Wood Pellet making process for heating your home. 100% Oak pellets on 360mm PTO mill. DIY SW France
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2022
- A walk through of how I make wood pellets to heat my home on a PTO tractor driven pellet mill.
Send me any questions you have in the process.
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This is the future for us so long as possible . Doing good !! This work 100% .
hello, you plan to establish a pellet factory?
@@amosicronery7730 We want to use this for oureself and the rest to sell . We have a moulding company for a long time now and we get no money for our sawdust now !
Kudos to you! I love my pellet stove, but I am having to buy bags of pellets for now, but I'm hoping I can figure out a alternative way to get my pellets, or buy them cheaper.
Thanks for sharing, just think if 2 or 3 people had pellet furnaces that would coop and help a couple days a year to make pellets
Hi Jamie. Nice job. I'd like to know a bit more about it. We also live in SW France (since 2016). Like you, had to buy a tractor, post hole borer, box grader, pallet forks etc.
In the past couple of weeks, we've had a pellet burner installed. Fortunately, at the cost of the State as according to our tax return, we qualified for a grant. However, it only worked for one day. The guys were supposedly experienced, but I had to tell them to leave at 0200hrs and come back refreshed as they couldn't sort it out. They got it working the following day. They had caused a blockage when filling it. Once they had left, I realised they hadn't connected it to our hot water tank, so it was only providing heating. It did work well and our underfloor heating had never been so warm, too warm in fact! Anyway, told them they hadn't connected the hot water and they tried to tell me it would cost more to connect it. I told them no chance and sent them photographs of the old oil installation, connected to the hot water.
Still waiting for them to return as it jammed up the following day and hasn't worked since, despite me clearing the jam. Fortunately, we have a solar hot water system that I installed about years ago and an immersion heater in the tank. We also have a log burner in the lounge, but it still needs to be sorted.
I saw your video today after a search as I was wondering if you could make the pellets yourself.
We already have sawdust from a local supplier for our horses. It costs about €16 for a one cube sack. Mostly, if not all softwood, but I was wondering how effective that might be to turn into pellets.
How do you check your moisture content?
Hi Paul, Bienvenue! Thanks for connecting. Sorry to hear you are having a bad time of the install. Yes the back boiler type I would expect are a little more complicated. I have yet to renovate the entire first floor of our house, but when I get round to it (this decade?lol) I will be installing a Pellet boiler.
Yes softwood will work fine. Although I would reccomend finding a local sawmill if you were serious about making the pellets. To give you an idea, the amount of sawdust you need is 4x the volume of finished pellets so a standard house might use 2/3 tonnes of pellets per season. So that is 8/12mcubed (12 whole BigBags). Even if you have alot from the horses it might be good to get some from a sawmill... they will give you it for free (could look at cutting costs for the horses too?). The way you measure moisture is with a hygrometer. You can pick one up on Amazon for about €50.
@@PelletJamie Thank you for the reply Jamie. The system isn't a back boiler, I didn't make that clear. The replacement pellet burner is in our garage, having replaced the oil burner. It's made in Portugal, I believe. Ekallor is the make.
I buy the sawdust as bedding from a local supplier, who just makes the sawdust for that purpose. We had a sawmill not far from us who did give it away, but he has since retired. I do know of another sawmill, which is quite a large operation. I could go and ask them.
Where in the SW are you?
@@paulbradford8240 I am in the Lot et Garonne about 30 mins from Bergerac.
@@PelletJamie Probably not far from us then in Monflanquin.
@@paulbradford8240 Oh cool, yes in Duras but we are in Villereal alot as we have a group of friends there.
