First run of the season

Load two all unloaded.

The full dumpster (3 yards) fills nine and a half 55 gallon barrels.

We have 2 new empties left and another one from an earlier group.

Think I will get 6 more 55's and call it a day.

We can then have 3 full dumpster loads on site and ready to go.

I'm pumped

Snowy

 

Way to get it done Snowy! You have been busy.

If you don't mind me asking, what type of nut shells are you burning there? Just curious.

 

Hazelnut

Most any type will burn well.

Walnut, hazelnut, and just about any that have a good solid shell structure.

Peanut shells are too flimsy and will Flash burn

 

Some pix of yesterdays work.

Once these are full we can grab one and transport it up the the house with the bucket on the little tractor.

Roll it into the basement and use from it.

Once empty we return it to the barn and stack them in the corner.

The removable top food grade barrels are great for storage.

The last batch had energy drink flavoring in them and they smell really really good inside.

Orange flavor in most of them.

Some of our older ones had cookie filling in them originally.

I prefer the food grade drums as you really don't know about stuff that had chemicals in them.

Right now the price on steel is low, so many of these that would normally be crushed and sent for scrap are winding up on Craigs list for sale cheap.

 

Thanks Snowy, now the post about running the shells through a shredder fan makes sense.
Learning new stuff here, thanks for the info, and education.

Nice that you were able to get quantity of clean 55 gal. food-grade drums for storage, if I needed to store pellets, I'd be getting food-grade also.

 

The sources for food grade drums is pretty good right now.

Craigs list is loaded with them (here anyway)

So many products are sold in these drums (Inside a plastic bag) but the drums are not allowed to be reused for the stuff as the chances of contamination is too high it seems.

A lot of pharmaceutical products are transported in the HDPE removable top barrels, but these go for $$$$$, anywhere from $20 to $45 each.

Waaaaaay too much $$$ just to hide nut shells in.

If I needed only a couple it would be fine, but when the numbers are in the arena I have been wanting, that gets steep.

The cheap steel ones work good and last a long time.

We started out with a bunch of steel ones, then got an assortment of heavy hard board paper drums in various sizes from 15 to 35 gallon size.

The small ones take up a lot of floor space and are just a tad too heavy to toss around when full.

The years of using the paper drums have seen some get damaged and finally get tossed.

If they get exposed to any water, they are toast.

The steel ones can sit in the damp environment of our out building and no worries.

We dragged a full steel one up here the other day that is part of a load I bought back in 2009 I think, and these have been sitting full in the barn since then.

They are great.
That load had a lot of broken nut meats in it and is a tad smaller pieces.

They are burning real hot (nut oil)

The little whit is pouring out the heat and the vent is running about 140 F surface temp.

Touchable, but very warm.

This is good as it assures there are no combustibles condensing out that can cause a vent fire. (been there done that)

Also the smaller oily stuff is leaving far less clinker too.

 

Today the weather was dreadful with soooooo much rain that streets in town were rivers.

Up here at the ranch it was just !@#$% wet.

Been snooping for more barrels and had some lined up.

A fellow about 20 miles away had 6 that he would sell for $90

Not real excited, but beggars can't be choosy.

Was in the local post office and ran into a fellow I knew and he asked what I was up to in my retirement.

I told him that I was trying to gather more barrels for my shells today.

He smiled and told me there was a place only 2 miles away that makes fancy jelly stuff the gave barrels away FREE

Hmmmm, Freeeeeeeee is a good deal.

We beat A$$ over there in the little Smart car to take a quick peek.

Sure enough, a stack of barrels with lids and clamps.

We hurried home, grabbed the Burb and hauled tail back to town (5 miles) and loaded up them fine suckers.

Got a total of 9 really clean 55 gallon drums with lids and clamps.

All snug in the barn now with the lids off to dry good inside.

Soooo, this last go round started out with 11 barrels for $187
Now we add 9 for free
So 20 barrels for $187
Total after adjustments $9.35 each A whole lot "More Gooder"

 

Yup

Just got to wait a few days until the nasty heavy rains slack off so we can get our last load in.

With this large storage capacity, we should be in very good shape.

IIRC we have about 30 of the 55 gallon drums now, plus several smaller hard cardboard containers.

Will see about swapping out some of the cardboard ones.

The little cardboard ones are 15 gallon IIRC and we can replace several of those with one 55

 

Well now.

The monsoons are giving us a break for tomorrow and we are heading out by mid day to get our last load of shells.

Stopped by the plant today and got the thumbs up to come in tomorrow

I will be happy to be done with this stuff, other than our daily screening of a few buckets full.

Back on track with the Big Whit while the cooler weather sticks around.

Just glad we are not having to burn both of them suckers, but the winter is just getting up to speed.

Running both Whits will suck up at least three 5 gallon pails a day.

Now if we get hammered with some Blistering A$$ cold stuff, all bets are off.