Anyone making them from home? I am thinking of a pellet stove for a new garage but I don't want to be paying for the fuel. I've seen some small mills... Any good? Anyone have one?
to process wood into fuel pellets requires a double reduction gear train type for the typical flat plate /roller design. with out that they are relegated to much softer material and are generally only good for use as pelletizing feed mills. typically in the $3k price range for lowest volume depending on power source. rollers and plate wear and are a fair chunk of change to replace. Ring die units while having longer die life are considerable more costly. There are also screw compression/extrusion units as well as hydraulic compression/extrusion units. these being more versatile as the extrusion die can be changed to suit product needs. It is very hard to justify the upfront costs and payback for a home use function particularly of the use factor envisioned by the op. As a small scale add on to an existing mfg to reduce otherwise wasted material and the associated costs of disposal it has some merit. There is at least one company in my local doing this and it has become a somewhat profitable sideline for them mostly due to eliminating the bulk of their disposal fees. Difficult market here stateside for a standalone enterprise which is why we see the bulk of the output going to overseas markets where conventional fuel prices are so much higher. I have been following this for years , even sat down and ran all the numbers for home or as a small biz enterprise- just can't make it work. the 3 areas that kill this are raw material supply and processing ( with the drying of same being the big ticket here), packaging, distribution. The actual pellet making section is peanuts in the over all scope. Volume is the only way this works and that takes megabucks upfront. As we have all seen the gov grants for start ups and ultimate failure within 3 years of same, have a worse ratio that restaurants.
I thought about getting a mill for my grass clippings and fall leaf's. No access to wood chips locally and what I found is full of bark. $$ too, grass and leaf's would be free.
another note, your raw material must be free of any none bio material- a stone or metalic, glass ,will destroy a die roller set
It would be something fun to mess around with at home but in the end, probably a complete pain in the azz to try and supply yourself pellets all winter long.
Don't waste your time and $$$ Are you planning on heating the garage 24 / 7 ?? or just when you are working out there??
I already have wood stove in my house, but I thought for the garage that the pellet stove would be more convenient, having thermostat and an auger to handle fueling and not having to worry about it when I am done in the garage. It's going to be a two story garage, with the loft being a three season affair.
Bummer. It looked like a reasonable idea watching all these clowns on you tube doing it. The house is handled by the stove and furnace... Was really attracted to the somewhat more on and off ability of the pellet stoves
The city provides free wood chips to anyone. It's too big of chunks for a pellet mill but some sort of brick or log compressor would make you enough fuel to last a lifetime
A pellet stove is a Great idea for the garage way more easy than a wood stove , it's the making your own pellets that's not worth it .
You would have to season or dry them, but free is always best - possibly a wood chip boiler may be worth the extra $$$, depending on the payback w/ free fuel.
Due to your location - local code for your garage will have the heating appliance ( permanent mount) of any type hanging off the ceiling. I do not believe even 4 ft above the floor will pass inspection. ( yes they are truly picky and a royal pia.) I am a bit too familiar with them having a shop in the NW corner of Milw.
One of the least costly but really quite effective routes is a sawdust stove, basically works on the principal of a rocket stove, might work with chips if they can be packed in tight enough- but really would likely need to be run through a hammer mill or similar to reduce size to 6mm ( 1/4 ") particles, finer is better. Human powered compression is all that is required. Some digging time on the net will produce information. On the other side of the big pond chip furnace and saw dust furnaces have been installed with various success/ failure results. Boiler types and their rules require a full time engineer on site 24/7 which tends to negate any savings fuel wise. The bio-mass energy ( garbage) conversion plant in Milw., I believe, became a red herring, don't think that is even around anymore, nor can I find any reference on the net in a quick search. You may or may not remember it and I can not place a time frame on it closer than 1980-mid 90's. UW Madison is converting a coal plant to bio- mass- mostly out of our pockets, this has been in the works for awhile now and is still proceeding I believe. WE Energies built a biomass plant up north( they are quite proud of it- course mostly paid for with grants and almost tax free) the town where it is located gets nothing from it and is becoming bankrupt due to having to supply and maintain all the infrastructure for it. The electrical energy from it is sold on the grid- and we basically buy it back from same. Whole lot of tidbits that run around in my skull.
I'll just put in another stove if it's such a hassle to make your own fuel for the pellet stove. Barring that, I'll stick with the propane torpedo heater I have now. Paying for fuel on top of the cost of the pellet stove is not something that I am interested in.
I looked up the Rothschild plant, and although it looks like a massive boondoggle for WE energies and the paper mill, I am confused how it relates to pellets? Also IIRC, when this thing was proposed and built, natural gas and propane were more expensive, and not easy to come by(PROPANE) for residential customers. Now that fracking has taken off we are up to our ears in cheap natural gas... I think that I driven by this thing a few times traveling for work.
i was only adding it in as it is a bio mass unit fired by chips, which you had mentioned regarding free chips from Milw.- if you did read the article I hope you caught the blip about wet wood and frozen fuel ( Don't understand how highly paid engineers missed that scenario though) Pellets stateside just can't compete on a one to one cost basis to NG in the metro areas- propane totally different as it is a derivative of crude as such is subject to the same variations as any petroleum product including transportation issues- that was where the rub was a couple winters back in the upper Midwest. Fracking- lot of information being twisted - just follow the money trails. Pick your side of the fence and hang on.
Friends and family got really boned by the propane bs. A lot of cold homes that winter. I inherently distrust anything that is a virtual monopoly, you know these guys will say anything to keep you consuming. so if there's an alternative I will take it.
Yep , asked about buying my own tank- thought one tanks outside blew up. I hate renting tanks for anything and with the propane locked into that single supplier- still dancing with that company. Tank outside now is from Co-op- not that they are any better. Don't know how long it has been in place but not to code that's for sure. Got the runaround when I inquired about that aspect. so much fun. local gov banned owbs, just makes things more difficult, and this is out in the sticks to quote the town sign a couple miles over " population - not many"