Stay in touch and just let me know if you have other questions, Happy to help. J
I have a couple questions I hope you wouldn't mind answering for me, I have been heating my house primarily with wood pellets for probably going on twenty years now. I'm on my third pellet stove, I do not remember what brand the first one was but it was, at least in my area, new technology and the quality of the stove was not good. After the first northern Minnesota winter with a pellet stove vs a traditional wood stove I could see the potential in pellets...and as someone that has had multiple spine surgeries for fusions and disk replacement- I do not recommend the experimental disk replacement I would go with fusion instead...pellets are a lot easier on the spine than spending days in the woods cutting splitting and hauling wood. Chainsaws get heavy and gas is getting expensive plus you're handling every piece of wood several times before it becomes heat, pellets I handle twice and at 40 lbs per bag they're not terribly heavy so even a gimp like myself can handle them. My second pellet stove was a Breckwell, after several years one of the chips on the motherboard popped and even today a replacement motherboard costs more than the entire stove with chimney combined was when I bought it new. About seven years ago I ended up buying a Cleveland Ironworks PS60 and it has been awesome. I do need to replace the burn pot, they're manufactured with mild steel that just doesn't hold up to the heat but stainless steel replacements are available at a decent price.
The stove has multiple options for output level, P1 for the most heat which burns pellets hotter and faster to the P4 setting which is the most efficient. We've had many many nights that it is -40° to more than -60° F (much colder with windchill added) and I've always ran it on P3 and the thermostat set at 72° and the house stays around 72° regardless. What does change is what type of pellets I burn, I started out burning only hardwood because with blocked wood hardwood is always the better heat, I had to buy a softwood blend once because the store was sold out of what I normally bought and I was shocked by the differences. Softwood burns much hotter than hardwood, it burns so much cleaner and efficiently that I'm only cleaning my stove around once a month and I'm burning around half of the pellets. The softwood was a little much for the burn pot but an upgraded burn pot is an easy fix. I had problems one winter with damp pellets, they burned but left a lot of ash and because it took so long for them to finally start burning I ended up replacing the igniter a few times.
My questions are about drying your pellets, if you have to dry them how do you do it? Where I live the price of pellets is getting insane, this winter they started out nearly 50% higher than last winter and just last week they doubled in price...which is why I am looking into making my own. I too have a friend who has a sawmill and will supply all of the sawdust and I can also have all of the smaller limbs and butts that are normally just piled up and burned. I have a few neighbors who also burn pellets so I can potentially sell whatever I won't need which would offset the cost of getting or making a hammer mill, pellet mill and whatever for drying. Do you know what the moisture level before milling vs after milling? I know that milling generates a lot of heat, does that impact the moisture?
I do apologize for writing a novel, I sometimes get more detailed than I should or need...any information would be Bey much appreciated! Thank you!
Hi... interesting info about softwood pellets... Will have to try that.
I do let the pellets dry just where they fall for a few hours but I don't do anything specific to dry them.
The moisture content of the sawdust is crucial to the operation , it must be between 10-12%... it also depends on lots of other variables, feed rate, speed of PTO etc etc.
The finished pellet is about 6% moisture.
After tightening the rollers in the begging do you need to loosen them a bit after running the mill a while?
No.. and you can't adjust the tightness on this whilst machine is running
I have a 7kw rotating die machine. But the oak sawdust is just coming out as dust. Not much seems to happen. Other woods are passing well. Do I need to heat it more? Moisture content is abt 14 percent so seems oké.
Hey. 14% is a little high. Is there any other differences (particle size, moisture level, feed rate) between the woods that make good pellets and the oak? Are any of the other woods hardwood?
@@PelletJamie thanks for the swift reply man. Everything else till now worked quite well. Also hardwood mixtures. Everything I mix with the oak comes out quite brittle not a nice hard pellet. Even if I mix like one one five. Seems that content of lignin in the oak is low or something?
If I run the oak twice to reduce the moisture level it comes out as dust. So problem doesn't seem to be in the moisture level. I was thinking that there is a temperature issue or such?
@@zeemanstuning1223 They say you should not make pellets in 0 or sub zero temps, probably because the pellet die doesn't heat up enough. It could be that.
