mina2 6 Posted June 24, 2013 Author Share Posted June 24, 2013 Problem with pellets is that they have to be fed the "pre-made" pellets of fuel. Making the pellets is not trivial (I have tried to get a pellet maker to use Olive press waste as feed and produce burnable pellets as output, to no avail so far!) and the manufactured ones are not (in Aus at least) cheap to buy. Add the higher cost of the stove to the ongoing cost of the pellets and the result is a less than exciting cost/benefit analysis. TBH, if I could, I'd make pellets and burn the mothers in my current heater. Unfortunately, the pellets stop airflow in the combustion chamber unless it is specifically designed for it (and this is part of the cost of the burner system) and extinguish the fire. There's + and - for both wood and pellets. In our opinion, a quality pellet stove is the preferred option. This is after doing lots of research and thinking about it. (Otherwise, we would be planning to buy a wood stove ) Let's enjoying our choices. Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Are these pellets like those some people use for BBQ ? How often do you have to feed them in a stove? My experience with wood stoves are that you have to spend some time geting to know em all have its own character ... I do like the fact that hardwood in Oz smells good, and I can chuck a decent size at night and that would be going all night to keep it warm and in the morning (if you do it right) you can get it going from whats left ... not bagging anyones choice btw Link to post Share on other sites
Alexander L 80 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 rabbit pellets? Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted June 24, 2013 Author Share Posted June 24, 2013 No doubt you could put rabbit pellets in there if you wanted to break your stove. Doesn't sound like a smart idea to me though. You can stuff 30kg into the stove we are probably going to get, Jynxx. It uses a not inconsiderable volume of them - the showroom guy said that they can use nearly 10kg in a 8am-6pm day with it on full blast. That was a very large room, probably close to 3 times larger than our room. A bag of pellets can cost 300-600 yen, depending on if you want crappy or quality ones. It's not going to be our only heating option, more of a luxury for those long leisurely evenings, weekends, that kind of thing. Really looking forward to it. And it does look like we'll be able to get 50,000 yen off courtesy of the town. Link to post Share on other sites
DumbStick 13 Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 If I wasn't so strecthed financially with everything else, I'd be tempted! Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 No doubt you could put rabbit pellets in there if you wanted to break your stove. Doesn't sound like a smart idea to me though. You can stuff 30kg into the stove we are probably going to get, Jynxx. It uses a not inconsiderable volume of them - the showroom guy said that they can use nearly 10kg in a 8am-6pm day with it on full blast. That was a very large room, probably close to 3 times larger than our room. A bag of pellets can cost 300-600 yen, depending on if you want crappy or quality ones. It's not going to be our only heating option, more of a luxury for those long leisurely evenings, weekends, that kind of thing. Really looking forward to it. And it does look like we'll be able to get 50,000 yen off courtesy of the town. They are selling the stove as 10KW but it burns under 10Kg on full blast for 10 hours? 1 kilo of (good) pellets is 5kWh, and they say the stove is 80% efficient, so for a sustained 10kW output it must burn around 2.5Kg of pellets an hour. What the guy is describing can't be full blast, it sounds more like 40% of it. Which begs the question of why spend so much on such a big stove. Since you can run pellet stoves off a timer, it's not as you need a high max output to heat your place quickly. You just have to start it earlier using the timer, something which may be the biggest advantage over a woodstove anyway. Fwiw, the vast majority of the reviews for pellet stove pellets on Rakuten are from people using them as cat litter. It sounds like WV isn't far off with the "rabbits" comment. Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted June 25, 2013 Author Share Posted June 25, 2013 Perhaps I got my numbers mixed up there, I'll check on that. Can't help think sometimes there's "too much thinking" done. Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 So you don't give olive press cake to animals as feed like oily seeds. You learn something new every day. Keep the ol' homesteading tales a comin! Ashully, the waste includes the shattered seeds and the bits of seed are bloody sharp! so they may well cause damage to the throat and digestive tract on the way through. Besides, there's very little oil and even less water in the waste that I produce, so it's just lignin. To be useful for nutrition, you'd have to add in the nutrients, so it would be easier to just feed the nutrients! Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted July 4, 2013 Author Share Posted July 4, 2013 Just thought I would share this bit of info..... it seems that soon there will be some kind of 'eco point' type thing from the govt. available for people getting a pellet stove. That would be on top of any town specific cashback. No details but will post more when I get those. Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 (edited) Are these pellets like those some people use for BBQ ? How often do you have to feed them in a stove? My experience with wood stoves are that you have to spend some time geting to know em all have its own character ... I do like the fact that hardwood in Oz smells good, and I can chuck a decent size at night and that would be going all night to keep it warm and in the morning (if you do it right) you can get it going from whats left ... not bagging anyones choice btw The pellets are a bit like supersize all-bran. and can be manufactured with one of these ... (Edit) They need a specialised system to burn, though, with an auger to feed the pellets into the burn chamber. (see http://www.thefireplacechannel.com/articles/article/3679599/53508.htm) Edited July 5, 2013 by JA Link to post Share on other sites
Jynxx 4 Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 Bloody hell ... I`m sure that will confuse the crap out where there`s horse/pony pellets Link to post Share on other sites
Tubby Beaver 209 Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 What are they made of? Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted July 5, 2013 Share Posted July 5, 2013 Huh? Jynxxx. They are made o f wood/sawdust/other fibrous material. The original pellet machines were designed for stock feed, but someone decided to play silly buggers with wood/sawdust etc and burn it. I want one that will produce log size (about 30-50mm diameter) from the waste from my olive processing. but the only ones available commercially are much smaller - about 6-20mm diameter and need a specialised burning environment, like in the automated feed heaters. Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted September 8, 2013 Author Share Posted September 8, 2013 Turns out that you can get "points" similar to eco-points a while back. Don't know the details of how it's run but basically we are getting 55000 yens worth. Not a massive choice of things to use them on from a catalogue, but hey will get lots of beer, gyoza, sweets and some new quality knives out of it. Link to post Share on other sites
snowbender 3 Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Bet there was lots of crab and sausages to choose from! (Am I right?) Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted September 9, 2013 Author Share Posted September 9, 2013 You are right. Link to post Share on other sites
JellyBelly 1 Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Free stuff is always good. Especially beer. Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted November 16, 2013 Author Share Posted November 16, 2013 We'll, been using it for a week or two now. Absolutely love it. Beautiful flame, very very warm, clean and easy to use...on/off switch and control temp. And it really does keep the room warm. Uses a lot of pellets but I reckon the winter will cost 3 man for the winter. Easily worth it not just for the what but the pleasure. Link to post Share on other sites
pie-eater 207 Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Would be interested to know how much pellets it uses mina2, once you get used to it and have a grasp on such things. Link to post Share on other sites
DumbStick 13 Posted November 17, 2013 Share Posted November 17, 2013 Yes, interested too. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 I love wood heating. I reckon you need less heat as well because the flames have a psychological warming effect. There is also issue of radiant heat (IR) off a stove (or the sun or radiators or underfloor heating) vs. circulating hot air you get off a fan heater like kero or an air con. Radiant heat is much nicer. For pure numbers, wood pellets are 5kWh per kg, so 10kg of pellets is the same heat as 5 litres of kero. You can just run the numbers on how much you would need for your own place off that. Kero is 100 yen a liter now round here, so some folks must be suffering. We got a letter from the electric company as well over the weekend and their prices are going up again from April. It might encourage more folks to turn to firewood or pellets. Link to post Share on other sites
mina2 6 Posted November 18, 2013 Author Share Posted November 18, 2013 Can't say yet in real usage terms, but when deciding should we do aircon or pellet stove, the stove is always winning! Just because it's so much nicer. We are buying good quality pellets, and they cost 550 yen per bag of 10kg. Link to post Share on other sites
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