Pellet Prices Now Simply Ridculous!

briansol said:

even that's a good price, locally. 3.09 is the best i can find around here.... and of course my dealer is at 3.29 still :/ get a free annual cleaning out of it though

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try new England oil .com for your area

tjnamtiw said:

Good ole Pa. coal to the rescue..... $160 a ton RIGHT NOW!

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Maybe in PA.... Here it's $300+.....

Dan

The oil price thing is because the US and Saudi Arabia have agreed that Saudi output will be high to drive the price down to break the Russian economy. It's part of the battle for the Ukraine. We did the same thing to the Soviets back under Reagan. Oil exports are something like 20% of the Russian economy.

And I went and did a pre-buy for my oil, which I use for hot water and about half my heat. Ah well, the first time I'll lose money doing that. The wood/pellet shortage may be related to European demand, since Europe doesn't trust Russia to keep the nat gas flowing.

Pete Zahria said:

Maybe in PA.... Here it's $300+.....

Dan

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You may want to check your local TSC for pallets of bagged coal. I believe I have seen it posted they are charging $4.99 / 40lb bag. Some stores already have it, others have to request a shipment.

Heating oil near my area is $1.28/litre = $4.84/gal. It's down from $1.42/litre in May. I'm good with paying $6/bag for LaCretes thanks...

Because they can get away with it ... it's been a long time since it was cheaper than US. Our dollar is also down - worth $ 0.89 US which makes it worse.

titleist1 said:

You may want to check youcheapest
SC for pallets of bagged coal. I believe I have seen it posted they are charging $4.99 / 40lb bag. Some stores already have it, others have to request a shipment.

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I really can't do that.. We sell Blaschak... As far as I know, we are the cheapest around.
(and one of the only)

Dan

briansol said:

they aren't selling to anyone. don't answer emails. don't pick up phones.

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I was down there just yesterday and they are selling by the bag due to the overwhelming requests because most other dealers have been out for months Also they were dealing with the fact that someone torched a large number of product that was allocated to customers for deliveries. That is all they could tell me at this time. He did say that his suppliers are expediting his orders to cover this terrible situation.

I actually didn't hear about that, nor has it been in the local paper, bristolpress.com

Still, it's no excuse... if yo're having difficulties, change your voicemail to say so. Change your email auto-responder from 'we will contact you in 24 hours' to 'we have issues, sorry'.
CS is everything in this world... and they have none this year.

It's not worth my time to go there with a car and pick up 5 bags at a time.

While I agree that the current pricing on pellets is getting ridiculous, much of that could be avoided by simply planning ahead. I bought my whole supply of 6.5 tons a bit at a time over July and August and avoided most of the price increases. Combine that with coupon use at Lowe's and HD for 3+ tons of my supply and I got a great deal. I had planned to continue to add more so that I already have next years supply before the spring, but there's no reason to stock up more while the price and demand are so high. I can wait
Oil here is still over $3 a gal (something like 3.19) which is the cheapest it's been in a few years, but seriously no reason to celebrate in my opinion. Put the pom-poms away...it's an election year and it'll quickly go back up when the cold weather really hits. You can't exactly store the whole seasons worth of oil or any for next year...but you can with pellets I've said it before and I'll say it again: screw big oil, they'll never see another dime of my money. The price is only so high because of their greed and they got rich while we struggled to afford to keep our families warm. I won't be a sucker for them ever again when there are other choices.
I am planning on building a kick@ss solar furnace soon which should take some of the demand off my need for pellets. It could never be the sole source, but it can be a great supplement.

dlehneman said:

kick@ss solar furnace

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More info please...

Not sure if you mean solar furnaces in general or my specific plan. For now, look up solar furnaces on Youtube to get a better idea. There is everything from poorly built and scavenged components to well thought out large scale versions.My design isn't finalized yet, but will utilize some of the best features I found on Youtube, probably some unique ones also, combined with my significant fabrication skills to hopefully result in high output and zero power consumption.
I don't think mine will be too huge unless I go with a roof mounted design since I don't want to take up half my yard, but I'm hoping for high temps and it will have a solar power forced air fan system and t-stat controls.

chickenman said:

Love your theories Whit.
I see a new James Bond movie in this;
Octopellet? Pellet-raker? A View to a Pellet stove? I had better stop.

