Anyone make pellets for pellet stove?

I can remember back all the grief I got when I told people not to buy a pellet stove.

If you want to do something cheap make a sawdust burner. Make a 55 gal barrel stove accept a 30 gal barrel with a 3 inch hole in the bottom.. Put a 3" pvc int he middle of the 3 gal barrel and pack sawdust around it. pull the pvc out. Stick it inside the 55 gal barrel stove and light the center. Will burn about 8 hours or so depending on the saw dust. have another 30 gal setting buy

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http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

not a pellet stove but an intriguing design!
http://www.sedorestoves.com/easternc...urningnew.html

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àigeach carnaid
chaora dhubh
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cruachan

Well, if the pellet stove isn't that good, what could a person do to keep a wood burning stove going all night? Are there any inexpensive options? Wood chip burner? I just don't want to run my expensive propane furnace.

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adamthea, the stove i posted burns anything from wood, pellets, grain, wood chips, corn cobs and i think even coal! any of the pellet stoves i have seen in use have had problems eventually!

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àigeach carnaid
chaora dhubh
"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

cruachan

http://www.makeyourownpellets.com/?g...FWJo5QodHHTz3w

I found this and they have a machine which runs off of a PTO

Dave

There are lots of youtube videos out there of people making pellets and "biobricks". Some of them are pretty cool, but none of them look as efficient as a chainsaw and maul when it comes to lbs of fuel vs hours of labor. For me, the labor is all that matters!

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I would check with some sawmills in your area if you have them. Most of the smaller one's around here give sawdust away. You would only need find an old pellet mill to make pellets. We buy our pellets by the semi load. There made by a farmer who makes alfalfa pellets also.

Bob

What about a half dozen friends/relatives getting together and buying the machines. Would that work?

At my last place I had a Lehman's woodburning heater. I could fill it before going to bed and it was still warm in the morning. It was rated for an 8 hour burn time. If the firebox had been bigger, I have no doubt it would have held the warmth even longer.

Another idea is a masonary fireplace or a rocket stove. Both have enough mass to hold the heat for days. Ditto an outside wood burning furnace. Not cheap, but certainly effective.

I think that the pellets being expensive is part of the point. Making them is a fairly involved process involving grinding up trees, composting the chips, grinding it more, adding binding agents, cooking it, extruding it under high pressure, chopping, drying, etc. The goal of the pellet stove manufacturer's is to sell you the stove which offers ease of use but hook you on buying the razor blades, uh, I mean pellets that cost a lot. That stove locks you into their consumable - the pellets. Remember the general rule, the more processing, the more something costs.

By the way, I sell wood to the companies that make the pellets. Several million pounds last year. It is the junk wood left over after we're done logging. Stuff like leaves, bark, branches from pine, spruce, cedar, red maple, poplar, etc. The better wood goes to fire wood, e.g., maple, ash, etc. Next up goes to pallets, then lumber, then cabinetry and at the top is the veneer. The veneer ships to foreign markets like the Japanese who come and pick the individual logs.

I appreciate the bio-mass market because it helps to pay for getting the other wood out and maintaining the forest - it takes a long time to grow veneer wood. But I wouldn't want to burn pellets in my stove. I burn hardwoods like sugar maple firewood. It may well be that in all of their processing they get out the creosote and stuff but I still prefer real firewood. Partially because I can cut and split it myself - I don't have to be dependent on all that processing. Sort of like baloney vs pork chops.

On the other hand, if you had a wood stove you had to leave running with a hopper when you were gone I can see the appeal of the pellets. As long as the electricity is on the auger turns and keeps the stove steadily burning. But that convenience costs money.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa

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