is this a good price for pellets

Id say its a fair price as long as its a premium hardwood pellet...whats the brand?
$65 for delivery...possibly slightly high, not unreasonable tho for 2 tons...
good job, by the way, for having the foresight to get it early!

yea, fair deal......we sell Cubex for $239/ton....BUT...there is little to no oak in Cubex.....its primarily beech and maple (northern hardwoods).

Have the cost of pellets increased over the past year? I haven't bought a pellet stove yet, but my buddy was getting Pennington pellets at $180/ton last year. We live in Ohio and $230-240 is quite a bit higher than what I thought they were going for!

For Ohio the 180 per ton sounds reasonable. The the coasts the 240 a ton is reasonable. Here I see prices from 182.50 per ton to 240.00 per ton. Hardwood pellets are alot more expensive out here so they may be a little higher. I don't even look at them because they make it economically unfeasable to heat my home for less than NG.

Pellets have gone WAY up this year...last year at this time we were selling hardoods for $180/ton....same time, a year later, between $239-259/ton.

130 a ton canadian fir bulk and 130 a ton bagged hardwood. thanks

Gideon said:

BeGreen -

No comment on the pay per hour. With that factored in, I couldn't afford to heat with wood. But that's like saying is it worth me changing my oil. Well, it costs me about 7 bucks to change the oil and about 20 minutes. So should I not do it if I make more than 21 bucks an hour after tax?

Click to expand...

Throw in the cost of mileage to your oil change shop, then the time spent sitting and waiting for it to get done, and you probably still make money. The only time I pay for it is when I need an inspection and have to go anyway but what a PITA in my time.

One other important point about working for yourself around the house - it's like tax-free "income."

Suppose you process a cord of wood worth $160 in 8 hours. You could say that you "made" $20/hr assuming you already own your equipment (as most of us rural folk do).

But depending on your tax situation, purchasing $160 of wood could have easily required that you earn $273.50 at your day job before taxes (assume marginal tax rate of ~41.5% for 28% fed, 6% state, 7.5% social security/medicare) are deducted.

Since most people think of their salary/wage in pre-tax terms, you effectively had to have "earned" $34/hour at a day job to break even with processing your own wood after accounting for the taxes. This can tip the scale quite a bit in these comparisons and when you look at it like this, it's not such a ridiculous hobby to chop wood And if you are scrounging already cut wood from tree services, etc... and further shortcutting the process, it starts to become a no-brainer.

For this reason, I think people frequently underestimate what a drain it can be on your finances to hire out work around the house - it's much more expensive than you think when you are paying with after-tax dollars. That plumber may get $50/hr, but you have to earn about $85/hr to pay him his $50/hr.

-Colin

It still blows me away how much shipping is adding to the cost of pellets back east.
I posted are pricing this morning for this fall and I've already gotten someone to call me a gouger

http://www.pinecam.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31446

Rocky Mountain Stove 2006 Pellet Pricing

Rocky Mountain Forest Premium Pellets
June 30th. -July 31st.
$180 a ton ($185.40 after tax)

$175 a ton* ($180.25 after tax)
*if you purchase 4 or more tons at one time
ALL PELLETS PURCHASED AT THIS PRICE MUST BE
PICKED UP BY JULY 31ST

August 1st.-Sept. 2nd
$185 a ton ($190.55 after tax)

$180 a ton* ($185.40 after tax)
*if you purchase 4 or more tons at one time
ALL PELLETS PURCHASED AT THIS PRICE MUST BE
PICKED UP BY Sept 9th.

Sept 4th-
$205.00 a ton ($211.15 after tax)
$4.10 a bag#40 ($4.22 after tax)


Rocky Mountain Premium Pellets are 80/20 mix of Radiata/Poderosa pine
testing over the years has always shown 8600-8700 BTU per lb.
Pellets are in 40# bags, 50 bags to a ton (2000lb.)

wow, CL, Im jealous! My pellets COST me more without freight than you are retailing yours for, and my pellets are coming from only an hour away!
Those seem like fair prices to me.......I SO wish ours were that cheap. Our pellets are Hardwood, rather than softwood, but even so, I think folks dont know a good deal when they see one. Frankly, you could give the pellets away at cost and some folks would still call you a gouger....you could give them the pellets for free, and some folks would be PO'd becuase you didnt stack it in their garage for them....go figger.....
As an aside.....went to school at CSM in Golden....beautiful area.....
I dont really think its all shipping tho adding to the prices....I have a feeling some pellet companies are making an inordinate margin on their product, but, what can you do? Its their perogative to sell at whatever levels they like, and make as much as they like as well. Our only course of action is to buy a chaper pellet from further away and pay more freight.....I pay like $15/ton freight on those pellets an hour away....my next closest option....I pay $45/ton for freight, plus the cost of the pellets...and you know what? It about evens out. Then I go ahead, figure what i want to make in profit, and sell my pellets for that. If folks dont wanna buy my pellets, well, buy from the competition who has no pellets currently...wont have any for 2 months yet. They can always go to a Big Box and buy some in September too, and roll that die...........
Dont let the naysayers get to ya, CL....do what you feel is right....work your hardest....and if at the end of the day everything has gone to poop, you can at least say you did your best. Good Luck! ;-)