Pellet Prices

[webbie]

People paid about $300 for delivered pellets during the height of the season - of course, they paid a lot less than $2.50 a gallon for fuel oil then also.

I'm telling folks to buy pellets now at the $200 level to avoid a repeat, and I am also trying to make it clear to manufacturers of stoves and pellets that THEY will suffer when pellets hit that price again.

Look back a few months on the forum - even in the pacific northwest there were shortages and folks driving 40 miles to get 10 bags for 5 to 6 bucks (sometimes more) a bag. This was not an isolated incident. Pellets were $279 picked up near here - that means over $300 delivered.

So like Cramer, I am saying BUY BUY BUY - folks should not be betting on the prices getting lower, because while there may be a report of lower prices SOMEWHERE, it is highly doubtful that someone will be sorry about paying $200-$225 now (east coast).

 

[restorer]

Tried a few more phone calls today on pre-season sales. The most common response was, "WHAT?" No one has pellets, knows next years price, or when they will be in stock. Seems consensus is sometime in October or November, probably November. Well, our heating season can begin in September. Seems to be a lot of confusion. I spoke with my contact at Sutherlands, he's arranging a call with the general manager to see about pre-season buying, early buy options, when is a realistic time to deliver. And most importantly what kind of money are we talking per bag and per ton. We had a cost increase in natural gas for most of my friends from 75% to 125% over prior years costs. That's anecdotal as no one did a detailed use and cost comparison. Now that prices are up and have been approved by the regulators, they won't be coming down.

With all the reluctance to give any information it's making a pellet buyers club even more attractive.

 

[HarryBack]

its amazing that our markets can be so different! Out here, on the East Coast, most pellet compaines have come up with spring/summer pricing, and have been producing and delivering. Our sales are up by quite a margin, over last year....maybe folks are getting smarter, and taking Craigs advice to buy pellets now, if they can afford to. Ive even had truckload activity where a few folks will band together, order a truckat a slight discount, have them delivered to one spot, and distributed from there themselves.

People are learning, I hope.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Jabber, you are definitely wrong to state that "$300 pellets blow oil and gas out of the water" - in terms of price.

The basics:
$300 a ton pellets= $6.00 a bag of 40 pounds, or a total of 40x8500BTU= 340,000 BTU for $6.00
Oil at $2.50 a gallon - the same $6.00 would buy approx. 2.3 gallons or 2.3 X 140,000 BTU = 330,000 BTU
Nat. Gas at $1.80 per therm - the $6.00 would buy 3.3 therms or 330,000 BTU

Your analysis is off by a mile. I'm looking at $1700 for heating this year for the privledge of living at 62 degrees during the day and 58 overnight. You claim that I would have had to burn 5.5 tons for an equivalent level of heating?

For $1700 I bet a pellet deliverer would be willing to carry the bags up the stairs, accross fields, up trees and accross frozen lakes. Nobody burns 5.5 tons and nobody spends $1700 for pellets in a year even if they were too lazy to buy in the summer.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Its quite apparent that pellet stove owners in Utah and Iowa have big problems with supply.

 

[webbie]

Jabber,

It's OK if you don't believe in science, thermodynamics and physics. But a BTU is a BTU.

You can think that you have fooled mother nature, but facts are facts.....please take some time to study the BTU content of fuels and then get back to me with your numbers.....not anecdotal (stories), but actual BTU numbers that support your theory.

The patent office does not accept applications for perpetual motion machines, and I don't accept "I heated my house with 2 tons of pellets" as being science either. I will not repeat here all the factors which affect ones perception of the amount of heat they get from various methods (central vs. space heat) as that has been discussed here in detail in the past (search around on "space heat", etc.). - But the facts as I presented them - that a gas,oil or pellet stove in the same location would provide the BTU's as per my earlier post.

The thing about these fuels is that we are dealing with facts. We are not dealing with a concept that is new or undiscovered.

I certainly am not trying to be difficult, but the main theme of Hearth.com is customer education, and with 28 years in the business (35 using stoves) and tens of thousands of appliances sold, I have learned a bit about the various options. I am ready to be proven wrong - just give me the numbers.

 

[iceman]

Jabber, you are definitely wrong to state that "$300 pellets blow oil and gas out of the water" - in terms of price.

The basics:
$300 a ton pellets= $6.00 a bag of 40 pounds, or a total of 40x8500BTU= 340,000 BTU for $6.00
Oil at $2.50 a gallon - the same $6.00 would buy approx. 2.3 gallons or 2.3 X 140,000 BTU = 330,000 BTU
Nat. Gas at $1.80 per therm - the $6.00 would buy 3.3 therms or 330,000 BTU

Your analysis is off by a mile. I'm looking at $1700 for heating this year for the privledge of living at 62 degrees during the day and 58 overnight. You claim that I would have had to burn 5.5 tons for an equivalent level of heating?

For $1700 I bet a pellet deliverer would be willing to carry the bags up the stairs, accross fields, up trees and accross frozen lakes. Nobody burns 5.5 tons and nobody spends $1700 for pellets in a year even if they were too lazy to buy in the summer.

you need to tell us the sq of your house i am here in western ma and the average person i know that heats completely with pellets goes through 4-6 tons a year
usually if you are lucky you can survive with a bag a day mid nov through april that would be 150 bags if it gets real cold say the high is below 32 most people use 2 aday we average that for say a month throughout winter so that brings us up 2 180 bags now include fall/ spring off and on days and for say another 15 bags so 195 for a season which puts you at 4 tons
you paid 1700 for the year and my oil bill was 1900 for 725 gallons (with the ins protection) my house is over 3000sq ft and my temps were 62 at night 68 when we are home
the point i am making is IT VARIES YEAR TO YEAR
oh by the way i did burn almost a ton of pellets but that is not in the 3000 sq ft figure

 

[PutnamJct]

4 tons of Barefoot brand @ $209 per ton from my local dealer being delivered this week = $160 less then last year's winter supply of pellets. I don't have to worry about supply issues until this time next year. If heating oil goes back to $3.00 per gallon (like it probably will) I even get to snicker at the oil man driving up the road knowing that I won't have to bend over.
Life is Good.

 

[richg]

I got a quote of $235.00 for Dry Creek pellets picked up at the dealer. It's a bit more than the $211.00 I paid at Tractor Supply in August of 2006, but I'm going to stock up and have 2007-2008 pellet supply issues put to bed before Memorial Day.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Jabber, you are definitely wrong to state that "$300 pellets blow oil and gas out of the water" - in terms of price.

The basics:
$300 a ton pellets= $6.00 a bag of 40 pounds, or a total of 40x8500BTU= 340,000 BTU for $6.00
Oil at $2.50 a gallon - the same $6.00 would buy approx. 2.3 gallons or 2.3 X 140,000 BTU = 330,000 BTU
Nat. Gas at $1.80 per therm - the $6.00 would buy 3.3 therms or 330,000 BTU

Your analysis is off by a mile. I'm looking at $1700 for heating this year for the privledge of living at 62 degrees during the day and 58 overnight. You claim that I would have had to burn 5.5 tons for an equivalent level of heating?

For $1700 I bet a pellet deliverer would be willing to carry the bags up the stairs, accross fields, up trees and accross frozen lakes. Nobody burns 5.5 tons and nobody spends $1700 for pellets in a year even if they were too lazy to buy in the summer.

you need to tell us the sq of your house i am here in western ma and the average person i know that heats completely with pellets goes through 4-6 tons a year
usually if you are lucky you can survive with a bag a day mid nov through april that would be 150 bags if it gets real cold say the high is below 32 most people use 2 aday we average that for say a month throughout winter so that brings us up 2 180 bags now include fall/ spring off and on days and for say another 15 bags so 195 for a season which puts you at 4 tons
you paid 1700 for the year and my oil bill was 1900 for 725 gallons (with the ins protection) my house is over 3000sq ft and my temps were 62 at night 68 when we are home
the point i am making is IT VARIES YEAR TO YEAR
oh by the way i did burn almost a ton of pellets but that is not in the 3000 sq ft figure

Thanks for the data. My house is 1700 sq ft but I know the stove won't reach a 300 sq ft side room so the stove will be handling 1400sq ft. I have new windows and this place is insulated to the maxx.

3000 sq ft in Western, MA? Yep, 4-5 tons sounds about right. But the equation still holds. If my house were 3000 sq ft then my nat gas billl would be more in the $2200-$2500 range. Four tons of pellets is around $900. All I am saying is that in New England, pellets blow natural gas away.

 

[webbie]

Jabber, you are wrong again - but after this post I will stop trying to educate you. It is an entirely false claim to say that 4 tons of pellets = 2500 worth of natural gas. $2500 worth of gas is about 1500 therms (or more!) which is 15,000,000 BTU. Four tons of pellets are
200 bags x 340,000 BTU/Bag = 6,800,000 BTU

15 million BTU is more than TWICE as much as >7 million BTU.

Please tell me where my calcs are wrong....

Do wood pellets have substantially more BTU's than 8500 per pound?
Does oil have substantially less than 138,000 to 140,000?
Does a therm of gas have 100,000 BTU and cost about $1.50 to $1.80 when an entire bill is taken into account?

I know it SEEMS to you that you are saving that much. But it is simply not true. A freestanding gas stove in the exact same location as your pellet stove would use the exact same BTU of Natural gas, and if 7 million is the number, then that gas would cost you about $1100-1200 a year. That puts it almost exactly at pellets for $300 a ton delivered.

Yes, you are saving some money. But at the pellet prices of late last season ($260-290 PLUS delivery), you would save nothing.

For a western ma comparison, I just looked at my highest gas bill for the coldest month of the last winter.
My house is 2600 sq feet - BUT, I also heat a large office in the basement and have a gas fireplace. I also have gas hot water, a gas stove and a gas dryer. We are heavy users of hot water, as my wife likes showers at about 130 degrees! (burns me)....

Ok, so that bill showed I am paying $1.50 a therm. Meaning I am paying the equiv of about $5.10 for a bag of pellets (or 260 a ton).....IF all things were equal. Of course, the gas does not require me to load anything, etc. etc.

The total bill was about $280 for that month....or, the equiv of slightly more than one ton of pellets delivered (average NE price this winter). So would one ton of pellets heat 3000 sq feet, plus a fireplace, plus hot water, plus cooking - OH, I forgot - we have a gas dryer and my wife is a crazy laundry nut! My clothes barely hit the floor before they are already in the washer and dryer......

So there is some actual real world experience from the past month. Personally, that seems like a pretty good deal - $280 considering that we are home full time, have offices and stuff, etc. It was also a very cold month!

 

[HarryBack]

an advantage pellets, wood, and coal have over gas is that you can secure your supply before the heating season begins, and hopefully beat the winter prices of the gas and oil co's. Of course, you cant be sure the price of gas OR oil will be higher in winter. Therein lies the problem of some of these arguments. Craig's "snapshot-in-time" arguments of just comparing BTU's are quite valid, if done at one point in time. Now, if we compare annually, the results might vary somewhat, even considerably. Factor in the customer buying "right", rather than buying when he/she needs product, and you see that the argument slews away from Craig's flawed argument. Gas, or oil? You'll need to buy that when you need it, and pay prevailing rates. Lock-in, you might argue? Well, this year, lock-in prices for oil in western MA, Craig's area, averaged $2.67/gallon. many people locked in, not knowing where the price of oil was going. Guess what? It never got anywhere near $2.67/gallon...so, would it follow that the difference between the real and futures oil price should be added to that analysis(basically adding to the cost of oil), for the folks who bought into the futures program? I submit it does. Now, some years, for example, the past 4 years, the furures programs worked out...but in the winter of '06, it didnt.

In my area, not too far from Craig, really, we only have propane....no NG. Anyone wish to compare propane prices to what pellets cost? Didnt think so. The only worse deal is electricity.

 

[webbie]

RE: Propane
"in the EIA's March 2007 national energy report, the Energy Dept. now predicts the average consumer is expected to consume 682 gallons of propane this winter, at an average cost of $1.98/gal."

That is about 92,000 BTU, which makes it roughly equiv. to Oil at about $2.95 a gallon or pellets at $350.00 delivered. So a customer that would spend $1500 on LP would spend about $1000 on pellets to do the same job (more or less) if he bought the pellets at $235 or so delivered.

As far as "flawed" arguments, we can take the average price of pellets paid by all users in the NE states and compare that to the average price paid by all oil or NG users....and that is quite accurate. Making a comparison based on the "best" of all possible scenarios is like me saying that the Casino pays well because I walked away from the slot machine after I won $100. My numbers are conservative, if anything, and do not even include any differences in original cost, longevity, service, etc.

There are two points to this discussion, as usual. There is the price of fuel, which can simply be calculated BTU for BTU, unless you believe in either miracles or LOVE injected into pellets. Then there are all the other reasons for burning pellets....from personal enjoyment, to the gadget factor to the fire to the idea of renewable fuel.

The idea about "locking in" and storying all your fuel being an advantage of pellets over oil or gas only goes so far. When the control board goes south, or when the electric goes out (or many other factors), most pellet stoves becomes useless. In my entire short life of 53 years, there has never been a time the gas did not flow through the pipe, nor a time when fuel oil was not available. And, the average price has been similar to, or lower than , the actual delivered price of pellets for 90%+ of that time.

So these other points are all sales points, or nuances, or whatever we want to call them. What is NOT up for debate is the amount of energy that is in each fuel and therefore the cost of heat delivered. That is the ONE point that I am making. I'll leave the sales stuff to others.

I'm certain that most people here want to know about the heat energy contained in various fuels, as opposed to the 'I heat my house with two logs for 14 hours" scenario which has been so common in the industry.

 

[GVA]

I believe the argument is that a central heating system is what we are saving over I had a gas furnace and not a gas stove so therefore the comparison of input BTU's is irrelevant.
The wasted btu's are also due to the fact the furnace is in the basement and I'm sending heat to where it isn't needed or wanted. I didn't design the heating system in my house I just own it now........
And when the power went out so did the NG furnace as the flow of gas through the pipe seemed to stop at the electrically actuated gas valve, and the blower also doesn't work... Just my .01
EDIT
From a previous comparison in another thread
Still though, I can’t quite find the savings that you promised me.
(broken link removed to http://www.quadrafire.com/products/stoves/gasStoveDetail.asp?f=CASTILE-DV)
this was the first one i checked and didn’t check any further...... 81% efficient.
Now using the calculator with the defaults.
pellet stove 70% eff at $200 per ton (or the $5 a bag stated earlier)======$17.71 per mil BTU
gas stove at 80% eff at $1.84 per therm===========================$23.00 per mil BTU

so I punched in a more realistic minimum # for a pellet stove
pellet stove 80% eff at $200 per ton==============================$15.50 per mil BTU

 

[iceman]

Jabber, you are definitely wrong to state that "$300 pellets blow oil and gas out of the water" - in terms of price.

The basics:
$300 a ton pellets= $6.00 a bag of 40 pounds, or a total of 40x8500BTU= 340,000 BTU for $6.00
Oil at $2.50 a gallon - the same $6.00 would buy approx. 2.3 gallons or 2.3 X 140,000 BTU = 330,000 BTU
Nat. Gas at $1.80 per therm - the $6.00 would buy 3.3 therms or 330,000 BTU

Your analysis is off by a mile. I'm looking at $1700 for heating this year for the privledge of living at 62 degrees during the day and 58 overnight. You claim that I would have had to burn 5.5 tons for an equivalent level of heating?

For $1700 I bet a pellet deliverer would be willing to carry the bags up the stairs, accross fields, up trees and accross frozen lakes. Nobody burns 5.5 tons and nobody spends $1700 for pellets in a year even if they were too lazy to buy in the summer.

you need to tell us the sq of your house i am here in western ma and the average person i know that heats completely with pellets goes through 4-6 tons a year
usually if you are lucky you can survive with a bag a day mid nov through april that would be 150 bags if it gets real cold say the high is below 32 most people use 2 aday we average that for say a month throughout winter so that brings us up 2 180 bags now include fall/ spring off and on days and for say another 15 bags so 195 for a season which puts you at 4 tons
you paid 1700 for the year and my oil bill was 1900 for 725 gallons (with the ins protection) my house is over 3000sq ft and my temps were 62 at night 68 when we are home
the point i am making is IT VARIES YEAR TO YEAR
oh by the way i did burn almost a ton of pellets but that is not in the 3000 sq ft figure

Thanks for the data. My house is 1700 sq ft but I know the stove won't reach a 300 sq ft side room so the stove will be handling 1400sq ft. I have new windows and this place is insulated to the maxx.

3000 sq ft in Western, MA? Yep, 4-5 tons sounds about right. But the equation still holds. If my house were 3000 sq ft then my nat gas billl would be more in the $2200-$2500 range. Four tons of pellets is around $900. All I am saying is that in New England, pellets blow natural gas away.

sorry for being misleading 3000 sq ft for oil cost me 2000 725 gallons of oil with 3 zones
the other area is seperate of the 3 zones and that i run a peelt stove at a little over a ton a year
there is NO WAY i could heat my house with pellet... (i could) lets say it would be at least 2 stoves and about 6-8 tons a year plus electricity
and most importantly i would have uneven heat

 

[iceman]

I believe the argument is that a central heating system is what we are saving over I had a gas furnace and not a gas stove so therefore the comparison of input BTU's is irrelevant.
The wasted btu's are also due to the fact the furnace is in the basement and I'm sending heat to where it isn't needed or wanted. I didn't design the heating system in my house I just own it now........
And when the power went out so did the NG furnace as the flow of gas through the pipe seemed to stop at the electrically actuated gas valve, and the blower also doesn't work... Just my .01
EDIT
From a previous comparison in another thread
Still though, I can’t quite find the savings that you promised me.
(broken link removed to http://www.quadrafire.com/products/stoves/gasStoveDetail.asp?f=CASTILE-DV)
this was the first one i checked and didn’t check any further...... 81% efficient.
Now using the calculator with the defaults.
pellet stove 70% eff at $200 per ton (or the $5 a bag stated earlier)======$17.71 per mil BTU
gas stove at 80% eff at $1.84 per therm===========================$23.00 per mil BTU

so I punched in a more realistic minimum # for a pellet stove
pellet stove 80% eff at $200 per ton==============================$15.50 per mil BTU

true but those are pellet prices now
they were 250 and up for awhile except the last month or so
plus what many forget is
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO HEAT A GIVEN SPACE
a furnance will heat a larger area faster because the heat is being put in the room a pellet stove takes a lot longer to move the air so it will burn more
meaning the design of your house will affect these numbers not even touching insulation numbers

 

[webbie]

If we want to be fair we have to compare apples to apples. A lot more gas appliances (stoves/fireplace/inserts) are sold than pellet stoves.

So when we make the heating comparison we compare:
Pellet inserts to gas inserts
Pellet freestanding stoves to gas freestanding stoves
or
Pellet central furnaces to gas central furnaces.

We can't compare a pellet freestanding stove to a 50 year old leaky oil furnace, nor compare heating 3 main rooms with heating an 8 room house. That is why we have to strip away everything but BTU to BTU (given similar efficiency).

When a person goes out to shop for a stove, they can buy a pellet stove for $1200 to $4,000+ (average about $2200) or they can buy a gas freestanding stove for $900 to $3000 (average probably around $2000). Then they have to vent it - let's guess the price is the same. The gas stove, however, works without the need for electric.

No doubt that "your mileage may vary" and that "not all customers can expect these results"....however, apples to apples most of the figures given here are correct or close to it. Also, let's face it - savings of 10% or even 20% are minimal in many cases, because when other factors (labor, travel, etc.) are figured it, it can be little to no savings at all.

This reminds me of the great Kerosene heating fad. Our store sold these heaters and we carefully instructed the users in when and how to use them - for attended and occasional space heat. But you know how men are (sexist remark) - they all think they just discovered the new route to India or that the world is Round...so we had some fools who came in the shop regularly and bragged about how they were heating their entire house 24/7 with the Kerosense heaters.......until......well, soon enough we had the first fool come in who reported that something went wrong ONE night, and they woke up to a house that had black oil soot on EVERY wall, and every item in the home. Soon other were reporting the same mess...

Let's just say that these great "discoverers" were a bit too gung-ho and ended up losing a LOT more money than they thought they were saving! As the Buddha says "Moderation in Everything".

 

[HarryBack]

and, of course, availability. We can get propane here, but, so far, no NG.

 

[GVA]

I believe the argument is that a central heating system is what we are saving over I had a gas furnace and not a gas stove so therefore the comparison of input BTU's is irrelevant.
The wasted btu's are also due to the fact the furnace is in the basement and I'm sending heat to where it isn't needed or wanted. I didn't design the heating system in my house I just own it now........
And when the power went out so did the NG furnace as the flow of gas through the pipe seemed to stop at the electrically actuated gas valve, and the blower also doesn't work... Just my .01
EDIT
From a previous comparison in another thread
Still though, I can’t quite find the savings that you promised me.
(broken link removed to http://www.quadrafire.com/products/stoves/gasStoveDetail.asp?f=CASTILE-DV)
this was the first one i checked and didn’t check any further...... 81% efficient.
Now using the calculator with the defaults.
pellet stove 70% eff at $200 per ton (or the $5 a bag stated earlier)======$17.71 per mil BTU
gas stove at 80% eff at $1.84 per therm===========================$23.00 per mil BTU

so I punched in a more realistic minimum # for a pellet stove
pellet stove 80% eff at $200 per ton==============================$15.50 per mil BTU

true but those are pellet prices now
they were 250 and up for awhile except the last month or so
plus what many forget is
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO HEAT A GIVEN SPACE
a furnance will heat a larger area faster because the heat is being put in the room a pellet stove takes a lot longer to move the air so it will burn more
meaning the design of your house will affect these numbers not even touching insulation numbers

Ice this was a quote to a specific question. EDIT( it is important to note that these are #s for freestanding pellet and gas stoves)
But to be fair I ran it at $265 a ton at 80% eff=$20.54 per mil BTU
$1.84 per therm at 81% eff= $22.72 per mil BTU

And no Ice, people forget that a zone heater whether it be wood pellet or gas is still a zone heater.
My gas furnace used to turn on and off my pellet stove would maintain the temp therin lies the difference... IMHO
And the apples to apples I agree Web.
But I am saving money over running my NG furnace ........ Can't I be happy for that?
We could also argue over FHA or FHW... Or who burns more wood in a season a wood stove or wood furnace.
There's too many variables for 2 many people etc. No matter who's calculations we use it comes down the end user..... Are you saving money or not....
:coolhmm:

 

[webbie]

GVA, let me edit that......

It comes down to whether you THINK you are saving money or not!

Ha Ha......

Following up on that same Kerosene story, we also had our share of fools - both LP and Natural Gas - who "discovered" amazingly that their vent free fireplace logs would heat their house 24/7. I think you can guess.....well, in care you can't, we soon heard about the entire house interior with an oily substance on the windows, soot on the drapes and general ruination of the white carpets and walls.

I hope I am not using that word "fools" too loosely, but what else can you call someone who specifically disregards all instruction and thinks they KNOW the science and common sense of fire better than the pros?

BTW, all these folks were saving money.......so they pass that test.

 

[GVA]

I'll tell ya what Web I'll let the Mrs answer that question on saving money, and on if she's warm in the house, now as oppossed to NG Furnace
And as far as the oily soot on the windows .......... Hmmm Bozlee where are you? I know whats wrong with your osburn now...........
Anyone with white carpets..........well........ nevermind hh:

 

[PutnamJct]

$21.61 per Million BTU of Heat delivered to home/$2,052.95 per year for normal home for Oil
$41.02 per Million BTU of Heat delivered to home/$3,896.90 per year for normal home for Electric
$19.66 per Million BTU of Heat delivered to home/$1,867.70 per year for normal home for Pellets


Using your preset efficiencies and current prices and fuel options available to me at 9AM today, the calculator spits out the above.
All is well and good except I will only pay $890, not $1867 to keep the house at 70 degrees all winter long using pellets.
I entered $222 per ton pellets, $2.35 for oil per gallon and $.14 per kilowatt for electricity. Those are the delivered prices. Doubtful that they will be accurate come September.

All facts can be shaped for whatever outcome you like. Seems like this debate takes place once or twice a month and ends up the same way. Some think pellets are a waste of time effort and money, for some of us it is a cheap, efficient, simple to use way of keeping warm.

The burned out control board/power failure arguments are pretty moot when comparing to forced air furnaces. They also have parts that break and don't run when the power goes out. Yet another reason to own a generator if you live in the sticks.

John

 

[webbie]

Putnam, please tell me how BTU contents of fuel - which are agreed to by the manufacturers of pellets, fuel oil, natural gas and everyone else, are "shaped".

They are not, and cannot be.

The problem is only science vs. stories.

We cannot use stories to make our buying decisions....it's really silly. Well, come to think of it, you CAN use stories to make buying decisions, but let the buyer beware.

Those who are on the "stories" side of this issue or debate constantly try to muddy the realities by telling even more stories. But read carefully about the fuel contents, efficiencies and prices - and you either are saying that science is wrong (in BTU content) or something else similar.

No one is saying that all these fuels don't have their place. What my original point was is this - that people should stock up now on pellets in the low 2's so that they don't end up paying prices which are as high or even higher than other fuels. This does not negate your or anyone else's stories.

All points are made considering all things are equal. We cannot compare the mileage of a dumptruck to a prius with any sense.

But, we can (for the last, last, last time) say that a freestanding gas, lp or fuel oil stove in the exact same place as your pellet stove - in the exact same house - will provide BTU's for the appox. prices shown in the chart. When it comes to wood stove, the situation is a bit muddier because of species, seasoning, stove efficiency, etc.

Service is a whole nother issue, but it is fairly well accepted that pellet stoves require more service than gas ones do......although gas stoves can require more service than wood (chimney sweeping aside). Our shop stopped selling Pellet Stoves years ago because frankly we could not provide the level of service that specialists like Harryback are able to - we were just not set up for it. I have some other friends who also stopped selling pellet stoves foe a decade, but then jumped back into it last year so as not to miss profits. Guess what? They are knee deep in service calls once again! And they sell the top brands.

None of these truths mean that pellets or wood are not the right fuel for a particular person. However, it is my opinion that said person should have the facts and comparisons before buying. A good dealer will pepper the customer with questions and council the options based on the needs and wants of the consumer - and not hide costs and problems. If a customer in a urban area wants a wood stove, but has to buy all their wood at high prices and seems to have little time, the dealer should suggest a pellet stove....or a gas stove, if NG is the fuel - or even LP if the people already have service with that fuel.

 

[HarryBack]

boy, hasnt THIS gone OT?

I agree with Craig, and I think the rest of you do as well.....buy the pellets NOW, if you can afford it. At these prices, there isnt much downside.

As for Craig being anti-pellet, well, in the vein of keeping this on-thread, I'll not address it.

 

[Rocket]

Thanks! That was my original question! Didnt mean to cause an uproar!