Anyone make pellets for pellet stove?

[golden]

Pellets are getting expensive but I really love our pellet stove. Does anyone here make their own pellets? Have any tips (materials used, suggested mills, etc)? My understanding is it's pretty complicated but if I can get some good information, I may give it a try. I have so many questions - please forgive me if they show my ignorance

What do you use to grind up the materials? How finely ground do they need to be?

Is it as complicated as some of these sites make it sound? Is it worth using the electricity to power the mill and grinder and run my pellet stove, or would it be more reasonable to use the house heating system (propane)?

Thank you in advance.

~Melissa

[texican]

I've not come across any do it yourself wood pellet operations... the selling point for pellet stoves is the convenience factor, and not having to deal with wood. "Making" your own pellets would eliminate any advantages over a regular woodburner, as you'd be processing 'firewood' into 'pellets'. I daresay if you got the raw wood for free, it'd cost you more than storebought, in labor (unless you have a lot of slaves, aka free labor, running around the plantation), fuel, and processing costs.

From my limited research in wood pellet mills, it's a big boy operation, with lots of heavy expensive equipment. Was reading over the weekend, about several mills closing down in the West, even with almost free wood (beetle killed lodgepole pine)...

Good luck! You might consider skipping all the work by getting a backup wood stove... if society gets fragile, delivery of bulky low value wood chips would probably cease overnight. A chainsaw, some stabilized fuel, and some trees in the backyard woodlot could really make the difference.....

[wyld thang]

Making pellets sounds like pounding sand, I'd buy a wood stove.

[adamtheha]

I actually think making pellets has some merit, because a pellet stove can do things a wood stove cannot, including run at night and while you're away (as long as the hopper is full). If you have neighbors that need pellets, you could sell to them at a bit of a discount. There are smaller pellet mills and hammer mills that aren't that big, maybe smaller than a gas powered chipper, and would be good for individuals. If only they could invent a stove that runs on wood chips, we could skip a couple of steps!
Do some research, see what comes up!
The steps involved:
Grind biomass into dust (hammer mill)
Pelletize and collect.
Not that complicated, IMO

[knight88]

This site may answer some questions... http://www.pelletpros.com/index.html

[wyld thang]

my wood stove runs at night and when I'm away

[adamtheha]

Ok, did a little research.
Look to www.pelheat.com, they sell hammer mills and pelletizers.
It appears the smallest mill is about $3k, and the smallest pelletizer is $2500.
You'd need a wood chipper too, so prolly total of about 8k.
The machine will make waaaaaay more pellets than you need, provided you feed it enough wood, so perhaps selling some would be a way to pay for the machine?
A new furnace is around 8k, so if I was choosing between two, I'd take the pellets.
You can get monster sized machines that run on diesel, and probably make mountains of pellets, so maybe someone in a heavily wooded area could make a decent living off it? At $6 per 40lb bag here in Canada, you'd have to make prolly 30 bags a day to make it work.

[Bearfootfarm]

At $6 per 40lb bag here in Canada, you'd have to make prolly 30 bags a day to make it work.

You'd have to SELL 30 bags a day.
And you haven't factored in the cost of fuel and equipment for cutting and moving all that wood, or allowed anything for packaging.

One of the "benefits" you listed is the pellet stoves can run when you're not there.
They also CANNOT run without electricity, whereas most regular wood stoves can.

I just don't see it being a good investment unless you already own a lumber processing facility

[J2E1]

My uncle bought a pelletizer because his business produces bushels of fine oak sawdust per day. Couldn't ever get it to stay in pellets so he gave up on it. He doe use the scraps to heat his production floor so his heating bill in SD winters is 0 and he sells the sawdust to horse boarding places.

[Our Little Farm]

We went directly to a wood flooring company nearby that makes the pellets. Got 3 ton for the price of 2 tons.

Our pellet stove keeps in over night too.

[Our Little Farm]

They also CANNOT run without electricity, whereas most regular wood stoves can.

This is why we also have a propane fireplace in another room. It does not use electricity and so can be used when we have a power outage. (Although we do have a back up gennie).

Running a whole house furnace for us was expensive. I would rather get a wood or coal stove than do that.

Personally I am a huge fan of the Ez flow coal stoves (Hitzer - http://www.lehmans.com/store/Stoves_...___HCSxL?Args=)

[texican]

Originally Posted by adamtheha

Ok, did a little research.
Look to www.pelheat.com, they sell hammer mills and pelletizers.
It appears the smallest mill is about $3k, and the smallest pelletizer is $2500.
You'd need a wood chipper too, so prolly total of about 8k.
The machine will make waaaaaay more pellets than you need, provided you feed it enough wood, so perhaps selling some would be a way to pay for the machine?
A new furnace is around 8k, so if I was choosing between two, I'd take the pellets.
You can get monster sized machines that run on diesel, and probably make mountains of pellets, so maybe someone in a heavily wooded area could make a decent living off it? At $6 per 40lb bag here in Canada, you'd have to make prolly 30 bags a day to make it work.

