Question about wood pellet storage

We have been thinking about installing a wood pellet stove in our kitchen/conservatory. However we have heard a lot of different opinions on the storage of the pellets. Several people have said there are a lot of problems with one plumber saying that they need to be stored in a heated place.

We have an insulated double garage (with no heated, naturally) which we think should be adequate. We would like to hear any experiences, good or bad concerning the storage of the pellets as we don't want to fork out several thousand euro and have a useless system because of a storage problem.

Thanks,
Frank

I have a purpose-built 3.5 tonne pellet storage hopper for my central heating boiler. Its stored in an insulated double garage thats not heated in any way except any residual heat from the boiler itself. Its a simple design made with sheet metal & a cloth type covering. While all the joints were sealed with silicone I wouldn't say it is even close to being fully water-proof. As yet I haven't had any problems with damp pellets (if anything dust hast been a bigger problem which was sorted by a change of supplier). So in short - as long as they are indoors they don't have to be heated IMO.

I also think that if wood pellets are stored in a good indoor environment heating should not be necessary.
But, Metal hoppers can have condensation (moisture) problems.
Plywood or OSB hoppers are better.

Neighbour has wood pellets stored in an open hayshed! Working perfectly for ages.

Pellets have to be kept very dry with a moisture content of about 10%. If they get damp they wont burn very well and I have heard of a case where they turned to mush and couldn't be burned. You could get a small bag (I think they come in 10kg bags) and open it and leave it in the garage over time and see what happens it. If they get damp then you would need to get a special storage container.

Ok I think I will try a bag in the garage and see what happens. Is there any way to check the moisture content ...to be sure.

Devoto

Sounds like you are just thinking of a space heater rather than a boiler (i.e. just a stand alone stove to heat a particular room, rather than a pellet boiler to power your central heating). If I am correct then you will not need to buy the pellets in bulk and can buy them by the bag load to be loaded into the hopper built into the stove. If this is the case you will only require storage for a number of bags, and a garden shed or anywhere that is not exposed to the elements will be fine.

As previously mentioned pellets must be kept dry, however if they are already in bags a garden shed should be more then adequate. Pellet boilers on the other hand usually require a dedicated bulk storage space with an automatice feeder into the boiler.

For what its worth, we have a pellet stove heating a 35m2 double height room and it is brilliant, uses about a 20kg bag a week at this time of year, probably no more than 30 bags a year. it provides more than enough heat, is efficient and easy to clean and IMHO looks pretty good. I buy about 8 to 10 bags of pellets at a time. While this isn't the cheapest way to do it, it works fine for us.

J2K