You poor guys in the east coast -- egad you're getting ripped off

Just a little bit of History there. Merry Christmas

 

I have a P-43. No issues during full burn going from Stove chow, Maine or another quality hardwood, to my small and shrinking stash of Blazers Douglas fir.

But, I will state since ive been burning fir last for this cold snap, if I don't scrape the pot, or vacuumed out from the ignitor entrance, have had a issue or two. Noticed this month I turned the stove on one morning, and came back 30 minutes later to a smoldering fire in the ash pan. Fire was pushed out the pot. Strange. Cleaned the mess, and did a thorough cleaning, and it would ignite the pellets in 8-10 minutes from first turn of dial. If I have a dirty burn pot, it jumps up to 12+ minutes, and many times a long extra fill of the pot with pellets when it doesn't detect fire. So it does seem a bit sensitive with the Fir and dirty pot. Never remember seeing this with other brands.

And yes, it seems the Softwoods USUALLY ignite a bit quicker than hardwood, not always. I think Hammers , and Maine woods seem to have the most consistent, short ignition times for my particular stove.

 

That happened to me also this month , 1st time I knew the stove was over due for a cleaning , The 2nd time was only a few bags after the clean , all softies . Pushing smoldering pellets out of the pot . Very strange for sure . Both times were from a cold start .

 

Too many pellets in the pot? Perhaps your burn rate is too high? I seriously doubt they have anything to do with softies -- unless your talking about softies in bed.

 

I don't really know , as I don't mess around with the setting on my stoves , most likely , just dirty .

 

I have never seen that happen with Blazers or Lacretes in my stove, but my stove doesn't start often when I'm using good stuff.

 

This was the Vandy Plat's , I think it was a stove hiccup more than a pellet brand issue

 

Will, the only time I've had a problem with excessive pellets filling the burn pot and or spilling over is when I had too much insulation and/or clinkers (carbon deposits) in the burn pot and ignition chamber and it couldn't bring the product to combustion temperatures. In all cases, I solved this problem by simply scraping the burn pot clear of all carbon deposits, clearing the holes of fly ash, and vacuuming the chamber of fly ash.

 

yup...words to live by.....clean the stove

 

Never had the spillover problem....
not even close and i burn at #4 -5 feedrate..

 

I haven't either except early on when I first bought my stove and wasn't cleaning it properly.

 

I guess it really boils down to whether you save money or not -- or you don't have any other viable heating options. But I bought my stove to save money and I can say for certain that if I paid $360 a ton -- the amount I save /*probably*/ would not be worth the hassle of working with pellets. Everything I read says DF pellets and some other softwoods can give you a 10-20% heat advantage -- but at $360 or so -- it's not worth it in my view. If I were in the same shoes as most of you, I'd be buying the best quality pellet I could get for around $250 (based on my KW/h rate for electricity) a ton. I don't know what your rate is -- but it's pretty cheap out here in hydroelectric dam-ville. It would mean more cleanings of course -- but so what?? Put your gloves on and get into a routine. Keep your cleaning tools nearby. Save some cash.

 

Dotman i agree. I buy mostly softwood early and been getting em for $225-240 a ton. Few years back got a few tons of softies for $199 a ton. At the end of that year lowes had their chitty pellets on blowout for $99 a ton. I bought 4.5 tons. A no brainer. Almost a years heat for $450.

 

Exactly. That’s what we do here. And it not much more cleaning either. Believe it or not, we have some pretty outstanding products here that aren’t DF and they still heat the house every bit as well, and with low ash output on par with DF as well.

 

Can’t like this enough!

 

I went for 2 to 3 winters without firing up pellet stove,as pellet prices were insane,and propane was super cheap.I just picked up a ton of north idaho super premiums for 240,prob will not need them this year,but the price is lower than last year.

 

Those are THE one pellet I have not burned a lot of. That $240 is the same price I can get here -- pretax. But I have found some very quality pellets for $30 less. I need 4 tons a year -- so that adds up.

 

I am burning Purcells,currently,205 a ton

 

I have a friend in Bozeman.

 

lol I hate Bozeman,has grown too big for me,but is still a ok place.