To pre-order or not 2009-2010? -

This is a great question and comes up each year. Last year I pre-bought Hamers (very early- March) Hot ones for $175 a ton, however this year that same pellet from that same store was $285 (pre-buy).

So what to do? I will will pre-buy half or less than my anticipated need for the winter of 09-10 and look for better deals durring the season. I believe pellets are at an inflated price at the moment and will possibly decrease during the heating season.

Why do I think this? Simple- pellet stoves are not a tremendously economical option when pellets are @ $300+ a ton and oil is at $2 a gallon. Also last winter represented a pellet stove craze because in the summer oil was $4+ a gallon, pellets and stoves where in hot demand. I believe this year we will see a dip in demand as many of the pellet newbies of last year give it up because of the work and lack significant savings because of high pellet prices.

My prediction- look for a glut of used stoves on ebay this summer and declining pellet prices through out the year.

Disclaimer- This is just my opinion and could be totally off, so take this with a grain of salt.

Pre-buying

 It is about the time of year that you start to think about pre-buying your pellets. Usually the best prices can be had at this time of the year. Last year I pre-bought 3 tons of Bearfoot @ $175 a ton. This year the pre-buy price is somewhere in the $250+ range.

I am of the opinion that pellet prices are inflated at the moment for two reasons.  1. The past year saw a large influx of new pellet stove users, and 2. in addition to increased demand saw dust for pellet manufacturing, the saw dust supply was low because of the economic slow down. This was the perfect storm to make pellets really pricey this season.

With that in mind it becomes a little more difficult to decide to pre-buy or not. My plan is to hedge my bets and pre-buy half, and wait on the rest because I believe there is a good chance price will fall.

Greene Team

Review By Aaron

Greene Team Pellet Fuel Company
Garards Fort, PA
(724)966-2166

Hardwood Pellets

These pellets have been my primary pellet for 4 years now. I pick them up @ local Lowes. Pricing has been all over the place since summer ’08, and now Lowes states that Greene team will not be delivering until 2009.

Greene Team Pellet Fuel is the one company I will compare all of the pellet purchases I get.
These pellets have been the most consistent in size, color and very little fines in the bags.
They produce very small amounts of fine ash.
Over a weeks burn time they do tend to produce small clinkers in my Napoleon.
The Greene Team Produces very good heat.

I would recommend these pellets to anyone who can find them.
Recommend - YES

Clean Energy

Review by Aaron

Clean Energy Wood Pellets
Hardwood
Distributed By Lowe’s

After being told that Greene Team would not be delivering pellets until 2009, Lowes had these pellets in stock. I picked up 3 bags…

These pellets were small in size and had more than average fines in the bag. (this could be from the bottom of the ton where I got it). The diameter were very consistant with all other pellets that I have burnt so far.
These pellets produced somewhat more ash than the Greene Team, but had more clinker buildup in the burn pot than the Greene Team’s. Being a hardwood pellet I would like to try a few more bags and see how the consistency is through out.

Spruce Pointe

Review by Aaron

Spruce Pointe Wood Pellets
Softwood
Canadian

These were my first softwood pellets that I burnt this season. I picked up 3 bags at the local mardens and was very impressed with the overall quality of the pellets.
The consistency through out the 3 bags were very good and the bags contained very little fines and broken pellets, sawdust.

These pellets give great heat, very low ash content and no clinkers in the burn pot of my Napoleon.

Though they are softwood, they burnt somewhat faster than the hardwood ones that I have been burning.
Recommend - YES

Corinth

Review by blog reader: Aaron

Corinth wood pellets
www.corinthwoodpellets.com/
(207)285-7700

Pricing as of 12/26/2008 $289/ton
Hardwood Pellets.

After burning 3 bags of these pellets, they produce very good heat, low ash and zero clinkers in my top feed Napoleon. The average sizes of the pellets were about 1/2in to ¾ in. with very small amounts of broken pellets.
The bags contained very little fines and sawdust.
All 3 bags were very consistent in size and color of the pellets.

Some have stated in the past that they have found corn in their corinth pellets, I did not find any at all.

One of 4 fairly new manufacturer’s in Maine. After having somewhat bad luck with Athens, I wanted to try another Maine wood pellet. After trying these I would buy in bulk.
Recommend - YES

Statistics

I have listed the statistics of some the pellets I have reviewed so far, however I am finding it more difficult to get straight answers out of the manufacturers. The most common response is that they meet the criteria for a "Premium" pellet by the PFI. I can tell you with those standards there are a great variety of pellet quality. As I linked to the PFI I found that they have indeed initiated a "Super Premium", and that will help distinguish the better pellets. I am not sure the news of the super premium rating has officially gotten awarded to many manufactures yet. I have not spotted it on any bags yet. I want to offer some basic guide line for looking at pellet stats.

The truth is do not rely on statistics alone. Even some of the best pellet mills occasionally put out bad batches, particularly in these days of limited saw dust supplies. Also some of the statistics are not really helpful. For instance fines, that statistic measure the fines at the factory, it does not account for how the pellet stays together after being moved around. In fact I would argue that the bulk density may tell you more about the amount of fines you may end up experiencing than the fines statistic. Even that is not going to always predict what you will end up with by the time you pellets land in your hopper. There are so many variables that can effect a pellets performance that the stated stats do not even address it is difficult to even advise how to use the stats at all.

If there is one stat that maybe is more revealing than the rest, I would suggest it is ash content. Ash content will often reveal the quality of the raw materials used to make the pellets. It can also reveal how the saw dust is cared for. If you are use poor saw dusts, or letting sit out in the weather is is going to be very difficult to have a pellet will a low ash content. One could conclude if a pellet manufacturer takes the effort to find good materials and handle them carefully, than they should continue that trend in the rest of the process. Again, this is not a certainty, but it is a fair conclusion.

So if you want to look at a stat to help you find the best pellet, ash content is probably a good place to start. I think conventional wisdom might point to the BTU rating, but remember ash reduces the efficiency of the stove so even if you get a few more BTUs you may lose them with a quickly ashed up stove.

In the end the only sure method for evaluated pellets is to run it through your own stove (then buy from that batch), but hopefully sites like this one, along with careful interpretation of stats can give you a head start.