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If you don't believe that energy markets are international, and sometimes manipulated for geopolitical ends, that's fine. If Saudi Arabia were to cut production, oil prices would rise. In pure economic terms, by producing more slowly the Saudis would come out ahead in the end, if it were just a matter of maximizing returns.

Remember the photo of W. and the Saudi king holding hands? The Saudis are a bit worried now that ISIS, spawned from the fundamentalist beliefs of the Wahhabi sect that the monarchy is closely aligned with, now plans to conquer Saudi Arabia if they can. The demon the Saudis summoned is ready to turn on them. They're also upset that Russia is supporting Assad in Syria, who they hate. By helping drive the Russian economy down they're helping keep us happy when they need our help against ISIS, and slapping the Russians who they don't like anyway.

Sure, lower gas prices also increase consumer confidence, which may give the Dems better odds in the midterms. But that wouldn't motivate the Saudis much. They'd like another Bush in the White House. They hate liberals.

If you follow international news, there's nothing here I've invented. It's all in main stream coverage. The role of oil price manipulation in bringing down the Soviet Union is also generally known.

chickenman said:

You may be right.
The story we get out here is that the US is becoming energy independent because of home blown gas. This is worrying OPEC as it loses its grip on the energy market. Nothing keep people using oil like cheap oil.
I might be wrong but I think your Isis/Saudi/Russia theory is way to clever for the bunch of knucklehead mixed up in that scenario. It may all make sense in hindsight but I reckon all these turkeys are just making it up a they go along.

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The plan has been in place for many moons, we just pay attention to the falling price of oil and ignore the "coincidences".

Pellet prices are out of control, in my opinion companies should take care of the people here that work for them and then sell the rest to the rest of the world. They would still be making ridiculous amounts of money and would actually have a more secure and profitable future than they do by taking all they can as fast as they can. Wood is renewable and the pellet mill doesn't care if the ground up spruce tree is 3 inches thick or 23 inches thick

chickenman said:

Being?

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The coincidences being the types of things whit said as well as what you see going on around you. Oil prices dropping should result in in prices dropping for pellets and all commodities, but it won't. I am very surprised that MWP are still selling for $225 here and not $275

Like I said in my opinion they are out of control, other people say stovewood prices are out of control, but I won't sell a cord for less than $300 because it isn't worth my time. Some people say that is too much and others are happy to get it.

4 feet x 4 feet x 8feet or 128 cubic feet. 5,000 lbs. green weight on average

I am not a pellet burner but they seem to be everywhere down this way for around $250+ a ton.

I saw huge amounts of pallets of them stacked outside in Tractor Supply in Old Saybrook for I think 5.49 a bag on Sunday. Said there was a discount if you bought a pallet.

My local Big Y supermarket also has the whole front of the store lined up with pallets of pellets as well for $249 a ton or 5 something a bag.. They are also selling Bio Bricks this year as they had pallets of those out as well.

The Home Depot in Orange was stocked as well late last week when I was in there.

Just passing on what I saw the last few days.

chickenman said:

So about 2,268kg for $300.
Same wood here is about $200 and our pellets are $1,000/tonne. So really our wood is cheap and our pellets crazy expensive.

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I agree, you should get into the pellet biz

Brian26 said:

I am not a pellet burner but they seem to be everywhere down this way for around $250+ a ton.

I saw huge amounts of pallets of them stacked outside in Tractor Supply in Old Saybrook for I think 5.49 a bag on Sunday. Said there was a discount if you bought a pallet.

My local Big Y supermarket also has the whole front of the store lined up with pallets of pellets as well for $249 a ton or 5 something a bag.. They are also selling Bio Bricks this year as they had pallets of those out as well.

The Home Depot in Orange was stocked as well late last week when I was in there.

Just passing on what I saw the last few days.

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I am not a pellet burner(unless you consider five 24" pellets at a time loading the hopper) but I have a lot of friends that do and we watch prices and demand and discuss the market conditions regularly.

Sounds like there is no shortage where you are.

brain26 no thanks those pellets are infernos ,my local big y has them too about 15 pallets in front of the store

lock&load said:

brain26 no thanks those pellets are infernos ,my local big y has them too about 15 pallets in front of the store

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Cheshire Big Y has them as well. I've never tried them. But a quick Google reviews some "meh" reviews.

meh is being wayyyyyy too kind