OK I know the okies are softwood and the cubex is hardwood. Are these two pretty much equal in heat output? From what I have been reading it looks like the cubex is hotter at 9000btu's. I can get the cubex right now for $260 in my area and the okies are more like $285. Id like to try some softwood pellets in my stove this winter. I burned clean energy from Lowes last year and they did alright but lots of ash. Also I didn't have my ash cleanout sealed on my us stove king 5510. Its all sealed and ready for this heating season and hoping it runs alot better. I was happy with it after I tweaked it last winter but now know most of my problem was air leaking around the ash clean out dumps. I want to run a quality pellet this year not a big box store pellet. So what do guys think of the cubex and the oakies? Or any other types In Maine that are good?