Every now and then (more now than then lately) a bunch of damage comes in.. Sometimes, a few have damage that is too severe to sell. So I take them, dump them out on the floor, and take away the wet or damaged stuff, and put the rest in a rolling garbage totter.. So the totter has several different brands in it! I just scoop them out and put them in the shop stove. Time consuming.. but better than trashing the good portions.. So...... I really have no idea exactly what is actually burning.. Sort of like a pellet cocktail! Dan
I've mixed multiple brands of pellets before and it has worked well. They almost seem to burn better than each individual pellet.
I have been burning Scot Linkletter 's pellets, who is a member on here naturally. Scot's family is about second in notoriety and integrity in Maine, only outdone by the Pelletier family because they had their own show on American Loggers for years. What Scot will not say because he is not one to boast is that his family has logged for years, and while massive in size, and working for the paper companies during the glory days of the 1980's, they also worked for the small landowner, the ones who had forest management plans, needed tracts properly cut with expensive equipment, and leaving forestry stands that met exacting forester standards. That is one long run-on sentence to say; they did the right thing in the woods. That is not always easy to do when no one is looking, but that of course is the definition of integrity. It is not often a person can burn a bag of pellets and KNOW what the forest looks like where the pellets came from. I can with Scot's because a family friend had his woodlot harvested by the Linkletter's...then did so a few years later because they did such a great job the first time, and this was all done to US Tree Farm Program/USDA-NRCS/Soil and Water Conservation District standards...not an easy feat while trying to make a profit.
Great post LodgedTree ! Integrity should be acknowledged as it is becoming very hard to come by these days. When you have earned your living (put food on the table) by working in the woods you will have witnessed at the extreme opposites of the spectrum of responsible forest management. Saw and practiced very good management when only two woodlots over witnessed absolute slaughter of the woods all too often. At that time the Hudson Valley was considered the Oak capital of the world and it attracted a lot of greedy people who's only care was to make as much money as possible and move onto the next lot leaving a disaster in their wake. Here's a for instance: We were working a 300 acre lot which had some wetlands some streams and a lot of hills and valleys. We were running JD 440 and 540 to minimize the impact to the forest and doing a great job managing the lot for the future. The next lot which bordered the lot we were working was an 800 acre lot with prime wood on it . Well a company from Canada came down with 4 JD 740's and just annihilated and decimated the lot including the wetlands and over cut 40 acres into our lot. The owner of the lot we were working tried to Sue them and they filed for bankruptcy, changed their company name and continued with the same practice. Some of what I have seen was truly sickening and the result of pure Greed as it is tough to make a living in the woods and requires an extreme amount of work and resilience to stay in business. While I am not an advocate of the government getting to involved in business this is an area that I would encourage it. When I logged it was back in the 80's so I am hopeful that since then it has gotten better but greed is never far away Once again LodgedTree great post and Kudo's to Scot and his family.
Very happy with this year's Cubex . great heat , ash is lite and blows right out of the burn pot at end of cycle , brushes right off the glass .
I am in no way jaded as I have cut wood for 30 years now myself, being a Certified Maine Logger, having my own woodlot in the American Tree Farm/USDA-NRCS/Soil and Water Conservation District System, and still got burned by a logger last year. Naturally I am not a fan of the Maine Forest Service, but had to call them for a $11,000 timber theft and they did well, along with a court system that was NOT apologetic to the logger. The judge handed down one of the highest restitution amounts ever given in our county on a per month basis. What I am saying is, good loggers are out there, but many more are not. Of the dozen logging outfits that have logged off us over the years, only one has NOT been kicked off our land for poor logging practices/theft.
funny, I have a couple of buckets of the same thing. Some brands have much more damage than others when they come in from forklift operators that don't have a clue.
