Is $6.30 a Bag Price Gauging ?

[iceguy4]

Just to update on my last post, just confirmed with a friend of the family who called in and they are now up to $10 a bag For that price it better come with a free 6 pack

Vaseline.... I thought $9.00/bag was equal to $4.00 /gal oil....Also if you cant afford a minimum delivery use cans... To be honest, if I cant save some major$$ with pellets , I'll burn oil...

 

[tjnamtiw]

Yea, that's just nuts. At that price, I'd let them keep them until they turned to mush AND I'd go in and tell them. They are killing it for everyone who will be looking for decent prices this fall. Look at gasoline now. When it drops to $3.10, you think you just found gold! What you don't remember is that it was $1.84 on the 'Day of Infamy' 5+ years ago and we were bitching about THAT PRICE!

 

[UpStateNY]

Vaseline.... I thought $9.00/bag was equal to $4.00 /gal oil....Also if you cant afford a minimum delivery use cans... To be honest, if I cant save some major$$ with pellets , I'll burn oil...

Using (broken link removed to http://pelletheat.org/pellets/compare-fuel-costs/), $3.68 I paid per gallon of fuel oil is equal to $448 a ton of pellets or $8.96 a bag.

I agree with you. If I can't save major $$ with pellets than I will go back to burning oil and wait for the pellet prices to plummet downward.

 

[bob burke]

Is $6.30 a bag for Pacific Clean Fire Pellets price gauging when I just purchased 50 bags of pellets at Lowes for $3.99 a bag ?

Now I know right now finding a bag of wood pellets at Lowes and HD is extremely hard and close to impossible. My highest respect to both HD and Lowes for not increasing the price on wood pellets when they can sell 22 tons of pellets in a matter of hours. I also appreciate the Pacific Clean fire Pellets is an excellent product since I burned 1.5 tons this winter. With Pacific Clean Fire lower ash, I did not have to clean my stove as often this winter. With the shortage of pellets the Pacific Clean Fire price has increased significantly this winter when Lowes and HD have held the line on price increases.

I am all for supply and demand. I just think Pacific Clean Fire seller is taking advantage of the low supply and high demand just a little too much.

Hey there Upstate...we might be neighbors. I'm in your general area.

I always buy all my pellets when the stores first start selling them in the fall. I bought a couple of those small infrared heaters, and have cut my pellet consumption from app. 3 tons/year, to just about 2. The infrareds are great in the spring/fall, but when it gets brutally cold...they don't work as well as my pellet stove.

Buy purchasing all my pellets at once, I get the hardwood pellets, and have them all season. I'm a cabinetmaker, and the people in the store think I'm crazy when I start sniffing the bags from the different brands. I can spot softwood pellets a mile away.

HD allows me to cut a bag open, and see the pellets. Often, the info on the outside of the bag doesn't specify what kind of wood was used, so inspection is helpful.


Depending on your setup, and stove, once you get to $6/bag, it might be cheaper to use your furnace.

Good luck....this has been a brutal winter, and pellets are harder and harder to find.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Here's a calculator comparing the crazy $8 a bag price with fuel oil and coal.

 

[bob burke]

Here's a calculator comparing the crazy $8 a bag price with fuel oil and coal.
View attachment 129354

What the calculator doesn't take into account, is that your furnace will heat every room of your house, whereas a pellet/coal stove rarely moves heat throughout the entire structure.

 

[tjnamtiw]

What the calculator doesn't take into account, is that your furnace will heat every room of your house, whereas a pellet/coal stove rarely moves heat throughout the entire structure.

What I like about this particular calculator is that you can select any distribution system you like and can even select how well that system, if there is one, is insulated. It's the only one I've found that does that.
http://www.buildinggreen.com/calc/fuel_cost.cfm

 

[dmmoss51]

I had a mentor teach me when i was younger that a failure to plan on your part does not mean an emergency on my part.

 

[Driver]

Sure glad I burn wood, pellets seem very stressful right now.

 

[dmmoss51]

Seems like not that long ago there were some threads telling us that our wood cutting wasn't really free and we could just buy pellets for the time and fuel involved in cutting splitting and stacking...

 

[BrotherBart]

Seems like not that long ago there were some threads telling us that our wood cutting wasn't really free and we could just buy pellets for the time and fuel involved in cutting splitting and stacking...

Hasn't changed. You can't pick up a cord of dry hardwood at Home Depot right now either. Or month from now or...

No more dry firewood at Home Depot than there are pellets. Stacking ahead for either one is the same. Except the pellets don't need a year or two to dry.

 

[bondo]

What the calculator doesn't take into account, is that your furnace will heat every room of your house, whereas a pellet/coal stove rarely moves heat throughout the entire structure.

