Somebody Tell Me ...

Larry Lopez said:

I am poised to purchase a Harman P61 & 3 tons of pellets.

However Fuel oil is 3.59 and tankers are circling Boston
unable to unload because the facilities are chop full of oil.

Somehow paying $3000 for a stove and $2000 for pellets
makes me want to just forget the whole thing.

I don't think oil is going to go to $6 soon.

Someone tell me it's worth it.

Curiously I haven't had any coffee since noon.
I think I'm worrying about the state of the economy.

I feel like hunkering down and killing all expenditures.
Larry

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Larry,

What you're looking to pay for the stove and pellets would take several years to recoup. You're also looking to buy at the worst possible time. Waiting until late winter or early spring may make it easier to pull the trigger as prices should be lower.

I hope this helps,

Rick

X2 what Rick said.

Larry Lopez said:

$2000 for pellets would be for an additional 4 tons.
$330 was 3 tons for October Delivery.
250 was for 4 tons for december delivery.

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I'm confused - are you saying it's going to cost you $2000 for 4 tons ($500/ton!!)? If so, that's nuts.

Or that you bought 3 tons at $330 ($990) and another 4 at 250 ($1000) for a total of $2000? In which case I'd wonder what you're heating with 7 tons of pellets or how you're going to store half of them for next year.

In any case, it's a matter of making a personal economic call - do you think oil is going to stay where it is (funny how we get used to a price and consider it acceptable when 6 months ago we'd have screamed about raping & pillaging occurring...we had "cheap" gas at only 3.48/gal down the street this weekend). You might want to think about what happens if the winter is colder than expected and prices go up. With the stove & pellets sitting in your garage, you're "prepaid" for the winter - no worrying about how you'll find the $1250 to fill the oil tank...and then do it again...and maybe one more time.

Oil in Northcentral Connecticut is running at $3.69/gal up from $3.49/gal two weeks ago (from a discount supplier, 150 gal minimum, COD).

Larry I'd also like to mention that in the future you
may want to be more specific with the title of your threads
if you wish to get more response.

You have the classic case of analysis paralysis. Nobody can make thus decision for you and it sounds like you are driving yourself nuts (considering your other threads as well).
I thought you had found a 1 year old P61? I hope that particular stove isn't going to set you back 3,000?!?

For people such as yourself who are on the fence, I would recommend holding off on taking the plunge. As another poster pointed out, next year will almost certainly be a better environment for buying a stove. If you are serious about it, target next March-May and you'll probably a ton of money on your up front costs.
Personally I don't think there is much risk in going one more season with your current set up. If you have a few grand to invest in pellets then why not just put it into oil instead? From all your posts it sounds like your only driver here is to save money, so the reality is that waiting until off season will almost certainly save you more money than if you were to make the purchase today.

mkmh said:

next year will almost certainly be a better environment for buying a stove. If you are serious about it, target next March-May and you'll probably a ton of money on your up front costs. .

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Unless we have a bad winter, Nigerian oil production is cut due to their civil war, home oil dealers go under because they can't finance the $10M they need to carry fuel oil this year due to the credit crunch, a bunch of people freeze to death due to lack of the ability to cough up $1000 at a clip to fill their oil tank, and other geopolitical events conspire to ratchet oil up some more. In which case, look for a repeat of this summer's frenzy as people attempt to escape another winter of 3 or $4,000 oil bills.

mkmh said:

Personally I don't think there is much risk in going one more season with your current set up. If you have a few grand to invest in pellets then why not just put it into oil instead?

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Well, at the end of the year he could have spent $4000 and had a warm winter & a pellet stove in the living room....or just had a warm winter because all the oil he bought has been burned. He isn't going to "invest" in oil when they're heating with it - they're consuming it, nothing's left of it at the end of the day.

So much for my "Mr. Sunshine" award, huh?

I hear ya all...

personally, I think paying $300 a ton and over does away with most of the benefits of pellets when oil is less than $4.

Sure, there MIGHT be some savings, but I like a 30-50% savings...to make it worth while to spend that kind of money and also do the manual labor.

As has been discussed on many other threads here, there are other benefits to pellets such as the local/renewable/fire in the living area, etc. - but that is a different way of looking at the purchase....as a recreational/luxury item.

