Does the heating oil industry know that all their customers are leaving or do they even care

[Bigjim13]

When I gave up oil in 94, I never got a good bye card. So I guess they don't miss me much! :-/

Thats the thing, for every customer they lose they find another one or 2 somewhere else. If I had it my way, I would get an outdoor wood burning furnace and about 100 acres of land that wasnt developed, chainsaw, log truck...skidder maybe and never buy a ton of pellets or a drop of oil again. Aside from the $200k startup cost for that the only thing holding me back is that I can't put a woodburing furance in the village I live in...local ordinance or something.

The point is, we will never be fully oil independent, there is to much money wrapped up in it.

 

[Harman Lover 007]

Is anyone fearful that more people owning pellet stoves equals more demand for pellets, equals decreasing supply of resources to make pellets, equals rising costs for pellets? I am.

Yup.

Go forth and tell everyone what a pain in the ass they are, how expensive they are, and how they don't have good heat More pellets for us!

EXACTLY

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Is anyone fearful that more people owning pellet stoves equals more demand for pellets, equals decreasing supply of resources to make pellets, equals rising costs for pellets? I am.

Yup.

Go forth and tell everyone what a pain in the ass they are, how expensive they are, and how they don't have good heat More pellets for us!

EXACTLY

Not me, for every three stoves sold, you'll likely find 2 on Craig's list within a year. True it will likely take an air compressor plus a very heavy duty leaf blower to remove the impacted ash deposits from the stoves, but hey more bargains for us.

 

[titanracer]

A tipical winter month, I was burning 125 gallons of propane to heat a 14 x 70 trailer at about 70 to 72 degrees t-stat setting. At about $4.00 a gallon would equals $500.00 for 1 month of heat. Say you pay this for 5 to 6 months, that would equals $2500.00 to $3000.00 a year for heat. Pellets have been a no brainer, I use a average of 3 tons a year at $225.00 a ton equals $675.00 a year for heat & I got good warm heat. Pellets would have to go up serverly for me to switch back. Alittle work is worth the quality of warm heat I get.

 

[ironpony]

it is a numbers game, I would not of done it if I did not find my stove used
every situation is different
if I had to pay 300 a ton and do all the work
I would push the little button on the thermostat
now firewood I dont think I would burn it
even if it was free

 

[Burd]

Keep in mind, if pellets get to $280-$360 per ton, its not worth it to burn them to me. At that point its cheaper or at least breaking even to burn oil even at $4 per gallon and I dont have to do the upkeep that a pellet stove requires. IF I wasn't saving a boat load of money, I wouldnt burn. Yes I love the fact that I am not dependent on oil and love the fact that its greener, but cash is king and when times are tight you can only stretch the dollar so far. I WON'T pay $300 per ton to heat my house.

You're math might be a little off. Even at $300/ton my heating bill with pellets is WAY less than oil at $3.50/gallon and my house is 8-10 degrees warmer.

Dollar for dollar yes, its still technically cheaper to heat with pellets. But how much is your time worth? Between getting the pellets, stacking, bringing them into the house, filling the stove and cleaning? When all you have to do with oil is hit a button? The last full season I burned oil, I went through 550 gallons.

550*3.75=2062.50

I usually burn 4 tons so

$280*4= 1120

Then there is the time involved. Just saying, to some its not worth it.

Well thank goodness your not burnin wood

 

[Waterbug]

The price will go up again. We only need another oil price rise. Something like Iran trying to close off the Strait of Hormuz.. where 30% of the worlds oil passes.

Matt

Right now there is no foriegn country in the world (except maybe Canada) that supplies the US with pellets. Every pellet burned is LESS dependance on foriegn oil, regardless of the price of oil or pellets. I'd rather give my energy dollars to a domestic supplier of energy, than some foriegn government whose only goal is to goage every American dollar that they can get. I'd rather make Paul Bunyan rich than some Arab shiek.

EDIT: American industry can rise to meet the demands for pellets. Two pellet plants have opened within 50 miles of my location, in the past three years.

 

[subsailor]

My house was built in 1930, and was uninsulated. I burned 1000 gal of oil the first year I owned it. After installing my first pellet stove in 2007 (an Englander 25 PDVC), i burned 500 gal of oil and 3 tons of pellets. In 2009, I insulated the house and bought a Harman P61A. I heated the house with 4 tons of pellets, but still burned 400 gals. of oil for my hot water. I now have an electric hot water heater ($300/year) and burn 5 tons of pellets. House is toasty all the time. I'll burn pellets until I can no longer lift 40 lbs, no matter what the price of oil. Let the Arabs choke on it!

