Pellet heads!! What's up today?

It was OEM.

 

Hmmmm
Usually OEM STUFF is good.

 

Cold weather on it's way...
Decided that it would be a great time to prepare the big Whitfield for service.

We shut it off this spring and had not done squat with it...
Cleared the firebox and baffles...Lubed the draft fan motor bushings...
Leaf blower maneuver ....Washed the windows
Vacuumed out the mechanical cabinet

Plugged it in...Pressed reset button....
Tossed in some pellets (Smells better if it poofs in the room while lighting)

Set it for startup......

Turned on the main and lit the fire.

Wanted to let the stove run long enough to make sure it works like it should..

Grabbed my phone to snap a couple pics.
Fist pic shows the fire...The panel with the lights...top row of green lights only showed the outer one green.
Inside green one indicates that the low temp switch has closed and the stove in "On The mains"
First 25 minutes is fed through the startup timer only .

Once the low temp switch closes the power to the stove feeds from the main power bus bar through a relay to the auger timers and to the draft fan and the room fan.

Second piccy shows both upper green lamps lit....

Test burn was fine....Shutting down as I type this...

Top inner RED light is main power...Stays on any time main switch is on
Top outer RED light cycles with the auger on time
Upper inner GREEN (Low temp indicator)
Upper outer GREEN is auger circuit power (Power to the timer)
Lower inner GREEN is Draft fan power
Lower outer GREEN is Room fan power

Two meters
Inner is the draft fan voltage (Speed) (Set at 85 volts....Good for all feeds we use)
Outer is the Room fan voltage (Set at 110V ) Slightly slower than full line voltage...A good all around speed...

This stove gets run when we need major heat....(Outdoor temps in the low 40's F and lower)

When the weather gets colder we fire the little stove up to help.

So far we have been running the little whitfield.....
By Friday we will most likely shut it off and run the big stove....
As long as we don't get below about 30F we can keep the house warm with the big stove...

BELOW 30F we need two.....We can deal with temps down into the teens.....Single digits take some help with the Quadrafire 1000.....Rarely do we get these temps....

Bring it on...We are ready for winter.

 

Well......it's here again......
First official TWO STOVE session.
The temp is 40F outside this morning....Little stove can't keep the house temp comfy below about 45-48F
Little one is just too small and too far from family room and bed rooms.

I stoked up the big stove a bit ago.....
It will get the place warmed up here soon

 

WEATHER WAS CRAP TODAY.....Starting to clear off some....
Planning on A shell run Sunday....Since the plant is operating 7 days a week for a while...
Sundays the weather is looking very nice...Monday and Tuesday good also.

We are going to TRY and get all the barrels full as we head into November...
With an EL Nino running....any ones guess as to wasssup for the weather....//

Usually an El Nino brings warmer and drier weather here in the PAC NW
But in my 71 years...Seen some nasty ones during the EL Nino winters....

 

We ran Munchy today and filled up the 4 barrels in the basement with stove ready shells.
Had a couple rotor jams...
Stuck one of the offending chunks of wood in my pocket to get a piccy
This is old stuff and very hard. (Tree trimmings)
The impact bars on the rotor are set to a clearance of .150" (About 5/32") away from the anvil...
This makes the perfect sized shell pieces.....
Given the curvature of the shells... the 1/2 shells break nicely into LITTLE fingernail sized pieces.
A chunk of wood goes in.....BANG....Jams the rotor.....
Shut off quickly and check the shells in the catch tub under the machine for pieces of wood..

If clean...dump in the barrel and then open the anvil and clear the junk....

This piece was in one jam....about 5/16" thick....The piece might go through the auger....But we don't care to temp fate....

The shells will break if caught between the auger flight and the auger tube....

Munchy will catch this stuff easily.
We see some sticks before we scoop the stuff up to put in Munchy....But most stuff is never seen until it jams the machine....

Easy couple minute maneuver to clear the jams...

Then back to work

The big dent in the wood is quite noticeable...

 

Got an email from Away yesterday



I'll have to go in and see if that includes pellets. Although that means I would have to move the pellets myself, 15% off of $350/ton still brings it down to just under $300. I'm pretty sure that them delivering from their main store doesn't count as "in stock". They would be NEWPs, which I wouldn't be thrilled about, but then again, I've burned a lot worse and kept plenty warm.

I've got 4 tons on hand but it makes me nervous to start the season with only that much. If this is a cold winter (unlike the past couple), then I could need up to 6 tons.

 

Hope you can get the good sale price
Over the years we have seen a lot of different pellet brands come through here....
Rarely do we see hardwood stuff.....EXCEPT FOR Grilling

Currently the most common stuff here on this side of the Mt's are GOLDENFIRE and BEAR MOUNTAIN
When you get away from the PDX metro area very far there are a few other softwood brands that pop up

Best stuff we ever had was from a one time shipment of HEARTLAND pine pellets that Home Depot got in..
Super clean burning with very little residue....

We keep a few bags of Bear Mt's stocked up and use them mostly for starting the fires....Also when we get a power outage we run the Quadrafire 1000 on them with the Genny....


The prices are about what you mentioned.....

Trying to second guess what the weather is going to toss at us can sure be tough..
I know the feeling of worrying about how much to try and stock up.

We try to start the season nearly full up on shells...
As soon as we have 10 barrels empty we start planning a haul....We do this all winter and try to keep things nearly full... Always better to run on the top half of the "Tank"

Sales are always welcome for sure....

GOOD LUCK ON THE SALE

 

Saw this online....found in the NW Foothills of Ct.

 

Hey JT got that insulation all in yet along with the inside storms?

 

We'll have to re-visit this thread posts next May after you're finally done shoveling yourself out.

 

RIP Maine victims.

Prayers going out to the survivors, families and citizens.

At least the people in the area can breathe a little easier this morning and begin the healing.

 

I would really like to get one of these. This one I seen online is way to much $$$. Going to check the tractor stores and see if they have anything that's cheaper. I could use it for a few things, including pellets.