See How Much You SAVED This Past Heating Season POST YOUR RESULTS

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lmjr

Member
Feb 16, 2010
184
Corners of PA-OH-WV
If you know your local costs and a little math, this will illustrate your Savings.

We could tally gallons of oil not imported from OPEC.

If we tally up avoided carbon emissions it would be a staggering figure too!


Wood Pellet Comparison (40# of wood pellets = 1 Bag)

1 BAG OF WOOD PELLETS = 4.14 GALLONS OF LP GAS
1 BAG OF WOOD PELLETS = 2.5 GALLONS OF FUEL OIL
1 BAG OF WOOD PELLETS = 102 KILOWATT HOUR OF ELECTRICITY
1 BAG OF WOOD PELLETS = 3.48 C.C.F OF NATURAL GAS

Wood Pellets 8,200 BTU/lb. 80%



Corn Comparison (56# of shelled corn = 1 Bushel)

1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 5.35 GALLONS OF LP GAS
1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 3.6 GALLONS OF FUEL OIL
1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 148 KILOWATT HOUR OF ELECTRICITY
1 BUSHEL OF SHELLED CORN = 5.01 C.CF. OF NATURAL GAS

Shelled Corn 6,800 BTU/lb. 75%


Simple Calculator:

Compare Fuel Costs...per million btu
 
Net net 476 in 4 months

Edit: got the electric bill last night.

net savings after pellet purchases: $573 since November.
 
House was about 15 degrees warmer than it would be on oil, so I prob'ly saved the expense of a divorce.
 
I don't think we saved much this year because we have been unable to score any pellets for less than 280 to 300 a ton. For awhile we were getting some Greene Team at Lowe's for 4.94 a bag but now nobody is stocking less than 6.00 a bag.

I agree that the house feels a lot warmer at 70 on a woodstove than on oil. We probably would have to keep the oil at least 72 to feel this warm.
 
Going from electric to pellets I am saving a lot(haven't heated with electric since December of 1995). Our first electric bill was over $480.00. I flipped and called the Electric Co.They said a budget plan(outragously priced) was the best they could do. I said no thanks! We went out and bought the wood stove for $500 and 5 cords of wood for anothere $500. Our electric bill was about $85/month after that. Paid for the stove and wood on the first year plus! Heated with wood for 4 years and easily saved $500 plus per year or more.

My wife and I had our son in Sept of 1999, So we wanted an easier form of heat. We bought the first pellet stove(Quad 800) used at $800(still really free from the overall savings on electric). Pellets were about $160 to $175/ton. Using 5 tons I still was saving cash every winter. Basically paid for the bigE in savings and then the Omega! Even with pellets over $250 a ton I save on the cost of heat. I don't have the exact numbers and don't really care how much we are actually saving! Overall the house is much warmer. We feel better about it as its renewable energy. With the Omega's better heat transfer we are down to 3 to 3.5 tons per season. Something we didn't expect, so we are saving even more now!

Going from wood to pellets we are not saving much cash if any! But my back and toe's thank me everyday. The house has a steady temp range. With less overall mess. We still feel that going to pellets was one of the best things we have ever done! Same with the multifuel stove. Now we can burn almost anything(even crappy pellets) and are saving over the cost of electric heat! If we decide to upgrade to a pellet furnace most of that cost is also covered with our overall savings so far! But with the Omega doing such a good job it may be a while before we think of that. Maybe when they come out with the auto filling hopper and local bulk delivery? I love my pellet/multifuel stove! :cheese: :cheese: :cheese:
 
Based on the 1 bag = 102KWH of electricity, and our local rate of about .10/KWH, that would be about $10.00 worth of electricity per bag. We have an electric furnace and 1 pellet stove heating the same space. Sooo, if I used about 60 bags this season, did I save $600.00 - cost of the pellets (60 X $6.20/bag = $372.00) = $228.00? The furnace probably ran for less than 4 hours Dec. - April.
 
As I've said in other posts, I don't know if I've saved money if you figure in the cost of the pellet stove, but if I break even, I am happy. My great room was freezing, there didn't seem to be enough baseboard area to warm up the room with the furnace. Over the years I complained to the oil man about what we could do about this. No viable solution, so I listened to someone at work and got a pellet stove finally. My husband gave me the eye roll when I bought it, now he thinks it's the best thing we ever did. We can sit comfortably in our living room, which is now 72 degrees in the winter instead of 62. In fact, he has been giving me a hard time about shutting it down for the year. I told him this was our last bag.
 
Probably saved about $100,not worth it moneywise with heating oil where it is now and pellet prices in my area where they are.

May not use it as much next winta if nothing changes in pricing but its still nice to have just in case.
 
Propane here almost 3 bucks a gallon. pellets were ~200 a ton, used 3.5 tons or 700 bucks for the entire heating season. Propane would have been and easy 1500 bucks plus...
 
Heating oil would of cost about $1900 spent just over $1000 on pellets and have a ton left. So I saved about $1100. Not bad for my second season, I think the stove is paid for already.
 
I dont have the figure yet but here in N.H. we had a mild winter and in my well insulated raised ranch I have only burned 2 tons and 1/4 tank of oil........and was very comfortable!!!!nice
 
Propane would have been over $3,000. Got 8 ton of wood pellets for less than 1500.00.
Saved over 1500, with a little work compared to just using the thermostat
and replacing new filters with the propane furnace. I do have two ton of
pellets left over for next heating season. Two years at 1500+, one more
year will make me break even with the PF100 furnace.
 