 

[slls]

I burned oil burner first time this year,Christmas eve and day, it's just so invisible, no fuss, no muss.
NG is 200 yds from me , some day.

 

[Waterbug]

NG is 200 yds from me , some day.

NG is 800 feet away for me, at the end of my driveway, but they want $8K to run the pipe. That's a lot of money for 800 foot of plastic. Guess they don't want my business very badly.

 

[jtakeman]

NG is 200 yds from me , some day.

NG is 800 feet away for me, at the end of my driveway, but they want $8K to run the pipe. That's a lot of money for 800 foot of plastic. Guess they don't want my business very badly.

Yikes! We would need 1600 feet to get NG to our shack. We are gonna see about hook up this spring. No way we would go for $8k or more for hook up. That would be several years of electric for cooking and hot water. Not to mention the cost of the appliance's.

 

[RKS130]

Our house is on the street and NG was available right out front, so we were lucky. ConEd did free install at that time so long as you already owned or purchased a gas appliance within a few months. We use NG for the dryer and stovetop, although oven is electric. I want to look into an on demand NG fired domestic hot water for next year.

 

[mascoma]

and as was stated above as far as pellet prices/demand
most people are not going to do the work to save the money
I dont think we will ever have shortatges

Boy we have a short memory, it was only 2008. If HHOil goes back near $5 gallon you will not see any pellets just sitting in warehouses.

What scares me is if oil is this expensive when the US and Euro economies are so shakey what happens when the economy comes back around? Stock up on cheap pellets now.

 

[slls]

NG is 200 yds from me , some day.

NG is 800 feet away for me, at the end of my driveway, but they want $8K to run the pipe. That's a lot of money for 800 foot of plastic. Guess they don't want my business very badly.

I saw them running 4 inch NG pipe at the university last summer, I said that looks expensive, he said not really.

 

[Bigjim13]

Keep in mind, if pellets get to $280-$360 per ton, its not worth it to burn them to me. At that point its cheaper or at least breaking even to burn oil even at $4 per gallon and I dont have to do the upkeep that a pellet stove requires. IF I wasn't saving a boat load of money, I wouldnt burn. Yes I love the fact that I am not dependent on oil and love the fact that its greener, but cash is king and when times are tight you can only stretch the dollar so far. I WON'T pay $300 per ton to heat my house.

You're math might be a little off. Even at $300/ton my heating bill with pellets is WAY less than oil at $3.50/gallon and my house is 8-10 degrees warmer.

Dollar for dollar yes, its still technically cheaper to heat with pellets. But how much is your time worth? Between getting the pellets, stacking, bringing them into the house, filling the stove and cleaning? When all you have to do with oil is hit a button? The last full season I burned oil, I went through 550 gallons.

550*3.75=2062.50

I usually burn 4 tons so

$280*4= 1120

Then there is the time involved. Just saying, to some its not worth it.

Well thank goodness your not burnin wood

I could not agree more!!

The 2 things I hated, I MEAN HATED, most when I was growing up was shoveling snow and stacking wood for the woodstove.

Now that I am grown and have my own house, I pay a guy to plow and would only burn wood if it was free.

 

[RKS130]

Hey Big Jim - congratulations! Glad things are going so well for you. Only problem is that lots of us - even those of us who are doing pretty well - can't afford or just are stubborn enough not to be willing to pay what is being sucked out of our pockets by the oil companies and the government (oops - did I just end up on Napolitano's watch list?).

Yes, in a perfect world we could just flip the switch and let oil heat our homes, I loved steam heat - but I don't live in a perfect world. My little world needs a little help. I could pay for the oil, but I just refuse to when I have a choice. I am just sad that I didn't find my choice sooner.

 

[Turbo-Quad]

When they get worried about it they will buy it up and A) stop production or B) raise the price to match per btu costs. That simple.

