My Oil Cost vrs Pellets.

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Tonyray

Tonyray

Minister of Fire
Dec 11, 2013
3,507
Bucks County,Pa /North of Phila Eagles
Sat down and added up my Heating Oil receipts for past 4 yrs...
Total came to 6,100.00..
Although oil prices change, I feel an average of 1500.00 per year is fair..
My pellets cost is just under 1,000.00 per year..
At 1st I though that I was saving more than that but then I remembered that on Oil heat, with a
poorly insulated house, we would keep the Thermostats[ up and down stairs] around 67 degrees so as
not to use more Oil than we had too..
With the pellets we we're able to keep the house at 74 degrees all winter and that was just cruising the stove at Half throttle..
And to be truthfull,
I always said I wouldn't mind paying the same amount each year for pellets as long as we could have a much much warmer house.. so, with that in mind, a savings of 500.00 yr plus not having to wear Thermal shirts and such in the cold winter is a win/win for us...[and the prospects of possibly having foam insulation blown in the Outer walls down the road would prob cut down on pellet usage too.]
 
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First 2 years we were in our new house we used the oil furnace (FHW) and it was $2800 the second year (never went back and totaled the first year). First year with the pellet stove I bought 4 tons of GS pellets for a total of $900 delivered but only used 3 of them so it was $675 with pellets! I paid $1100 delivered for my stove (Englander PAH from AM/FM Energy) so halfway through the first season it had paid for itself in full :0
Like you said, I keep a much warmer house using pellets too.
Difference in house temp:
Oil- kept t-stat at 64 and froze my butt off
Pellets- generally keep it at about 72 day/67 night but freely turn it up if I feel like it.
Another bonus (well planned) is that the stove is about 5 feet from my recliner so it's plenty warm there :)
 
We used 900 gallons per year before pellets, 300 gallons afterwards. That's $2100 less oil per year. Add 3 1/2 tons of pellets for $1100 and that's $1000 annual savings for us.
 
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dlehneman said:
Oil- kept t-stat at 64 and froze my butt off
Click to expand...
dlehneman said:
First 2 years we were in our new house we used the oil furnace (FHW) and it was $2800 the second year (never went back and totaled the first year). First year with the pellet stove I bought 4 tons of GS pellets for a total of $900 delivered but only used 3 of them so it was $675 with pellets! I paid $1100 delivered for my stove (Englander PAH from AM/FM Energy) so halfway through the first season it had paid for itself in full :0
Like you said, I keep a much warmer house using pellets too.
Difference in house temp:
Oil- kept t-stat at 64 and froze my butt off

I tried that and my Wife complained a lot.:mad:.. rightfully so..we settled at 67.
Click to expand...
 
Very good comparisons.I used 30% out of 500 propane(12 months),cook with it,use during spring and fall shoulder seasons instead of lighting pellet stove in basement,years did not run stove would use a tank and 1/2,and was cold.May keep this stove I am rebuilding and put upstairs,mainly for shoulder and -30.Getting old sucks!,like to be warmer!
 
Tonyray, you say you have a poorly insulated house, sure your stove can keep the room the stove is in at 74, but I highly doubt it's 74 in the next room or even lower the farthest room.
Sure my living room is 68-82 depending on heat level, but my dining room and kitchen can be like 10 degree's cooler in dead of winter
 
Pellet-King said:
Tonyray, you say you have a poorly insulated house, sure your stove can keep the room the stove is in at 74, but I highly doubt it's 74 in the next room or even lower the farthest room.
Sure my living room is 68-82 depending on heat level, but my dining room and kitchen can be like 10 degree's cooler in dead of winter
Click to expand...
you might be right but never really checked temps 3rd room over.[kitchen]..
don't feel any change there though....might be a couple degree difference.
61,000 BTU stove pushes a lot of heat...
 
