Anyone else use pellet stove and oil burner? Price of fuel oil is climbing.

[Shortstuff]

I have been using our QF Castille for 3 years now to heat one end of our house (approximately 800 sq.ft.) and still use the oil burner to heat the remaining 1300 or so sq.ft. I only have to fill up my tank twice a year and even then it's less than 200 gallons each time. But if you haven't noticed lately the cost of #2 fuel oil is on its way up and from everything I'm hearing and reading it is not going to get any better for some time. So I decided to call around last week in all my immediately surrounding towns and others up to 50 miles away and found that the current price of oil is right around $3.60 per gallon in my area and two higher numbers of $3.74 and $3.79 nearby. I did find however that the prices got cheaper down towards Mansfield and found one for $3.32.9 and had them fill me up the next day (180 gallons).

So if you still use oil heat be sure to call around and you may be able to save some good $$$.

 

[imacman]

I still use some HHO for hot water (indirect water heater set-up), and the colder days, a small amount for heating the upstairs kids rooms to keep from freezing the pipes (with ThermGuard).

Just filled my tank about a week ago. Got it for $3.25/gal from a company that will beat any local price by .05/gal.....the price shot up the very next day....PHEW!

 

[mykl78]

I also use HHO for my hot water and to heat my home on the "coldest" days. I have a 375 gallon Roth tank in my 3200 sq ft home and it is a drain on the budget to fill! I have a Smith 4 section boiler and a Unico heating system in the attic for heating but I use my '03 Englander 25-pdv to heat mostly and it does a fantastic job for the price. HHO is $3.399 on the NH seacoast. I use www.newenglandoil.com to find the best price when it's time to fil. I got 2 more tons of green supremes this weekend from the Seabrook Lowes to push me to 4 tons for the winter. I hope it's enough... This is also my first post. Long time lurker but decided to join the forum!

 

[heat seeker]

Welcome to the forum!
My stove nearly eliminates the need for heating oil. The furnace comes on rarely for heat, and only on the coldest nights. I do use the furnace for water heating, and it does keep the basement from getting too cold with its heat losses. It's nice to know it's there for a backup, but at $3.60/gal, and a 1 gallon/hour furnace, I'm glad I have my stove. (And to think I originally bought the stove just as a "fireplace" to watch a fire!)

 

[schmeg]

I go through 100 gals. a year, 5 tons of pellets a year. I heat from late Oct-late April in Maine. I keep my house at 70. My stove is in the middle of my single story home.

 

[Freddels]

I've been using a pellet stove for about 10 yrs to heat an unheated portion off the back of my house (3-season porch) but this will be the first year that I'm trying to heat the remainder of the house with pellets. I just installed a St. Croix pellet furnace. I was going through about 4 tanks of HHO per season plus my hot water heater runs on HHO (that will eventually be replaced with a tankless).

 

[Pass the Pellets]

I use my pellet stove to supplement the heating of my 3300 sq. ft. house. Use of the pellet stove has cut my oil usage form ~ 900 gallons/year to < 500 gallons/year. We usually close off about 1000 sq. ft. of the house when not in use and burn about 4 tons per heating season ( October - April). Thermostat was be set to no higher than 68 when we used oil. House is in the mid 70's when burning pellets. I'm not sure if I'm really saving any money but the level of comfort provided by burning the pellets( higher house temperature) is appreciated by "Momma". And we all know what happens when "Momma" isn't happy...

 

[sinnian]

Cost a lot more upfront, but most of you would have been better off buying a biomass boiler ;-)

 

[Freddels]

Cost a lot more upfront, but most of you would have been better off buying a biomass boiler ;-)

I have a forced air system in my house, so I don't think a biomass boiler would have worked.

 

[Xena]

I use some for hot water and as backup heat when the stove is
shutdown for cleaning. Got a couple hundred gallons in there now.

 

[Freddels]

My hot water heater is oil. The other day, the oil company did their auto delivery and filled the tank. Only 92 gallons That was the first delivery since June. Today, I got a voice mail from the oil company b/c they are concerned about how small the delivery was and wants to know if anything has changed.

 

[btanoue]

Hi,

Last year we went through 600 gallons of Oil for heating and Hot water (direct fired oil) heater.
Our house is built in the late 1980's and about 3000 Sqft. Colonial style.
We used our pellet stove and burned about 3 Tons as well.