 

[WOODNUT358]

I also don't do for the savings as much as paying Arabs.My house is one even temp all winter,and I also have an oil fired HWH.A tank of oil(250 gal.) lasted me two years just for the HW.The same thing happened to me with NG.It's in the house less than 100 ft.from me.But because the 3" line doesn't go by my house,they want nearly 10k,I said keep your gas and bought the pellet stove.Carrying a couple of bags of pellets,and cleaning a stove once a week doesn't bother me.I found out today from a petro driver that the Gov.is going to raise gas prices,and the state will follow.They say it will go up 45 cents per gal.I'm wondering if oil will follow suit.

 

[heat seeker]

I heard on the radio today that our gummint is thinking of adding a surcharge on heating oil - which is just another tax. My thoughts on that don't bear writing in this forum.

 

[Bigjim13]

Hey Big Jim - congratulations! Glad things are going so well for you. Only problem is that lots of us - even those of us who are doing pretty well - can't afford or just are stubborn enough not to be willing to pay what is being sucked out of our pockets by the oil companies and the government (oops - did I just end up on Napolitano's watch list?).

Yes, in a perfect world we could just flip the switch and let oil heat our homes, I loved steam heat - but I don't live in a perfect world. My little world needs a little help. I could pay for the oil, but I just refuse to when I have a choice. I am just sad that I didn't find my choice sooner.

Maybe I am being misunderstood. I currently heat my house with pellets, use the pellet stove to heat about 90% of the winter. I run the oil furnace when it gets REALLY cold to keep the pipes from freezing. Right now I am saving a bunch compared to oil and don't see myself going back to oil anytime soon.

What I am trying to say is that for many, there is a point when it becomes just not worth it. Summer of 2008 we got a prebuy price for oil at $4.89 per gallon. We went out and bought the pellet stove. Many, many people did to the point that our dealer wasn't sure he could even gurantee we could get one. Luckily we called in May and were thinking ahead, we beat the MAD rush by a few weeks. I would be curious to see how many stuck with it and still have their stove because the next year our economy tanked and oil dropped. Gas was $1.85 per gallon and HHO was $1.95, while pellets were $270 amd up. At that point many people said screw the work involved with a pellet stove, I'm filling my oil tank.

For what its worth, not sure I am any better or worse off than most middle class families. So, I won't heat with wood. For me its not realistic but even if it was it would be a tough choice for all the work involved to heat with wood (cutting, splitting, stacking, lugging etc). The savings over other options would have to be huge, really huge when you factor the work involved!

 

[RKS130]

Sorry Jim - I obviously misundertood. Happy New Year.

 

[Bigjim13]

Sorry Jim - I obviously misundertood. Happy New Year.

You too!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Hey Big Jim - congratulations! Glad things are going so well for you. Only problem is that lots of us - even those of us who are doing pretty well - can't afford or just are stubborn enough not to be willing to pay what is being sucked out of our pockets by the oil companies and the government (oops - did I just end up on Napolitano's watch list?).

Yes, in a perfect world we could just flip the switch and let oil heat our homes, I loved steam heat - but I don't live in a perfect world. My little world needs a little help. I could pay for the oil, but I just refuse to when I have a choice. I am just sad that I didn't find my choice sooner.

Maybe I am being misunderstood. I currently heat my house with pellets, use the pellet stove to heat about 90% of the winter. I run the oil furnace when it gets REALLY cold to keep the pipes from freezing. Right now I am saving a bunch compared to oil and don't see myself going back to oil anytime soon.

What I am trying to say is that for many, there is a point when it becomes just not worth it. Summer of 2008 we got a prebuy price for oil at $4.89 per gallon. We went out and bought the pellet stove. Many, many people did to the point that our dealer wasn't sure he could even gurantee we could get one. Luckily we called in May and were thinking ahead, we beat the MAD rush by a few weeks. I would be curious to see how many stuck with it and still have their stove because the next year our economy tanked and oil dropped. Gas was $1.85 per gallon and HHO was $1.95, while pellets were $270 amd up. At that point many people said screw the work involved with a pellet stove, I'm filling my oil tank.

For what its worth, not sure I am any better or worse off than most middle class families. So, I won't heat with wood. For me its not realistic but even if it was it would be a tough choice for all the work involved to heat with wood (cutting, splitting, stacking, lugging etc). The savings over other options would have to be huge, really huge when you factor the work involved!

I'm betting more than a few pellet plants closed their doors over that too. Acceptible profit margins were available at $270 that are not there at $200. That's business, but don't think the Arabs couldn't do that again with a timed increase of supply. Pellets are a great thing for the country. I hope the industry thrives.