@@PelletJamie merci! Need to try again
Bonjour félicitation vous avez de beau Pellet . Je recevoir ma machine à Pellet dans quelque jours . Pouvez vous me donner la recette de pré mix à faire avant de lancer le mélange de bois ? Merci !
Bonjour Rachid, le pre mix c'est broyage de feuilles (tu peut utiliser mais ou farine ou quelque chose douce) avec 10/15% huile moteur. Pour le premier utilisation de le presse tu peut met le sable fin de dans aussi pour poli les trous. C'est plus important a met cette mix apres utilasation donc les trou sont pas bouches, parce que si tu laisse les bois de dans et arreter la presse il est tres dur et besion percer pour le prochaine utilasatin. Bonne chance.
@@PelletJamie merci infiniment Jamie Andrews pour ses precieux conseils.
Cool. I just cant see this as viable at such a small scale.
Wh were.do get the saw dust from?
That takes serious energy to make sawdust and such.
As a by product of industry sure, but not many have access to such.
I get the sawdust, as much as I want/need from a local joiner. All joiners/sawmills will give it away for free because to dump it in landfill costs money which is what they would have to do. I could find 10 different other places to find sawdust in a week if pushed. For my own personal use this works with little hassle... I am on my third season with my made wood pellet ONLY heating
@PelletJamie humm...maybe I'm being a little short sighted....I will look around me and see if I can find some free sawdust. If I could maybe it would be viable. How may tons of pellets do you use in a season for how much SF heating?
@@mrpush2532 I run two pellet stoves, this season will be 2 1/2 tonnes of pellets. Next season I want to make 3 tonnes so that I start to have reserves. I basically pick up a trailer load of sawdust every month all year round and put that through.
@PelletJamie How many SF space do you heat?
@@mrpush2532 250sqm
How are your pellets so smooth and durable looking? My pellets have cracks on them no matter what I do.
What type of mill have you got? What material are you using at what humidity?
@@PelletJamie 15 kwh Pellet mill model name: ZFPM260-p with a die of 8 millimeters and triple rollers. Chinese made unfortunately because cant find any European ones. (broke the axle today only after 30 hours of use). I use cutter swarf (100% wood material and 0% tree bark) that I break further down to about 3 millimeter sizes that then goes into a mixer where I add flours in it about 2 kilos for about 50 kilos of raw material (Flour which contains starch around 70% that apparently should help increase the pelleting feeding rate and hardness because the natural amount of lignin in the material is not working properly (or so I suspect) but they still have varying sized cracks in them) and after taking several moisture tests from the mixed material the moisture ranges around 11-14%, average around 13%, and no higher than 15% (Manual said operating range for making pellets is around 10-18%) although theres oddly much water vapor coming out of the pelleting process (but I guess its normal even for such dry material?)
@@furanduron4926 OK 8mm holes is a bit bigger than usual (6mm) I have never used a mill with that size so *could* be that. You shouldn't need to add an flour.. pure wood has enough lignin in it to make pellets.. that is all I use. I would ditch the flour.. also it seems a tad wet... I would say that best humidity is as close to 10% just from my experience, anything more than that and I have to run the pellets twice to get them shiny hard. You broke the axel! Blimey that must have taken some doing. Do you mean the shear pins or the actual axel?
@@PelletJamie Nah the shear pins actually broke earlier for some reason lmao (3 out 6 completely broke off but luckily the other 3 hold or theres no telling how much damage it could have caused if it broke off and flew against my face or something.) The axel broke inside one of the three rollers about 1 and half inches from the outer side where the circlip (or lock ring) and the grease is located. It almost looked like that the circlip had sawed it to half way and it finally broke off. I cant imagine how thats even possible. I doubt I screwed the bolts too tight since any less tight and it wont properly make the pellets. I did not even use full force with one arm so either I have superhuman strength or the iron or steel (whatever the axel is made from) is just that poor quality like you could almost expect from Chinese made product. Hopefully warranty covers it even if its been almost 2 years since I bought it due to it breaking in just 30 ish hours when it should last 500-1000 hours of use and we can still use the rollers themselves so its should not be that expensive even if it wont have warranty but I am worried if it will happen again.
