About had it!

DVC500 at last wrote: However, a pound of dry hardwood weighs the same as a pound of dry softwood.

I am nearing the end of a 12 hour shift so I'm quite tired but that sentence doesn't make sense to me....of course a pound equals a pound...

I cant dispute it yet in science, but it does not meet the common sense test. You cannot get more from less. Coal is denser then wood is denser then oil is denser then gas, etc. The energy is derived from the carbon chain and hardwood has a longer chain. I will check into it but it sounds like more pellet propaganda to me.

kevin

I don't know if this covers it but it is relevant.

Because the wood fibres are broken down by the hammer mill, there is virtually no difference in the finished pellets between different wood types.

That is from wikipedia by the way.

Kevin

Have you checked with Paris Farm in Newport? They might deliver to you.... you're not all that far away from them. I haven't spoken to them lately, but they traditionally have good prices. I'm thinking they can deliver 6 ton at a time...maybe 4, but I'm thinking 6. Give 'em a call!

ok the dollars you spend buying and installing the pellet stove you could have a TT load delivered, you have to be talking around 3,000 or better for a name brand pellet stove, i just hope your not going to buy one of the box store ones I know guys at work that bought them the HD and TS pellet stoves suck...... 90% got rid of them the next year. is there any one you can share a load of coal with? or can you in the summer start stocking up ? did you figure a cost on renting a truck to get some coal down here. the pellet prices are not going to stay where there at now. they will go up as soon as they get the consumer hooked.

Thx Fred,i may call them just to check.
No...i wouldnt buy something like this at a big box store...i am also about service and i know they dont do it!..Actually,the price of pellets has dropped by 100-150$ per ton since i bought my coal stove...there have been more pellet manufacturers springing up in this area...hence driving the price down...i will still keep my stove in the basement as a backup and firing up when it gets cold like we have had lately...but mostly to heat the basement.

Good Luck,my friend,and thank you for venting. Let this be a lesson for newbies looking for free,cheap rides when it comes to heating your home. In my humble opinion,this was a man who needed a stoker,badly. I've had one since 1998,and I was on an insane swing-shift schedule. I worked storms,outages,doubles and all a manner of unexpected delays in getting home on time. The stoker covered that schedule. The stoker has created the ability to allow me the free time to look at the DS Machines Circulator stove(Hand Fired). My schedule had gotten much more predictable. Thank God,for the overtime that I thought was helping my Family has actually hurt my health through missed sleep,destroyed body clock,improper eating and eating in a timely manner among other things. All this B.S. having been said,I will not leave Anthracite Coal. If I have to buy a Dump Trailer and make the trip from Ohio to UAE Harmony myself,dammit,I'll do it. I will also look at going in with a trustworthy group of like minded Coal Burners to do the split up of a tri-ax trailer full. I don't trust,like or want wood pellets or corn. If Obama is pushing me towards something,I roll out and go the opposite direction of his wishes...In closing,I wish you well. Do clean and rust/corrosion protect your Harman and metal stove pipe so that it doesn't go to hell when ambient humidity hits it.....Bob....

Stoker is the way to go. If power outages are an issue, rig a back up for it. I lost power for 1.5 hours, a rarity, the stove
did not go out. I have noticed pellets getting cheaper, no doubt-not sure why. The best deal in coal is a bulk delivery -full
trailer load.

bugize wrote:..Actually,the price of pellets has dropped by 100-150$ per ton since i bought my coal stove...there have been more pellet manufacturers springing up in this area...hence driving the price down....

The price from a lot of those outfits is indeed cheap.
Because... they are selling a very inferior product, made from all sorts of junk...
Yep... Home Depot, here, had pellets for around 180, maybe even less on special...
and people were telling our local "real dealer" they couldn't wait until they were gone
so they could buy "real" pellets from the guy I work with.
They were apologizing for not getting them from him in the first place,
and that they would never go back to cheapies.
The guy I work with was approached by a company that was just starting up
about 5 miles away... they wanted his business, as he does sell quite a bit of coal and pellets..
When asked some specifics about their stuff, the only answers he got was "huh?'
Ash content? "huh?"
density? "huh?"
so he still buys from Canada... and refuses to sell a cheap pellet.
(Or cheap coal for that matter)
If you aren't buying good wood pellets, your stove is going to suck.
Plain and simple. But it's not the stove....

soft or hardwood, really isn't a lot of difference, as the pellets are made with a
specific moisture content, so the product is pretty much the same.
If you had to give a nod, I would to softwood..

Dan

I have a buddy that lives in Ct, he runs a landscaping business. He was telling me in 2002 that a new company was starting up there making 'bio-mass' pellets. They were buying all of his lawn clippings and tree prunings.

A couple years later he told me that demand had grown so much that they had gone to buying leaves and trash from the town street sweepers; making them into pellets and bricks. So it is not just wood or even clippings now, but paper trash, fast-food wrappers, styrofoam boxes, plastic cup lids; anything that gets swept up along with the leaves.

I saw that brand name of bio-bricks being marketed in Bangor Maine two years ago.

bugize wrote:The insert would go in my livingroom,the mark3 is in the basement,i wouldnt want a coal burner in my living room because of the mess,so i wont need as much heat output.

What mess? My Harman is in the dining room. The most "mess" I have is a light coating of dust (from the ash) on the top of the stove after shaking and reloading, which is done twice a day. I'm careful about handling the ashpan, I shake the grates with the doors and the air inlet closed. The coal is sprayed with water before loading. The convection fan is off while I'm reloading the stove.

With a decent stoker stove there would be no mess.

I have no experience with a pellet stove, but I've heard stories about weekly cleanings that require the stove to be shut down first.

I think he's already made up his mind but maybe he will take his own advise from a few years back...?

bugize wrote: i really believe if i had done alittle more research i would have bought a stoker boiler....i may yet, who knows!

Most everything Home Depot sells is junk anyway!
A buddy of mine bought those $180.00 pellets your talking about.
He has to keep emptying the hopper out because the pellets are jamming up the auger.
You get what you pay for. The best pellets out there ARE from Canada. Logik-e
I've burned about six different brands and always end up going back to those.
It's all I'll buy now. A little more money, but it's worth it.
I tried 20 percent softwood and had to clean ash almost every day.

Wood'nCoal wrote:

bugize wrote:The insert would go in my livingroom,the mark3 is in the basement,i wouldnt want a coal burner in my living room because of the mess,so i wont need as much heat output.

What mess? My Harman is in the dining room. The most "mess" I have is a light coating of dust (from the ash) on the top of the stove after shaking and reloading, which is done twice a day. I'm careful about handling the ashpan, I shake the grates with the doors and the air inlet closed. The coal is sprayed with water before loading. The convection fan is off while I'm reloading the stove.

With a decent stoker stove there would be no mess.

I'll second Wood n Coal - What mess? My Harman hand fed is in the family room and the only mess is when I miss the firebox as I throw the new coal in. That I can clean up easily or better yet hit the target the first time. As for dust yes, there is some but for the money I'm saving to keep my house and family warm at 75* with an outside temperature of 7* I'll deal with a little dust. I follow the same procedures at Wood n Coal and last year I had a cover for my ash pan made and that greatly reduced the amount of dust I was releasing into my living space as I emptied the ashpan. If you have a stoker you should have even less of a dust problem because it's a closed system and you only empty the ash pan every other day or so. My brother has a pellet stove and his mess and pain is twice as much I have with my hand fed. Good luck with whatever you chose to do, but don't blame a stoker coal applaince for a big mess. Lisa

Thanks, Lisa.

the only mess is when I miss the firebox as I throw the new coal in.

I hate when that happens!