I live in PP&l territory in Pa, and we just had a de-regulation come by with 30% electricity increases. My bills were $380 before the increase, and I would have been looking at $500+/month. During the heating season. I got 1 ton of Lignetics free with the Harman Accentra insert, and bought 1 ton of press-to-logs, and just burned my 1st bag of a ton of Hamers I got last week. So I spent 250 on my press-to-logs, free on my Lignetics, and 210 on my Hamers. I had the stove installed on jan 5th, and have not used my electric at all this winter on a 2000sq ft house.
 
I spent about $100 more for oil last year than for pellets (oil pre-buy at $2.30 and pellets at $300) But for that $100, I did not have to haul 'em from store, stack 'em in the garage, haul 'em in the house, clean the stove every week and tear down the stove for a complete cleaning twice. I just turned on the thermostat to the oil furnace in October and never looked back.
Still waiting to see what pellets will be around here for this winter. One retaior has a pre-buy of $260 for Cubex. Other's have not yet released pricing. Right now oil looks to be going back up big time so we'll have to wait and see.
 
minnow said:
I spent about $100 more for oil last year than for pellets (oil pre-buy at $2.30 and pellets at $300) But for that $100, I did not have to haul 'em from store, stack 'em in the garage, haul 'em in the house, clean the stove every week and tear down the stove for a complete cleaning twice. I just turned on the thermostat to the oil furnace in October and never looked back.
Still waiting to see what pellets will be around here for this winter. One retaior has a pre-buy of $260 for Cubex. Other's have not yet released pricing. Right now oil looks to be going back up big time so we'll have to wait and see.

Confused here minnow but... don't you mean "get to" rather than "have to"? perhaps it is perspective. I pay more than natural gas for a real fire in my living room with pellets than air blowing from the basement. I've never used an oil furnace. Do oil suppliers put it in a tank for you or is there a pipeline like NG?

Jay
 
Propane here is being quoted at 3.69/gallon, I normally use about 2000 gallons/year so would have cost $7,380

Pellets on average were $240/ton, used about 11 tons or $2,640 for pellets.

Savings = $4,850.

I wish I had bought my PF100 sooner and we kept main living area about 4 degrees warmer to boot.
 
I expect to use about 300 gallons of oil for this year -- down from 875 gallons. Using approximately 500 gallons savings at $2.50/gallon (my oil guy is now $2.73/gallon), total saved on oil would be $1250 --- minus two tons of pellets at $280 at ton results in about $700 savings... but the house was a lot warmer, and this was a fairly mild winter temperature wise.

If oil hits $3.00/gallon next season (which it seems like it will), my savings could in the neighborhood of $1500.

I bought my pellet stove during the peak oil cost, and then when the market crashed, thought it would be a long time before oil would be back above $2.00... looks like we're headed back to high energy prices.
 
Hello All

I have some hard numbers of the last 4 years of oil consumption for my 1100 sq ft split entry home here to show.
Does anyone else have some numbers for proof??

Since Aug 13th 2008 I went into high gear to further reduce our house's dependency on oil! See Price below!!

We added attic insulation, every year after 2006-07 (Attic floor now has R4 Foil + R19 Fiberglas + R30 Fiberglass CrissCrossed for a Total of R53 - This was the biggest heat saver) and also sealed drafts and replace 3 windows with dble panes.
Also it looks like the new SuperStore Indirect Water tank saves 100 gals of oil compared to the tankless coil and there is always plenty of hot water!

This past season I added the Avalon Astoria Wood pellet Stove. This saved 280.7 Gallons of oil.
So the savings is 280.7 x 2.679 = $752.00
The 3 tons of pellets cost was
1st ton 285 but half price with the new pellet stove and $275 for the last 2 tons.

$142.5
$275
+$275
$692.5

So the savings is $752 - $692.50 or $59.50

However the oil only heated the upstairs to 68 Deg and lower at night.
The wood pellet stove in the basement heats the entire house with the basement 75-80 deg and the upstairs approx 70 Deg!!

Here is the Info they have:
Delivery Date Oil Delivered (Gals) Price per Gallon Total Cost of Delivered Gallons
04-14-2010 73.0 $2.679 $195.57
02-11-2010 46.4 $2.679 $134.31
01-06-2010 49.9 $2.699 $134.68
11-30-2009 90.4 $2.504 $226.81
08-25-2009 161.3 $2.299 $370.83
Total 09-10 421.0 $927.89

04-13-2009 111.1 $1.999 $222.09
02-19-2009 97.9 $2.194 $214.84
01-12-2009 113.7 $2.299 $261.40
12-03-2008 170.5 $2.399 $409.03
08-13-2008 208.5 $4.129 $860.90
Total 08-09 701.7 $1968.26

03-26-2008  130.9 $3.729 $488.13
02-13-2008 159.7 $3.169 $506.09
12-27-2007  161.4 $3.189 $514.70
11-11-2007 189.6 $3.059 $579.99
07-03-2007 231.4 $2.369 $548.19
Total 07-08 873.0 $2637.10

03-13-2007 182.5 $2.328 $425.04
02-02-2007 168.9 $2.221 $375.12
12-26-2006 177.1 $2.299 $407.15
11-02-2006 243.4 $2.290 $557.39
06-02-2006 159.1 $2.646 $431.04
Total 06-07 931.0 $2195.74

Don
 

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