Our stove is a Enviro Meridian FPI and its on the long end of the house in a Family Room that sits off from the rest of the house.

The stove is in ON/Off thermostat mode so it kicks on in the early morning.
We also supplement heating the upstairs with oil and partial downstairs in the morning as its colder.

We tend to live in the family room so we turn the heat down in other areas.
We are toying with the idea of a pellet furnace in conjunction with oil as our backup...but the quote I got was about 7K.

I hope this helps.

btanoue

 

[Freddels]

I just purchased a pellet furnace (St.Croix SCF-050) and I got it on a summer sale for $2K.

 

[cuznvin]

Use oil to heat the house and hot water with an Indirect Hot water tank. Have a 3 year old Buderus German Burner. Very efficient with a computer hooked up to it. HOWEVER, I refuse to keep paying these high oil prices and keep the thermostat low all winter while freezing my A$$ off. So, on the 28th a Enviro M55 Cast is getting installed and on Tuesday I have 1.3 tons of Homestead Pellets and 1.3 tons of Cleanfire Hardwood getting delivered. Looking forward to getting this stove fired up!!

 

[helismash]

I purchased the pellet stoves to cut back on my HHO consumption. Like many others here, I heat my hot water with HHO but I am hoping to change all that next year. I am thinking that I'm going to go the tankless route as well. I just filled up at $3.60 a gallon and really didnt like geting a $687.00 oil bill. Add to that the fact that I am now taking care of my parents and they like it between 73-75 or they are cold and the pellet stoves look better and better!

 

[gyingling]

I have burned pellets for a full season. My oil consumption went from about 700 gallons a season to a little less than 200 gallons. I did burn about 4 tons of pellets last year, but the heat is far superior and cheaper than oil by far. I found that when the temp goes down to around 30 consistently, I need the oil heat to make up the difference. The decision to burn pellets has been so far a good move. Plus, I like the idea of having a backup heat source, instead of depending on foreign oil only.

 

[Don2222]

Hello

The cheapest around here is Haffners and looks like they are on the way up also

In one week up $0.05 per gallon

However I have a centrally located 45k BTU wood pellet stove that heats the entire house.
We also updated to the latest cold start, triple pass oil boiler with an outdoor reset that uses less than half of the oil of our older boiler.

So now we use 200 gallons per year with an indirect Superstor with a 12" heat loop to prevent convecting heat leakage. I tanked up in July @ $3.46 per gallon so we are good till next July or August


1st pic is 11-11-2011

2nd pic is 11-18-2011

 

[BrotherBart]

I don't know how you guys do/did it heating with oil. It isn't common around here and in 1985 when we were house hunting when I got transferred from Texas we found our dream house. Had an oil furnace which I knew nothing about. As we left the delivery guy had taped the bill to the door.

We kept looking and bought a house in five acres of oak, beech and maple trees and ordered a wood stove. I have been dinking with my pellet stove in the basement figuring it will move upstairs since I am getting to the point I can't whack many trees for much longer. Looks like the pellet puppy is going to be able to haul the freight.

Those oil bills boggle my mind.

 

[heat seeker]

$3.729/gal here today.

 

[vinny11950]

Interesting about current oil prices, they are about $100 a barrel with the U.S. economy sucking and the Europeans near black hole financial meltdown. Oil prices should be much lower because lower economic activity should lead to lower prices..... However, with the Federal Reserve printing more and more dollars, dollars lose their value, and the Arabs want higher prices to offset for getting paid with lower valued dollars. Also, all this new liquidity gives hedge funds and financial institutions plenty of money to take more risks and drive up oil prices in the futures market.

One side effect of printing more dollars. However, seeing what Europe is going through with higher interest rates and unemployment and their currency about to collapse, maybe printing money is the only option in a very ugly situation.

But pellet folks, be proud of your choice to use pellets, because being that pellets are made here in the US, means they are more stable in price and supply. Yay for pellets

 

[Freddels]

$3.89 per gallon here but they only delivered 92 gallons.

Actually, we don't get any middle east oil here in the US. Most of our oil comes from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela.

 

[muss]

I set the furnace temp at 62 all night & nite except when i get up in the morning. I then set it at 72 then fire up the pellet . After 20 minutes or so, i then set the furnace back to 62. All in all, i use about a full tank of oil for a full year & 4 ton of pellets .