Long Live Frank Fixaris!

Does anyone own a wood pellet stove? With the price of oil now at $652 per gallon, or thereabouts, I am considering getting one installed. I am curious as to how many pounds of pellets you use a day, depending of course on how much you use it and how big your house is. I am figuring on laying out about $2000 for the stove and installation and wonder if it is worth it. I just don’t see the price of oil going down, now that it is up.

I hear that you wind up paying about $1 less per 'gallon' on average than buying fuel.

The unfortunate part is that the high price of oil is also driving up the price of alternatives, specifically wood. But it is a cheaper alternative.

Honestly, I think the price of oil is going to come down dramatically over the course of the next six months. Considering Spring is almost upon us, it may be a wise investment to wait until summer, when heating prices go down to invest in a source of alternative heat. Also, try living at about 64 degrees. And leave the oven door open when you're done with it =)

I've been tempted by pellets in the past - it is really a philosophical argument as much as an economical one. Pellets are easier and cheaper than oil but you are still beholden to suppliers. Regular cut wood prices can only climb so high before you march into your own woods, or a family member's and harvest a few cords of wood for next to nothing, so for my money I'd tend to prefer a plain old wood stove.

My thermostats have been sitting at 64 all winter long, but at $3.57 a gallon today, it is still a huge cost. I don't believe the price of oil will drop this sumer. I watched the prices all last summer and they never went down. Even though oil rising will cause alternatives to rise, they won't do it at the same rate. My brother paid $150 a cord for wood last spring and just purchase the same amount last week at $158 a cord. Oil, however has one up about 50% over last year.

I agree with Merv, it you make the switch go with a woodstove. We lock in our fuel price every summer, last year we took hit for the first time. But this year we locked in at $2.75 a gallon and it's paid off.

The problem with that is that Merv is talking about cutting down your own trees and getting your wood for free. Living in Portland, that's not really an option. You can buy the pellets as cheap as the wood and they throw a lot more heat. I talked to my buddy, who is a plumber, and he gave me the bad news that I can't vent the stove to the chimney because my boiler is already hooked up to it and code does not allow two things vented to the same flue. So, I probably will have to direct vent, which might be tough with the way my windows are situated.

Two words; Deering Oaks.

Baxter Woods probably has a greater inventory.

My suggestion is to use radiant solar heat as your primary source. It's more of an up-front cost, but after that you have a very stable cost for your fuel supply. And one that won't run out in your lifetime. Not sure of the current status of tax refunds/incentive programs available at the moment.

The great thing about doing things yourself, is that you don't have to follow code. I say hook that sum'bitch up.

That would be my brother's opinon. Unfortunately, I do not possess his do it yourself skills. I need him to get his ass down here from Bangor.

I have found that my handyman skills increase with each beer.

Any tree will do...

I got my stove installed yesterday and the more I look at oil prices the happier I am I made the move. I may recover my money in the very first year. Oil prices have gone up about $1 per gallon since my first post about the stove, a little over 2 months ago. I can get 2 tons of pellets for about $500 and that might be enogh to cover me for the winter. The way things are going, I would not be surprised to see us paying $5 a gallon by winter, we aren't that far away now.

Congratulations, smart move. If I were you I'd get some rabbits, they'd be a cheap source of pellets.

That just might gunk up the stove a bit.

It is interesting to see how so many people are reacting to the increase in gas and oil. It certainly isn't going to get any better.

1 billion+ Chinese won't be denied.

I'm quite debt-averse (outside of my mortgage), but I'm leaning heavily toward financing solar heat/hot water if it's feasible in the new house. I don't burn a lot of oil to begin with, but I expect the payback will be significant at current prices.

The higher it goes, the quicker the payback. I only burned about 500 gallons over the winter, leaving the thermostat at a toasty 64 degrees most of the time, but that ended up costing about $1500. It started out about $2.20 a gallon and the last delivery was at $3.68 a gallon. Now we are looking at probably a minimum of $4.50 a gallon, so it could be a brutal winter.

I filled up my tank yesterday and it ended up taking 172 gallons at a nice and juicy $721.00. I about puked on myself when I saw the bill.

I locked in at $2.69 or so, and didn't use my full 500 gallons, so I haven't felt the extreme pain.

....yet.

I am also debt adverse, so I understand what you're saying. I've had the same argument in my head about the merits of buying a new furnace, the increased efficency would make a huge difference.

I'm going to hold of on a solar solution because I suspect that the market will create new technology, and hopefully prices will drop.

I have never locked in before and have always lucked out in paying a lower cash price than the prepaid price. Obviously, that didn't work this year. I find that a lot of people don't even know what they are locking in at. I have a buddy who locks in at the same place every year, but he has no idea how much he is paying, which kind of defeats the purpose of locking in, to me.

I always lock, I always know where I'm locking, and I almost always save. The year before last I paid a little more, but from what I've read that'll happen every eight years or so when you lock in the price. In the long run you save.

I've had good experiences with Irving Oil. We burn propane too in a couple of small units, Suburban Propane sucks.

There's also the "price cap" option, which has a higher cap cost, but allows you to pay the market price if it's below the cap. The only downside, in my opinion, is that you have to pony up for all your oil up front, which gets more expensive every year. In fact, that's why I locked in this year. I was able to do that and spread the payments out over 10 months.