My pellet stove heats 2 stories in -20+ weather.

 

[bob burke]

My pellet stove heats 2 stories in -20+ weather.

I don't doubt that. Ranch style houses are harder to distribute heat, unless you put the stove in the basement.

How many bags/day do you use to keep 2 stories warm in -20 weather? Oil near me is over $4/gallon right now, so even at $6/bag, it might be cheaper to use pellets at 2 bags/day.

 

[bob burke]

Hasn't changed. You can't pick up a cord of dry hardwood at Home Depot right now either. Or month from now or...

No more dry firewood at Home Depot than there are pellets. Stacking ahead for either one is the same. Except the pellets don't need a year or two to dry.

For some of us, we can just hop in the truck, and find plenty of standing dead along the roads. I understand your point, though. Even though wood stoves typically throw a lot more heat, you have to constantly tend to them. There's nothing better than loading a pellet stove, and not bothering with it for a day or so.

I guess it's about choices. I take the time to gather free firewood during the year. I heat my shop with it. Otherwise, I'd use 200 gals. of oil every 3 weeks. Once you factor in your time, firewood certainly isn't 'free', but I prefer to view it as time not spent fishing, as opposed to time not earning a check.

 

[dlavigne7324]

Hearth works in hooksett nh just got currans pellets 10 bag limit 6.50 a bag

 

[bob burke]

Home Depot just got a new load of hardwood pellets. 25 bag limit....$4.18/bag. Hit and miss w/the quality of the pellets this time of year. I was amazed that they got hardwood in.

 

[dlavigne7324]

Home Depot just got a new load of hardwood pellets. 25 bag limit....$4.18/bag. Hit and miss w/the quality of the pellets this time of year. I was amazed that they got hardwood in.

What location ??

 

[bob burke]

What location ??

upstate NY

 

[smwilliamson]

Saw a hardware store with Infernos last week for $15 a bag. That's gouging. That's almost a call to the Attorney General. I have a full ton of Maine woods I was thinking of eBaying over the weekend just for kicks. It's not gouging if the buyer sets the asking price, right?

 

[rparker]

This just came up on CL for northern NY burners: (broken link removed to http://potsdam.craigslist.org/for/4366993064.html)
Granted they are North American's but 170 for a ton is not to bad.

 

[dmmoss51]

Price gouging happens when the price is set over a precieved shortage or public fear, for example gas stations doubling the price on 9/11 for no other reason than to exploit public fear when there was no disruption in supply and no "real" increase in demand. (lots of people did start filling their tanks out of fear that the prices would go yet higher, but didn't drive any more miles so no additional demand).

In this case the long winter has actually depleated the supply so that it can not keep up with actual demand. Not price gouging, economics 101. No one is being exploited, but instead paying tuition at the school of hard knocks to learn a valuable lesson about future preparedness.

 

[Pete Zahria]

There are plenty of terms used in our language, that are not "literally" correct.
But in the daily, common use, those words are understood nearly universally.
When we say hand me a "Kleenex", you may get a tissue from Scott.
But we all know what we mean when we say "Kleenex".
Or I need a "Band-aid". We know it means bandage.
While your interpretation may suit the letter of the word, my guess is that
a lot of people, perhaps the majority, understand "gouging" to mean what
they perceive it to be. e.g. charging a price considerably above, the accepted fair price
for the product.

Wiki defines it as:
Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to a situation in which
a seller prices goods or commodities
at a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.

Of course, everyone's mileage does vary...

Dan

 

[bob burke]

I agree Pete, especially because the cost from the supplier isn't necessarily going up to the retailer.

 

[Duke53]

The Tractor Supply stores in my area were also very good about keeping their prices low; one had a 10 bag limit for a week or two, another had a 25 bag limit which is all that can haul at one time anyway. This was the first time I even heard of TSC house brand pellets and they were great; also the first time I was able to get Green/Gold …. I'd buy them in a heartbeat again …. hopefully I can get 4 tons of either of them this Summer.

 

[RKBAGUY]

Not necessarily. When demand outstrips supply, you go without or find another heat source (coal). What could very well be happening is, to meet demand, mills are running overtime paying time and a half and double time plus perhaps using more costly electricity during peak hours. This would also force their raw material suppliers to work overtime.

Agreed, but let's not confuse change in demand with shift in demand. You can't just 'switch' to coal if you have a pellet stove, per my prior post a couple weeks ago when I ran out of pellets. Your point is well taken, though. The laws of supply and demand apply to pellets also, and vendors have a right to set their own price just as we have a right to not buy them if we lacked the planning to prepare. I paid $6-ish a bag for pellets recently and was glad to get them.

I keep asking this question, but many folks just don't get it.

Is there any less 'gouging' or greed in wanting for a price to be low, rather than high?