So, $5500, plus a good chipper... lets be real conservative and say $6K total to make your own pellets.

Then you have to buy 'firewood' at ~100 > 200 a cord... unload it, process it, using probably at least 10 gallons of fuel each day, or a very large electric bill, to produce pellets.

If you had to buy the equipment on credit, you could be looking at anywhere from ~5% credit (if you know the banker and have solid collateral) or up to 21% interest if you work through the equipment suppliers. Let's say 10% for the sake of argument. Interest the first year is $600. At six dollars a bag, you need to sell 100 bags minimum to pay the interest (not even going into that headache inducing algebra to determine 'how much more' you really need to sell, to cover the cost of wood, fuel, and labor). Probably that many more to cover wood, fuel, labor.

Forget about that...
The ~$6K would buy tractor trailerloads of pellets...

When you start trying to 'reinvent the wheel', it's always a wise thing to look around and see if someone's already done 'it'.... and if no one's doing 'it'... why not? My very vicious skin flint penny pinching self can see very quickly that such an operation would not be economically valid. The only way I could see it working is if you already have either a sawmill with unlimited sawdust, or a tree trimming operation with a wood chipping operation already... you have ten or so strapping young sons who need lots and lots of fresh air and vigorous exercise... and have no interest in anything but work.

Good luck, though!

[Cyngbaeld]

Can you find some whole corn that is not suitable for feed (too high flatoxin levels for instance)?

[ihuntgsps]

I've spent the last 13+ years working for a company that sells parts to the wood industry(among others). Our customers make wood pellets for fuel.
I have seen and talked to hundreds of people that invested 80K to 900k to get a plant going the vast majority have failed to make money at it. Pleas elook for a diff approach to keeping warm...your wallet will appreciate it.

[artificer]

Originally Posted by texican

So, $5500, plus a good chipper... lets be real conservative and say $6K total to make your own pellets.
...
Then you have to buy 'firewood' at ~100 > 200 a cord... unload it, process it, using probably at least 10 gallons of fuel each day, or a very large electric bill, to produce pellets.

I don't think anyone would buy firewood to make pellets, and think they are coming out ahead. If, however, you could get free woodchips from a city street/park system, have biomass like grass straw from a seed farm, sawdust from a wood mill, etc., then the DIY pellet system starts to make sense.

I really want to get set up to chip branches from trees so I can burn them. The option is to come up with a wood chip burner, or make them into wood pellets for a pellet stove. The main argument for making pellets is that I can also make pelleted chicken feed from locally grown materials. The good firewood goes into the masonry heater, the rest would heat the workshop. Hmm... once the system was set up, I could even use a mega shop-vac to collect fall leaves from the woods as well. One more source of cheap heat.

I can't remember the exact amount, but I crunched the numbers a while ago and I think it was around 5% of the heat energy in the wood was needed to run the chipper/hammermill/pellet mill system. Drying is extra, but a solar kiln works well in this case.

Michael

[ihuntgsps]

I have seen hundred try and fail with the above logic and hate to see it happen to anyone. Yes, it would be great if one could cheaply, at home, make pellets for animals, fuel, etc., the simple fact is you cannot make it happen in a cost effective manner...even if the raw ingredients were free. I work with companies all over the world that spend millions on R&D with the best engineers possible to try to find more cost effective ways to pellet wood/animal feeds. Simple fact is you need a great deal of heat to get your pellets to bind and that heat typically comes from compression(friction) and steam systems hooked to pellet mills or conditioner. The wood does not bind well without the heat. Poultry rations would not bind well either without that type of heat generation. I ahve zero financial interest inadvising you not to waste your money on this endeavor but am doing it becuase I have seen the results of other people trying the same thing, using the same logic, and failing horribly. I am not the worlds leading expert in this field but I do work with it everyday and have for over 3 years. This same question is brought up by customers/prospective customers at least a couple times a week. If you wish to make wood pellets or poultry rations I can help you answer many questions about the equip needed such as hammermills and pelletmills. You simply cannot compete price wise with the larger pelleting companies for fuel pellets or animal feed pellets. Take my advice for what you paid for it...my goal is to save you frustration and expense.

[ihuntgsps]

Just a side note after rereading what I wrote. I have been in the industry over 13 yrs not 3 as I wrote and I apologize for my spelling/typing errors.
I am just excited to have someone ask a question I know something about and wanted to share what I know to try to help as others have helped me on this forum.

[fantasymaker]

There are a couple of pellet mills on craigs list right now for under $1500

[Our Little Farm]

Originally Posted by ihuntgsps

Just a side note after rereading what I wrote. I have been in the industry over 13 yrs not 3 as I wrote and I apologize for my spelling/typing errors.
I am just excited to have someone ask a question I know something about and wanted to share what I know to try to help as others have helped me on this forum.

And it's appreciated!

[fantasymaker]

Right on its great to have input from someone that KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT!