We had our pellet stove (Napoleon NPS-40) installed in late summer 2008 after a significant rate hike by our local NG supplier. Since then, the economy has further unwound, taking energy commodity prices with it. I understand that natural gas has been somewhat disconnected from the oil market since, apparently, those deposits can exist and/or be harvested separately from retrievable oil deposits, and that there is, apparently, an abundance of NG in the U.S. and Canada.
Not long after we bought our pellet stove, we heard that our local NG provider signed some sort of long term agreement with a regional provider, thus supposedly insuring reasonable NG prices over the long horizon. This was after the rate hike, and I have a hard time keeping track of everything that happened in that short period of time. I do remember that I was kicking myself for the pellet stove/pellet purchase until we received the next NG bill, which included our budget billing amount for the upcoming winter season.
Even though NG prices were depressed, and our provider had signed onto this cost-saving agreement with the regional provider, our monthly budget billing amount jumped by $25/month. I know that doesn't sound like a lot of money, but $25/month was a 33% jump in our budget billing amount. Obviously we didn't have a large NG bill in the first place- but we were pretty draconian about the household temps. We kept the HVAC thermostat set at 65'F during the day and 55'F at night. And for this our budget billing amount goes up $25 a month for the next winter? No thanks.
$25/month is also a ton of pellets, and we use two tons of pellets a year.
We cancelled our budget billing arrangement and went back to standard billing, in which we are billed each month for the amount of gas we used in the preceeding month.
Our house is a circa 1958 1428 sq. ft. brick and block bungalow with a single story circular floorplan. We rely on our pellet stove as our primary source of heat. The pellet stove does a fine job of keeping the entire house warm when temps are in the 30's or above. Once we hit the mid-20's we can feel the temperature gradient drop off on the side of the house that's farthest from the pellet stove. At 20'F or below, the NG furnace cuts on once or twice a day, usually in the early morning and sometimes again in the evening, to help maintain the temperature.
Last winter and this winter have seen record cold temperatures- and we have yet to pay a NG bill for actual gas used that is as high as our proposed budget billing amount for the 2008 heating season. And the house is warmer, to boot. We now keep the HVAC thermostat set at 68'F during the day, 65'F at night. The furnace cuts on maybe once or twice a day to help the stove maintain these temps if it's really, really cold outside.
The zone heating or space heating aspect of the pellet stove may help us in this regard. Some of our older baseboard registers no longer close properly, making it difficult to shut off the heat to our spare bedroom. We've looked into replacing the registers, but they are a different size than what is available on the shelves today. We'd either have to have replacement registers made to order, or we'd have to splice/replace the baseboard trim around the new registers (and perhaps patch hardwood floors as well.) All in all it's a lot easier to just shut that door and sent the pellet stove heat past that room into the rooms we are using.
Last year we paid $487 for the entire year for natural gas to heat our water and for the natural gas furnace. We paid approximately $560 in pellets. This equals an annual heating/hot water cost of $1047- which, if averaged over 12 months, is still less than our proposed budget billing amount for 2008.
Assuming that our budget billing amount stayed the same as it was quoted in late summer 2008, we would have paid $1200 for the year in natural gas, and we would have spent the past two years in a significantly colder house.
Less than a $200/year savings is not a huge amount, hardly worth it. I can't disprove a negative but I am skeptical that our budget billing amount for our natural gas bill would have remained at the 2008 amount over two of the coldest winters on record.
Three more aspects that I haven't seen anyone mention in this thread:
1. It is possible to buy pellets many months if not seasons ahead, so one can lock in today's price (for better or worse) for next season's heat. As far as I know it's not widely possible to buy one's natural gas ahead of time.
2. If one has the ability to store pellets at home, then one knows *exactly* where one's heating fuel is located. There's something to be said for warmth security.
3. My cat *loves* the pellet stove.
I realize that the rule of thumb is that natural gas costs less per BTU than pellets, but I thought this "real world" example might be worth another look. Also, I haven't analyzed the "delivery" costs on our NG bill, nor have I looked at it closely re: taxes, fees, additional costs, etc. Are you guys figuring in the "extra" expenses associated with natural gas in the cost per BTU? Against that I guess I'd have to figure the cost of hauling the pellets back to our house by one means or another...
