FWIW, I went to my local stove shop to pick up so more Platinums today and had a nice conversation with the guy who loaded me about pellet quality. He said the last load of Cubex that they received was garbage and you never know what you will get from them. So there are still some bad Cubex floating around out there.
Bummer as I was giving some serious thought to grabbing a ton as it has been a long while since I have burned them, a shop just up the road always has an endless supply of Northern Max on hand so always a backup for me to grab some but guess Ill pass for now.
Maybe I'll see if they will sell me a few bags 5 or so and give them a test to see if these are apart of the bad ones out there, did like them when I was burning them pretty low ash and some serious heat.
Have grabbed 20 bags to finish the season and they are burning super hot with low ash, they burn longer than any pellet for me being a longer pellet and super compressed but not as long as Vandy Plats . Ash comparison much less than LaCretes, North Coutry,Vandy Plats or any other hardwoods I have tried but more than woods & son , Vermonts and clearly more than Matra's
....and the thing is, some people prefer oranges to apples and vice versa! Also, a pellets' quality can change easily from pallet to pallet and load to load and year to year. That AMAZING pellet you used last year might not be so amazing this year, and conversely, that crappy pellet you burned last year might be a lot better this year. Because of the disparity of likes and dislikes from differing consumers, many pellet retailers end up carrying several brands......they don't want to, but they do. Its an interesting (and expen$ive conundrum)!
....and as a dealer, we also look at many other pellet parameters that a end-user might not appreciate....we also have to look at the availability (if the supplier cant supply our needs when the rubber hits the road), and how good are they packed? How good are the bags? (are they lighter gauge plastic, and are the seams good or weak (seam strngth is important if you have to put them in peoples cars and the seams pop open)? How are they stacked and covered on the pallet? Do they tend to be delivered to use in a haphazard fashion? (this requires alot more work on our part to make them saleable) Here is an example......good pellet, but when 100 tons arrive in a railcar like this, well, its ALOT of work to unload and restack the pellet. While they are great pellets, which shall go nameless, the amount of work to make these saleable just isnt worth the effort
Judging the picture, you mean the load shifted in the railcar, and it's a pain in the a$$ to get them out of the car. I ran a forklift for a few years at a hardware store. Was always interesting getting stuff unloaded that showed up. Only easy stuff was the flat beds, thay had to properly secure those loads.
right.....the load shifted, pallets got crushed as well. Its about half the loads that would come like this. We eventually decided it just didn't work well. Also, theres the safety aspect of a ton of pellets falling from on high.....it shows that in the picture as well. Not only a pain in the a$$ to get them out of the car, but once you do, you have damaged pallets, pallets that aren't vertical (so difficult to move around without them falling over), and broken bags within the pallet which destabilizes them and makes them unsaleable. It doesnt take too many broken bags to start losing money here.....
In the case above LW, how does that get handled? Freight Insurance claim? Right of refusal? Load acceptance -> charge back to the producer? ... That looked like a serious amount of work to safely reconcile.
good question, CleanFire! So, no one takes responsibility. Its NEVER the railroad (dealing with a monopoly there), and we get billed, and have to pay for the load, WHEN its shipped....not when it arrives (4-6 weeks or so)......so, in short, its US who pays for the damage, and in many ways.....not just broken bags, but in labor dealing with the delivery as well. Its a huge amount of work.....which is why we don't do it anymore.....just not worth the risk.
And I thought rail would be a economical solution to moving affordable pellets into the northeast. Just way to many headwinds in this industry. I really enjoyed it more before 2010 when product was plentiful, quality was consistent year to year, and yes prices were averaging round 200 a ton.
Thanks for the insight on this LW, learn something new every day here. Definitely not worth the risk. Or the tens->hundreds of hours to recover & remediate that mess.
It IS the most economical way to get them here, from the northwest. Getting them here is one factor of the business, damage is just another. You would never be able to buy them if you trucked them here.. The cost would be staggering. It's hard enough getting deliveries from a few hundred miles. Dan
Interesting read guys, thanks for the insight. I never gave the rail aspect much thought regarding shipping and load shifting. Then I thought back to my wife and I taking the train from New Haven to Philly over the years and my trips from our car to the cafe car whilst the train is in motion. Not exactly a smooth transition.