Wood burner here and know little about pellets. My GF's son in law bought three tons of pellets back in December before Christmas. They are still sitting in his driveway wrapped and top covered with plastic as delivered. Their pellet stove is broken. Will these still be usable? I know once they get wet they are trash. Not for anything, but i would get them on his porch ASAP as its only a few feet away. Her and i laugh at how wasteful they are. Id volunteer to help move them but have learned my lesson from helping in the past. Lazy and unappreciative.
I'd throw another tarp or cover over them JIC. But still should be usable. I had mine out for almost 5 months before we hauled them in. And even with a good cover wrapped tight over them we lost a few bags to moister. Some were just the corners. No worries. Just open that end and try to get the football out. The rest of the bag is still good. You'll know when the pellets are mush, The bag will blow up like a balloon.
Im not sure but he may have thrown a tarp or plastic over them. I havent been there since December 20.
IMHO any bags that will be lost are already lost.. Unless liquid water gets into the bags, they should be fine.. Simple humidity in the northeast isn't going to cause them to break down. Unless the pellets came directly from the factory, they likely have already been stored outside at some point in the elements.. Unless the upper part of the wrapping was destroyed in the delivery process, the damage that may have already existed at the time of delivery will likely not get worse. At this point, it's a matter of who is responsible for the damaged bags. If discovered soon after delivery, the liability should be on the supplier. If a claim is not promptly made, the consumer will need to eat the loss regardless of when the damage occurred..
I would be willing to guess that once they are delivered and the truck tail-lights are out of site the homeowner has the responsibility.
The plastic covers from the factory work fine. A few wet corners is not a problem, if you mix the pellets in with other good pellets. Canvas can be purchased from www.chicagocanvas.com. I regularly store pallets of pellets outdoors all year; have been doing so for 7 years.
The porch could be worse if the sides are open and rain can blow in from the side. The 40 pound bags are not waterproof.
I picked up two tons this year.. Took me about a week to unload from the trailer. I had one bag that was 1/3 saturated.. My dealer told me to stop by and get another bag.. I brought the wet one with me, offered it up.. They said they didn't want it and gave me a replacement bag. I was able to burn about half of the pellets from the wet bag.. I think if people abuse the system, they might take a different tact.. YMMV.
I stored 11 tons outside, about 6 of that for more than a year. I added a tarp on top, and they were fine. I did have an extra pallet below each of those tons, to keep them out of the dirt and grass (they were in my yard not the driveway).
Good info here. I used to be able to get three tons in our garage. But after purchasing a larger vehicle, only one ton fits. Now debating picking up a few tons at the end of the season and leaving them outside until next.
have 2 tons of softwoods delivered 3 weeks ago.. factory wrapped plus have a tarp covering them with bungee chords around to keep the tarp tight. will be good till weather breaks.. i use help from friends to load in basement but too cold now to ask anyone. hell, i don't want to unload my own stuff in the bitter cold.
Those windows pop out. 2 guys load thru window and 2 of us inside stacking on pallets. Maybe 30 minutes and done. Inside is 7ft high.
Have stored many pallets of wood pellets outside with no issues. Over the years, have accumulated a lot of extra hoods (never throw them away unless they are trashed). Put two of them on per pallet; generally one clear hood first, and then a white one over the clear. The hoods usually fit pretty tight which is nice because they don't lift or blow around in the wind. If I have extra pallets, I will place one on top for extra protection.
Depending on my husbands lower back we've gone through an entire 60 bag pallet from driveway with just the mfg'r top wrapper. TBH the only blown up bags we've had were already damaged from the forklift driver, but not worth the $$ to drive to town to exchange the one or two we get when buying that brand. The blown up sawdust work for icy spots Whats wrong with his stove?
Not 100% sure, but Ms.buZZsaw told me they had it inspected and unsafe to use. Guy claimed there could be a chimney fire??? I didnt think pellets generated that much heat like a stove. Here's the kicker. They complained about not having the $1700 for the repair and are using it for heat, but had $400 to get matching pawprint tattoo's as one of there dogs was just put down. Her and i just rolled our eyes. Where are the priorities???
Its a long porch and wide so pretty well sheltered. Sad as its a real nice log cabin house and they trashed the place. Dont get me started and sorry for the rant!