Whenever I get it back running it I might try doing something with the pellet cutter like sharpening the edges or just remove it entirely and see if that has something to do with the cracks...
hola buen dia te escribo desde Argentina, nosotros estamos haciendo pellets desde hace un año pero despues de muchas pruebas. humedad. presion. etc . nuestra matriz se sigue tapando algun consejo
Hi Alba, Do you speak English? Sorry, my Spanish is not very good.
Could you provide the link to the alibaba pto pellet mill ? or maker and model ?
I have replied to someone else on here with the link. Thanks.
Does it have to be oak shavings or can it be pine
It can be pine as long as it is pure and doesn't contain bark and foliage
The oak shavings looked rather dry? Do you watch the moisture content or not really?
Monitoring the moisture content is key.. they are at 10% humidity and work best at very close to that.
How long can a pellet mill be run in one go? Can the pellet mill overheat?
I am aware of people running them for very long periods of time, potentially days. The Mill is made of cast iron and stainless steel, it gets hot so much that the water steams off maybe 80Celcius but seems fine. I have used mine longest about 4hrs.. seems fine.
@@PelletJamie And how tight do you need to adjust the rollers? Before staring Ive loosened the rollers so that I can easily move them with my arm but after its running Ive tightened the fastening bolts so much that the rollers would no move at all (when Ive stopped the mill of course) with just a hand. The manual said 0.1-0.3 millimeters but how am I supposed to visually tell a difference so small when the mill is running and it has raw material in it? I would like to know how much is too much and how much is too little and what is perfect gap between the rollers and the die.
@@furanduron4926 OK so you have a die turned mill. I found when I used to use a die turned mill it didn't really make much difference how tight or loose the rollers were I just tightened them all the way but not with any force... just finger tight.
how big is the gap between the die and rollers? i'm having a nightmare getting mine dialed in,
Hey.. I tighten my rollers down against the die plate with a fair bit of force with a large spanner so essentially 0 clearance.... Is yours a roller turned or die turned machine? What does it run off and size of engine? What trouble are you having?
@@PelletJamie it's a die turned machine, Diesel powered. Manufacturer says gap should be between .3 and .7 of a mm but there's no way on earth i can get it that close. Did you run yours in with sand/oil/sawdust or shavings ?
Thanks for the reply.
@@vanderingadventures Yes to the die conditioning, doesn't do much though, just cleanes out the holes... what size is the motor? What size is the die plate?The height of the rollers doesn't really make that much difference.. I would tighten them after they have warmed up.... what is the problem, is it blocking and stopping or bad quality pellets? What material are you putting in? What moisture level? It is a bit of an art to doing it...the first time I used my pto machine in blocked and almost caught on fire because I added the material too quickly before it had a chance to heat up.
@@PelletJamie Mainly blocking up then stopping. I've had the grinding mix through it without it stopping, just, and that with a gap. Die is 250mm diameter and 20hp diesel engine. i've been slowly adding the mixture but the gap seems to be the issue. I'll let it run with the rollers touching for a bit, then lock them off before adding the mix. I'm using clean wood shavings at the moment. Cheers
@@vanderingadventures is it the 230mm 22hp? That should have enough grunt. Just a few things to go through... Did you specifically say when you bought the machine that it would be used for wood pellets? If not it could be you have an animal feed die plate... they are much thicker with higher compression ratios. Secondly what is the moisture content? Should be between 9-15% and MUST be measured and in that region. Thidly you mention they are shavings... it is better to reduce shavings down even further with a hammer mill or use sawdust... Hard or soft wood? Soft is easier. Fourthly and this is quite a big one... have you let the die heat up? It seems frustrating but it honestly takes 20-30mins for my pellet die to heat up... my tractor is 70HP so it doesn't stop but you still have to add the material in VERY slowly to start.... just little handfuls of oily materiall then slowly introduce straight wood material... once the die is warm after 20mins you can start adding it quicker.
