Pellet prices this winter

[Amaralluis]

I use 1075 gallons of oil to heat my house without the pellet stove.With the pellet stove I use 330 gallons. and 4 tons of pellets an avg of 265 a ton

So you're saying your pellet cost excluding amortization and maintenance is $1060 (4 x $265). You avoid oil costs of $N (745 gallons x $unspecified per gallon). The difference between $1060 and $N is your net savings (or net loss). Seems a reasonable formula.

Yes and the amount of oil I am not buying from the scumbag in the middle east makes me very very happy

Yes and give it to the scumbags around here... much better.
At least from those scumbags in the middle east you know what its required to have that precious liquid from the ground and make it so that it burns in your house.
Do you know what the local scumbags have to do to get the abundant trees around you to make it so it burns in your house?

Now tell me which scumbags do you feel are ripping you off? Be honest now!

 

[Amaralluis]

Especially when their PRIME reason for pellet prices escalating was.....none other than..... transport costs! lol Transport came down dramatically.... prices did not. If the mills and dealers end up with mountains of excess pellets I will not sympathize. But if they dramatically drop the price.... I will get a bigger trailer and buy buy buy.

But last spring, when fuel was VERY low, pellet prices stayed high. Hmmmmmmmmmm, it couldn't be the pellet dealers leaving the prices high, even after their transport costs when down, could it (add heavy sarcasm here)?

Thats right, and thats why only those in the middle east are scumbags! No such thing around here.

 

[cac4]

So your 4 ton's of pellets 68,000,000 btu's , added to your 330 gallons of oil 45,540,792 btu's = 113,540,792 btu's. That's not enough btu's to match your 1075 gallon need. You are 34,811,788 btu's short. That's around another 252 gallons of oil? Something doesn't add up. Your oil heating system must be very, very inefficient, or someone stole a couple hundred gallons of oil from you. ;-P
Mike -

I keep saying this, but apparently, nobody "hears" it. The oil heating system IS "very, very inefficient", by definition. The only fair btu comparison between oil, gas, whatever, and pellets is when the fuels are being used by the same TYPE of device, in the same LOCATION.

IF you have a furnace, or a boiler in your basement...you are heating your basement. at least a little. maybe a LOT.

I historically used 600 gallons of oil to heat my house with an oil furnace, located in the basement. If I were to replace that with a pellet furnace, I would probably use 4.5 tons of pellets. same number of btu's. same method of delivery to the house...and same amount of square footage heated.

by heating with a STOVE, located on the first floor of my house, I only use 3 tons of pellets. the "missing pellets" turn up in the 800 square feet of basement that I'm NOT heating.

This won't apply if you have a pellet furnace/boiler. It won't apply if you have a finished basement that you actually WANT to heat. It won't apply if you live in a slab-house, and your furnace/boiler is located in finished living space. Like everything else with a pellet or wood stove, the answer is "it depends"....on your specific circumstances.

 

[burnedup]

I have only 1 reason for burniing pellets and that is to reduce the cost of heating my home. Without getting into what price is fair or not fair, the bottom line is, if I am not saving money then I am NOT buying pellets. Last year I purchased 5 tons during the summer and burned 4. So far this year I have purchased 0 and have no attention of buying any at the current prices that I'm seeing. It's a simple economic decison not a matter of reacting to perceived price gouging. One thing, however that did annoy me was a pellet site on the internet that promently displayed 'expected' fuel oil prices as if it justified the price they were charging for pellets. The price of fuel oil has NO relevance to the price of pellets except as an excuse for overcharging and made my decison a bit more satisfying!

 

[Clay H]

I didn't realize we had so many briliant econimic gurus on here :roll:

 

[Dr_Drum]

. . . I keep saying this, but apparently, nobody "hears" it. The oil heating system IS "very, very inefficient", by definition.

Hold on there, I hear ya. Excellent point. I didn't really consider the delivery systems (air vs. water), only total energy. I compared an apple to an orange. My apologies, I stand corrected.
Mike -

 

[Stentor]

One important point is how you use your pellet stove.

These theoretical and technical discussions of how many BTU are produced by what fuels and how heat is distributed in your house at what price are of course important. And you can talk about all that forever. But your individual actions determine a lot and are not covered entirely by the technical analyses. For example, if you use your stove as a space heater and spend less fuel of whatever kind to heat other rooms, that will show up in your end of season costs. If you have zone heating in your house, that also makes a difference because setting your thermostat higher for the rooms you use most could have the same effect as a stove that works as a space heater. How you choose to heat is makes a very big difference.

But the main question is not just engineering. It's your behavior - - - how just having the stove influences what part of your house you heat when and with what fuel.

The analogy is to your car. Your vehicle's gas mileage is an engineering question. Your actual mileage is influenced by the engineering but also what you know about your car and how you choose to drive it. Measurement of real world mileage is not entirely objective because you are introducing an uncertainty principle just by your reactions to the technical questions. You can measure a lot but there are built in limitations to what you can know. Practically speaking, that means we can get only approximate answers to many of our questions about the best heating decisions we can make. And the best answers, unfortunately, are usually only in hindsight.

 

[vgrund]

IF you have a furnace, or a boiler in your basement...you are heating your basement. at least a little. maybe a LOT.

Well said, Chuck, and absolutely true. My central furnace still runs to heat zones I cannot heat with my pellet stove (large house), but it runs much less. My basement temperature definitely dropped when I added my pellet stove in February last year.

 

[kevinwburke]

Does anyone know what the actual cost is (average) to produce a tone of pellets? We live in a capitalisitc society and companies need to make s profit. If oil is $4.00 a barrell they will make a lot of profit because they CAN and themarket will allow it. And I would buy pellets at $3.50 a ton if it was cheaper than oil. If oil is cheaper for me to heat by, then I will buy few if any pellets. If pellets cost more to make than the market will allow ( price of oil) then they will start shuttering plants. The free market is avery efficient tool (when its free).

So....anyone know what the average cost is for the producers of pellets? That will tell you where the price will go if oil stays cheap.