I'm a believer in $200 pellets! (which is what they are in the midwest, out west, in Pa. etc)

Larry Lopez said:

I just don't think I need to spend $5000 to save $1000 right now.
Now if I spend $2000 to save $1000 I would be good with it.

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You're not really spending 5 to save 1. You need to do a TCO calculation comparing both option positions at the end of the season --- assuming you'll need another 2 tanks of oil (assuming you're average), you'll spend another $2,000 on oil this year at current rates ($1650 if it goes down to $3/gal). If you take the 3 tons of pellets on order at 250/ton, you'll spend 750 on pellets and avoid the extra two tanks of oil. That saves you $1250 (2000 extra oil - 750 pellets) this year (and assumes you use up the 2 tanks of oil you've got - in effect cutting your oil usage in half). Reasonable assumptions based on other people's experience.

So really the question is whether you want to invest in the stove (3000 in your example, cheaper options exist) to save the $1250 this year for a net stove cost this year of 1850 - next year would pay it off in oil savings. One way or another you're paying for the fuel so to include it as a cost on one side (stove option) but not on the other side (continue with oil only) is missing half the equation.

DiggerJim said:

mkmh said:

next year will almost certainly be a better environment for buying a stove. If you are serious about it, target next March-May and you'll probably a ton of money on your up front costs. .

Click to expand...

Unless we have a bad winter, Nigerian oil production is cut due to their civil war, home oil dealers go under because they can't finance the $10M they need to carry fuel oil this year due to the credit crunch, a bunch of people freeze to death due to lack of the ability to cough up $1000 at a clip to fill their oil tank, and other geopolitical events conspire to ratchet oil up some more. In which case, look for a repeat of this summer's frenzy as people attempt to escape another winter of 3 or $4,000 oil bills.

mkmh said:

Personally I don't think there is much risk in going one more season with your current set up. If you have a few grand to invest in pellets then why not just put it into oil instead?

Click to expand...

Well, at the end of the year he could have spent $4000 and had a warm winter & a pellet stove in the living room....or just had a warm winter because all the oil he bought has been burned. He isn't going to "invest" in oil when they're heating with it - they're consuming it, nothing's left of it at the end of the day.

So much for my "Mr. Sunshine" award, huh?

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Yeah right, there are a bunch of scenarios that could change the game, but from what i'm seeing from this poster he would be better off filling the tank right now at 3.50 per gallon or whatever. More than likely the next two fill-ups are going to come at an average price per gallon < 5.00 per gallon. Nobody has a crystal ball, but this scenario has got to have at least an 85% chance of coming true. If it does play out that way, then waiting will have worked out just fine.
You don't "invest" in pellets either, you burn them. Pellets..oil they both cost money, right? The difference in sticking with oil is that the man doesn't have to shell out 2,000 bucks on an appliance. We could talk about the opportunity costs of that 2,000 which would further strengthen the case for waiting, but it is kind of silly to take it to that level.
I don't think this poster's heart is into the whole pellet stove thing either, so my advice is still to "hang loose". As I said in the beginning, there is no right answer here.

larry, if you have asthma issues pellet heat may not be for you pellets contain a fair amount of dust, imho.

I agree with X, but didn't want to be the first to say it. Lots of fine sawdust which contains stuff that might make one sneeze......other stuff which comes out when you open door to scrape, etc.

If and when Larry wants to make a move, maybe studying central heat - clean burning wood or pellet - may be in order. But I think we may see reasonable oil because of hard financial times.

Larry Lopez said:

Now if I find a nice P68 for $1250 I'm all over it.

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Larry,
I`m with you.
$6K is a bit overboard for a pellet stove that produces ash, noise, takes up space , and uses electricity not to mention the extra labor required of you and the room to store the pellets . THEN you got to think about the rising cost of pellets and maybe even the availability of them too. There`s none to be had around here even at $300 per ton.
I lucked out early and snapped up a good used Harman very cheap and I have my pellets for the season but I`m not thrilled about the prospect of saving much money not to mention where the pellet situation is going.

Larry Lopez said:

Would you say it is bad compared to a wood stove ?
I suppose I could replace the wood stove with a cool quartz heater.
Or maybe a 10 ohm 2000watt resistor.
nuts.

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i burned both wood and pellets i think pellet is "worse" the end product ash is finer harder to control