I highly doubt it is the clearance of the rollers... if you watch any of the Chinese use these things they just jam the rollers tight.... they say it wears out the rollers quicker but can't imagine it is a big problem.
Hello I from Belgium, wondering why most of the people using so heavy electrik motors? Thank you
Hi Maria, it is possible to use a large electric motor or diesel or in my case a tractor. A lot of people choose to use an electric motor because it takes up less space and you can use them inside.
@@PelletJamie Thank you for answer.But I dont have heavy electrick in my house.When I wonna try to made pellets can I use a lighter motor like a 2.2 or 3 kw?.Hope to get a answer.
@@betondarm Ah I think you are talking about 3 phase electricity. OK. Yes. It is expensive to get three phase electricity installed if you don't have it. The diesel pellet Mills are still good.. To be honest unless you have a very big commercial building it must be done outside as the process is very dusty.
@@PelletJamie Lucky, i live on a open field between cow and pig farmes. I love the smell !!.My house verry old from 1820, no isolation so it is verry cold inside.Thats why I wonne try to make a pellet mill, because the prices are verry high on the moment for a bag 15 kg 11 euro..We will see, Have a good day, thanks for all the answer, And keep on rolling with the pellets.
@@betondarm Hi Maria, I bought my pellets from Leclerc mid December. Four different manufacturers were available from there at prices from €8.50 to €13.99 per 15kg bag. Fortunately, I have a large trailer, so I could collect my own.
Can you please provide the link for the mill off alibaba?
m.alibaba.com/product/1906420532/Tractor-power-output-used-biomass-wood.html?__sceneInfo=%7B%22cacheTime%22%3A%221800000%22%2C%22type%22%3A%22appDetailShare%22%7D&from=Android
Speak to Cealian at Laizhou Chengda Machinery, she is great and v.helpful. I am in no way affiliated or make any money from this.
We can provide from india
@@stockgain6731 Can you provide a link to your mill? It would be useful to compare.
Merci pour cette video.
Je veux travailler avec la 360mm ou la 400mm sur PTO Tracteur. ou sur moteur stationnaire.
Est-il possible de vous poser des questions « en direct » : Votre "sawdust mill" pourrait il alimenter directement la machine à pellets (avec les deux machines tournant en même temps?)
Travaillez vous avec pto 540 ou pto 1000 tours sur le tracteur et quel est le régime moteur idéal pour votre machine.?
Avez-vous une idée de la consommation de carburant par 100kg de pellets produits.
Chez nous en Allemagne, l'électricité est chère et j'envisage de travailler avec un moteur thermique dont l'eau de refroidissement chauffera la maison en hiver . Mon espace, la disposition s'y prête et je dispose d'anciens bâtiments où je peux laisser sêcher en permanence plus de 100 tonnes de plaquette.
Merci pour vos retours constructifs / éclairés..
Bonjour Gérard. Avec plaisir je peut respondre a vous questions. C'est possible pour avoir le material qui sortie le broyeur de marteau direct dans la boucle de la presse mais tu dois verifie le humidite de le materiaux parce que il peut bloque le presse. Je ne le fait, mais c'est possible. Mon Tracteur seulement est 540 mais c'est meilluer avec 1000. J'utiliser environ 20l de gasole par tonne. Oui l'ectricite c'esr plus Cher.. aussi avec le moteur gasole c'est possible pour courier avec biomass, huile etc.
@@PelletJamie Thanks for fast answer,
With your 540 pto, which engine speed/minite do you need? I heard that if you do not have a minimum speed on the mill, than it doesnt produce pellet... (For my first tests I will have a Fendt 60hp with three pto speeds 540 750 and 1000.tp minit)
Question: (what do you think about the following ?)
I would let my system work slowly but the whole day on. (some one would just overview it....)