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Tonyray said:
you might be right but never really checked temps 3rd room over.[kitchen]..
don't feel any change there though....might be a couple degree difference.
61,000 BTU stove pushes a lot of heat...
Click to expand...
Hey tony,I think pellet king missed the point about heating the "living area".Learned that many years ago back in MD.You made your system work,and that is what is important!Keep burnin!
 
My oil burner used about 600 gallons a year, until I got my pellet stove, now I burn a little over 300 gallons a year. My pellet usage has stayed consistent at 3 tons a year.
I get uncomfortably hot when the house temperature goes over 65F. I generally set the thermostat for the oil furnace at 60F and run the pellet stove 24/7. The oil furnace mostly comes on at night when the weather gets cold.

Dave
 
bob bare said:
Hey tony,I think pellet king missed the point about heating the "living area".Learned that many years ago back in MD.You made your system work,and that is what is important!Keep burnin!
Click to expand...
Actually, we have a ceiling fan in each downstairs room [including kitchen] on low speed/clockwise 24/7 which helps distribute heat..
 
TimfromMA said:
We used 900 gallons per year before pellets, 300 gallons afterwards. That's $2100 less oil per year. Add 3 1/2 tons of pellets for $1100 and that's $1000 annual savings for us.
Click to expand...
Very similar numbers here except my 3.5 tons of pellets cost me just over $800.
 
mepellet said:
Very similar numbers here except my 3.5 tons of pellets cost me just over $800.
Click to expand...
That was last year's numbers. My 3.5 tons this year costs just over $1200
 
Rough estimate of past oil use with current prices etc.:
To heat my house with oil and to provide hot water with oil was around $2524.
To heat my house with pellets (3.7 tons of Barefoots) -- $1005
Oil cost for hot water only -- $1050.

Pellets (heat) and oil for hot water = $2050 as opposed to $2524 for a pellet savings of $469/yr.
But I'm much more comfortable because I keep my house warmer with pellets.
This month I'm converting my oil boiler to gas.
The question will be: Will gas for heat be cheaper than, and as comfortable as, pellets?
 
Natural gas is about the cheapest heating fuel out there.
 
Bioburner said:
Natural gas is about the cheapest heating fuel out there.
Click to expand...

It sounds ideal to have multiple fuels available so you can go with whatever's cheaper that season. Sadly, no NG on our street. :( Do we have any reason to expect oil prices to keep dropping?
 
No NG in our county. Only one in the state of ten thousand taxes. I topped our tank and was 102 gallons for three years at 1.59 a gallon. Is nice to have a heat source that requires no electricity and don't have to be home to fire it if power goes out. Only time was used last season was for Christmas ambiance.
 

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Corn being under $130 a ton probably is this years winner in our area. If I did the math right and efficiencies being the same would make propain equal to 70 cents per gallon.
 
I'd like to convert to NG, but is it really worth $3000+?, Buy alot of oil/pellet's...i'm a cheapo, i hate my oil furnace, it's below my bedroom, and the forced air duct's are very loud coming on and off....my house was built 1952 most likely the ductwork sucks as the bedroom is the first on the tree.....anyone have experiance adding duct baffles?
 
Pellet-King said:
I'd like to convert to NG, but is it really worth $3000+?,
Click to expand...

Same thing my wife said when the heat pump died many years ago. "OK, eight grand for a new heat pump and then the electricity to run it. How much wood can we buy for that?"
 
Unfortunately we won't probably be able to sell our homes without some form of conventional heating.
 
I am leaving that problem to the nieces in the will. >>
 
We knocked about 1k per year off our heating bills with our pellet stove.

The really big thing for us, though, was the SPACING between bills. On oil, it was possible to get two huge bills within 4-5 weeks of each other. On pellets, I could control when I bought each ton, and it spaced out the oil bills into more distant intervals.

On NG now, and the billing is very consistent -- and, in context, low!
 
thedude110, If you dont mind me asking, what was the cost to convert to NG, PM me
 
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