# Prometheus Pellet Fuel Basket for woodstove



## Jaclynne

I posted this first on the Homesteading board, but maybe you folks would be better equipped to answer it. Thanks for looking at it.



Hey folks, I just got my Real Goods catalog and they had a product I'd like your opinion on. Its the Prometheus Pellet Fuel Basket. From the description it is a stainless steel mesh basket that you burn pellet fuel in inside your wood stove. We are dragging the wood stove out of storage when we get into the new house. I can't always handle the firewood now due to arthritis, but I can handle a scoop of pellets on the worst day. I certainly can't afford a new pellet stove when I have a perfectly good wood stove, beside the extra electricity needed that makes them void during power outages. 

Here are a couple of links, tell me what you think. Also, is there any chance I could get one made for less than the $200 price tag on the smallest size?

http://www.energex.com/Prometheus.htm

http://www.realgoods.com/shop/shop3.../308/ts/1061127


Thanks!
Halo


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## Ed Norman

I'd think any good welding shop could make one of those for alot less money. I've seen stainless screen or stainless perforated sheet in several welding or machine shops in the past. Welding it together well enough to shove it in a wood stove would only take a few minutes.


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## Jaclynne

Thanks Ed!  
That's what I was thinking. I'm also wondering if I'd need the legs on the basket, our stove is designed with a grate bottom and then an ash drawer beneath for cleanup. Do you think that would give enough air circulation? Or were the legs designed to allow ash to fall from the burn basket?


Thanks again,
Halo


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## Ed Norman

I've never even seen a wood pellet, except the ones beavers make. So I don't know how they burn in a basket. BUt the legs only add a few inches to the materials list, so they shouldn't cost much extra. Or you could make it without, and if you found you needed them later, you could use bolts and nuts for legs. Legs might let the ash get a running start at the ash grate instead of packing up on the basket bottom, I don't know.


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## Jaclynne

Thanks Ed, 
you are probably right about the ash fall clogging if basket is sitting directly on grate. Wood pellets have so little moisture content that they produce very little ash though, makes for a higher heat too. I've never burned pellets before, just what I read. But I have used them in a sawdust toilet when we were remodling the lake house. They worked great and no mess or dust. They look like a laying pellet except a little larger in diameter, maybe the size of a pencil eraser.

Halo


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## Lazypoint

I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering if anyone ever made a home made pellet basket and if it worked OK.
Energex no longer makes the Prometheus, so building your own is the only way.


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## Explorer

Real Goods link appears not to take to the expected location.

Makes one wonder why they no longer make/sell this product.

1) The product did not work as claimed?

or

2) The product did not sell?


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