I would "underuse" the mills (also to protect its body)... with the following concept:
- Same pellet mill as you have (quite cheap from China - normally requests 55 hp on pto )
- Same sawdust mill as you have ( requests +/- 6 hp)
- Both machines would be connected and driven by the "Typical chinese diesel 1 cylinder engine - However the most pôwerfull of them just has 35hp... BUT it has a very good ratio (diesel needs/KWH produced) . This ratio is said to be 0.27 liter diesel /Kwh. In China and India those one cylinder diesel engines are used everywhere and for anything.....(waterpumps, generators....)
So Because the two linked mills would be largely "undermotorized", I would have an automized wood chips inpout into the sawdust mill which would be (just important enough sothat the engine "can live with it") . Of course the mills would be underused but I let it go non stop (and I could heat our house with warm from engine).
? What is your feeling about that ? (I am looking for "outside critical spirit" about my idears....)
Finaly I believe that your 20liters/ 1000 kgs is a very good result. In this way of doing, i believe we could rather be in the 30l/1000 kgs but may-be I am too pesimistic....
Thanks in advance
@@gerardmaraite The speedo on my tractor has an optimum engine speed to work with 540 so I just put the accelerator up until it rests on that, probably just a bit more so that the engine doesn't die. It is best for the engine to work at that speed, if you you it under that the engine might stall and probably not be very good for it. I would suggest probably sessions of 3/4hrs.. the engine will overheat if you use it all day.
@@PelletJamie
Ok so I understand that your engine is just turning at (probably) 1100 to 1300 turns/minite... so I understand that your fuel consumption is so low... I know your ZETOR tractor very well because my father had one 3511 from year 1964.. On those ones your could turn your PTO on two different ways:
1/ on/off with the direct way "engine - pto" (This is what you do and you get the "540 speed")
2/ Through the "wheels gear box" and there you can choose between 5 speeds right and one speed left (the return speed).
How you do that?
- First put your High/low from the wheels gear box inbetween. It means it will be on neutral there.
- Second; put your PTO selector on the complete oposite side than the one you need for getting the 540 turns.
- Third Chose one of your (5 or 6 speeds for the wheels)
You than will see that the wheels will not move, but your PTO will turn at the selected speed...
If it doesn't work, it means that they stopped this "intelligent system" but I do not believe they did...
Have fun....
Who is the machine manufacturer as the Chinese machines seem to be not too robust.
It is a Chinese machine. Haven't had any problems with it yet.
You and I could be friends, Jamie..
Thease feed pellett machines do not compress wood enough for burning.
This isn't a feed pellet machine and I have heated my entire 500sqm house using only the pellets I have made on the machine in this video..😂😂😂😂😂
Cheers for the Christmas laughs tho 🤡
@PelletJamie great,as long as it works for you that's good.happy holidays
I nice video but i was expecting a bit more of the "wood pellet making process."
Right I explain that at the very start...if you watched any of the videos you would understand that the process has very little to do with putting the material in and watching it come out... it is for the same reasons that cooking programs aren't videos of food in the oven for an hour straight.
We are a pellet machine factory. If you need
pellet machine, please contact me
I buy them in 40 pound bags delivered right into my garage simple this is way to much work and overhead to make sense
So why are you commenting?
The price here has quadrupled for bags in 3 years and is set to keep rising.
I can heat a house for the cost of the diesel €50 a season... lol. And most importantly nobody especially the government can change that....
@@PelletJamie I probably burn 175 40 bags a season in the us Pennsylvania I had them delivered for 6.50 usda bag it is what it is if any has the time and all the resources to do it cheaper god bless them
@@johnie19644 Twice the price here in France at the moment.
@@paulbradford8240 are you saying you’re paying 14.00 usd a bag?
@@johnie19644 $14.70 is what I have seen the pellets here for a 15kg bag (33 pounds). I was lucky buying mine in the early part of December for $9.98 per 15kg sac.