom of the invoice, the trucking company listed a delivery charge of $35, but just above the Grand Total they also listed an additional "Fuel Surcharge of $122.74".
The "assumption" isn't much of a jump when comparing local Propane vendor prices'...Before Ike hit the Texas coast, I topped off my Propane tanks and found a smaller vendor was selling for 20 cents a gallon cheaper than a big Propane vendor... If Propane prices dropped like the presently priced gasoline, I could go out and pay half the cost another 500 gallon tank, still have it filled to it's 85% rated capacity, and own a brand new tank and regulator. With Propane you don't have to worry about the fuel degrading or buying high cost stabilizing products...
Alas, I just don't see Propane prices moving down like gasoline...why should they? ;>(
Bill
Edited 12/24/2008 10:59 am ET by BilljustBill
Edited 12/24/2008 11:03 am ET by BilljustBill
"If Propane prices dropped like the presently priced gasoline,"There is a great big IF there. Propane is an entirely different product, with a different delivery process and supply chain.The two forces that dominate a market are the cost to bring it to market, and supply/demand relationship.Even your example of diesel compared to gas shows that.
There is greater demand for diesel fuels world wide than for gasoline and they are not the same hydrocarbons coming out of a bbl of oil. Diff product so diff supply/demand structure.Now I agree that if you have differing dealers in the same town selling at drastically differing prices for the same product, then yes, there might be gouging, but the consumer is protected from that by simply going to a different dealer.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
""Propane vendors have got to be Gouging!!!"Please don't make accusations based on assumptions like that."FYIOn December 15, 2008, the average residential propane price had risen one cent from the previous week to reach $1.55 per gallon (see the table at the end of this report). The graph below this text shows the spread in prices from month to month and from this year compared to previous years. This week's average price was 33 cents (or 18 percent) lower than the price at this time last year.Other states in the Midwest Region had higher prices ranging from $1.59 to $2.44 with the region averaging $2.11 per gallon. States adjacent to Nebraska, such as South Dakota, Iowa, and Missouri, had prices of $1.59, $1.78, and $2.03, respectively.While wholesale prices had increased nearly 11 cents this week to 80 cents per gallon and the rack-to-retail margin decreased to 75 cents, Nebraska retail price was the lowest of the surveyed states in the region. Nebraska does not have the lowest wholesale prices of the surveyed states in the region.
There's that most meaningless of words: affordable.
Folks have to realize that nothing is perfect in every possible situation. It's all a matter of choices and compromises.
Pellet stoves are a good example of this.
On the 'plus" side, you have a very clean, very efficient, very controllable gizmo that makes heat and lets you watch a pretty flame. It's also relatively simple to install.
On the 'minus' side, you can't just toss another log on the fire; you need some manner of 'factory fuel.' You need electricity for the controls, feed auger, and blower. There are more things that can break.
Nor is this an unchanging world. There's never any guarantee that what is cheap and readily available today will remain so forever. I'll wager that you will find plenty of cheap pellet fuel available next June. Remember that fable about the ant and the grasshopper?
Remember this: For all the ranting about the "power company," all the complaints of high utility prices, even all the storm-caused outages... they do a pretty good job of supplying affordable, reliable power. "Self reliance" is an idea, not a fact. We have a term for that part of the world where everyone is 'self reliant:' we call it the "Third World." Ironically, these are often the very places that suffer the most when disaster strikes.