Pellet Sources and Prices

[Santana Fan]

Reporting back: For the six sacos deal at the wood yard for €25; there's no info on the bag at all, however visually there's no difference between those and Acar's pellets. The bag is identical in all respects. If I owned the wood yard, common sense means I wouldn't pay extra to have my name etc, emblazoned on the bag.

In an attempt to summarise so far:

Acar:  mixed woods  4500 Kcal/Kg.  With prices up to €4.80 seems expensive unless you invest in their scheme. For me, not worth it, as multiple trips to collect say, ten at a time, would use a lot of diesel.

Wood Yard:  mixed woods (guess)  4500 Kcal/Kg (guess). With small quantity prices at €4.16 seems a 'no brainer'. For me, very worth it, as my fortnightly shopping trips go past there, so an insignificant diesel cost and little storage space needed.

Longo's:  100% pine  16.5 MJ/Kg.  16.5 MJ = 3940.9572943537 kcal approximately.   ;D
Visually much darker than the other pellets. Same location effectively as the wood yard, but the higher price and hugely lower Kcal value knocks it on the head. (I thought pine would be higher not lower)
Incidentally, for my small purchase I was asked for €6 a bag instead of €4.75. An easy mistake to make I am sure.   :whistle:

And finally...
Although it would work with two or three neighbours, unfortunately I can't see that a big 'get together' to buy in bulk would work. You'd have to have a fair size vehicle to cope, or pay for palleted delivery. Then, each individual would need the dry storage space to store the larger quantity of sacos. Delivering round to multiple addresses would use fuel too, which all adds up.

[hurlez]

Why don't the people who have a pellet burner join together and buy in bulk .
Everyone can say how may bags they want and go collectively to the supplier to collect them.
The forum would allow this kind of enterprise I am sure.

[ColinC]

They are basically a web based sourcing company, they come up with almost any trade product you are trying to source, often priced quoted by them are for a minimum container load :

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Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals. Wikipedia
Stock price: BABA (NYSE) $103.88 0.00 (0.00%)
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[phileas fogg]

I purchased 6 bags almost three weeks ago from the wood yard and have used all of them. The pellet burner worked well and burnt all of the pellets leaving little ash. The pellets gave me no trouble at all and my villa was lovely and warm. I will continue to buy them from the wood yard @€4.16 per bag. I did a search on the net and found that the bulk buying price works out at € 2.00 from a company called Alibaba I think that's how you spell it, so you now can see how much is made on 1 bag. €4.80 a bag he is raking it in.
As the saying goes shop around.

[robber]

I checked out Longo's today. €4.75 for one bag, but if you buy 15 then it's €4.50. A whole pallet (40 I think) takes you to €4.10 per bag. The only detail on the label was '100% pine'.

The wood content is not mentioned on Acar bags.

Going across the road tomorrow to see what info there is for a €4.16 bag.

Thanks everyone for all the input so far!  :)

The wood content on ACAR bags says that it's recycled sawdust from furniture and doors and that it's caloric value is 4.500 Kcal/Kg

[Santana Fan]

Yes, useful information.

I think for the moment I will go for six sacos from the wood yard and see how that goes. If there's a kcal value on the bag I'll report back.

As above (Longos 100% pine) I'd guess that might be good for the calorific value as opposed to mixed wood.

[ColinC]

It's all very interesting! It would be interesting to know what the calorific value is of each make..

I notice on another thread someone was saying the propane bottles are better than the butane, being slightly cheaper and the fact that propane burns hotter. Whilst it is true that the bottles are slightly cheaper and it does burn hotter (and is less affected by the outside temperatures) .. If it is the same as in the UK the same size bottles do not hold the same amount of gas as the propane takes up more space than butane, or in other words there is more weight (and therefore more gas) in butane than propane . If you look at the same size Calor gas bottles in th e UK, the 10kg butane bottles are only 7kgs in the propane ones a 30% difference.

So yes I do think you need to weigh it up carefully if you use a lot of them!

Colin

[Not_Asking_Much]

I checked out Longo's today. €4.75 for one bag, but if you buy 15 then it's €4.50. A whole pallet (40 I think) takes you to €4.10 per bag. The only detail on the label was '100% pine'.

The wood content is not mentioned on Acar bags.

Going across the road tomorrow to see what info there is for a €4.16 bag.

Thanks everyone for all the input so far!  :)

[robber]

ACAR charged today 4.80€ per bag. Not cheap...

[Lynne]

What's the calorific value of the pellets from the wood store please?

[phileas fogg]

I have had no trouble at all from the wood store across the road from Longos to get pellets, they burn just as good as those from other outlets where you have to buy a large quantity to get discount, so that the company then has your money up front so you are unable to look round. This is a very old trick used by traders to get your money and then become committed to their wares. If you wish to use this route it is an individual choice. The pellets from the log store burn at a rate of 1kg per hour and leave very little ash. and cost €4.16 per 6 bags if you wish to buy bulk  the price is €3.90 per bag.

[Lynne]

If you buy them in bulk they work out at 4.00€ per 15kg bag and they will keep your stock there if you so wish and collect what you want when you want them.  If you buy just one or two they are 4.50€ per bag.  They sell the high calorific value pellets, not the cheaper ones, ie 4,500 kcal per 1kg.  That's the important thing to look for.

[Santana Fan]

For what price?

[Lynne]

Cheap doesn't always mean the best bargain. You have to look at the burning rate etc, if it doesn't show this on the bag, then they're normally cheap which means less heat and burns faster so it's often counter-productive.  We always get ours from Chimeneas Acar near the Albox itv station.

[thetidders]

We get ours from there as well, 6 bags a time, we have had no problems at all.

Jean

[peteryaxley]

I get mine from there as well
   Peter

[Popsie]

Yes, bought from there last year, no problems

[Santana Fan]

Hi and thanks for the responses.  :)

I will check at Longo's, but the firewood yard prices seem hard to beat, assuming the quality is good. Have people bought from there and had no problems?

[ColinC]

Sorry I didn't notice the prices (I haven't got a pellet burner) .. But Longo's have just put out a display of pellets just outside our shop. I did notice that there is a sliding scale from one bag to a full pallet.. Might be worth a look....

Colin

[phileas fogg]

FONTALALMANZORA charge €4,50 per 15 kilo bag, if you go to the wood yard opposite Longos where the white porta cabin is he charges €25 for 6 bags enough to fill boot of car, this works out at €4.16 for 15 kilos

[Santana Fan]

Has anyone found a supplier local to Arboleas/Albox with reasonable quality at a reasonable price?

I think someone mentioned on here that Fontalmanzora were reliable and well-priced.

Any information gratefully received as it's difficult to shop around for this. Prices if possible please!