Oil to pellets usage per winter

[vgrund]

You should factor in degree days if you want to make a fair comparison.

 

[Ladderlieu]

Last year I burned around 700 gallons of oil for FHA heat.

This year I've already burned 2-1/2 tons of pellets and expect to burn 2 to 2-1/2 more.
I've also burned about 10 gallons of oil... turn it on occasionally to keep it working.

My prediction will be roughly 5 tons of pellets compares to roughly 700 gallons of oil.

 

[TomPajak]

great link here ..granted it goes to a another pellet site..its a fuel cost calculator..found out it would be chaper to run oil till it reaches $2.50/gallon vs pellets @ $295/ton...too bad I don't have the $$ to fill my oil tank..I have to buy pellets by the bag..much easier for my weekly budget than to try and come up with $300-$400 for oil all at once

http://www.pelletheat.org/3/residential/compareFuel.cfm

 

[minnow]

I've had a pellet stove insert for four years now and I have saved a tremendous amount of money over fuel oil. Last winter, I didn't use a drop of HHO for heating. Two other things that one can look at too; first, the cost of having your furnace cleaned every year. That's at least a $100 savings. Second, the reduced amount of electricity with the furnace blower not running. Even with the pellet stove combustion and distribution blowers running basically non-stop from Novemeber to early May, my electric bill dropped by $20.00 a month during the winter months. This year I installed an electric water heater (still have the HHO fired heater). That allowed us to go on the electric company's night rate which per KWH is .07 compared to .13 cents. Believe it or not, my electric bill even dropped further by not heating water with oil. So this winter I have not used one drop of oil for heating or water.
Having said all that, whether you will come out ahead with pellets is a very personal thing dependant upon many, many variables. For me it's a home-run.

 

[PunKid8888]

I did not think of the Electric bill being less as well, thats an interesting point.

My electric has been about 90 dollars a month, (electric dryer, range, water) In the spring and fall it was running me about 45 to 50, and about 90 in the summer.

I plan on running straight oil for the month of February to get the most accurate pellet to oil usage. I have been monitoring my pellet/oil usage per month, and my electric bill also has average temp for each month. I should be able to compare January and February data and from that I will be able to calculate what my oil usage would have been for this heating season. I will have a little under half a tank of oil at the end of January and I bet I will burn almost all of it in February.

Is it bad that I am willing to burn oil for one month just to gather data?

 

[Wet1]

I don't think you'll be able to do an accurate comparison over only one month unless you have the means to very accurately weigh or measure the volume of your oil and the temps/winds are identical over each month. The gauge on your oil tank is certainly not accurate enough for this and when they do refills, very seldom do they ever fill to the same level of fullness. Furthermore, comparing one month to another is not comparing apples to apples, not to mention you wont be able to accurately predict what your annual usage would be based on this snapshot. If you wanted to go into a lot of detail, you could make some assumptions / guesses and come up with a number, but I highly doubt it will be accurate or very meaningful.

If you want to truly find out how much oil it would take to heat your house for a year, the only way to accurately find out is to actually do it. This season would have been a great time to try it given the super low oil prices. Any other method or calculation will only be a guess at best, granted possibly an educated guess, but it a guess none the less. As I stated earlier, the conversion factor I gave for oil to pellets has been true for me, but it clearly doesn't mean it will hold true for you (as seen by the discrepancy of other testimonials).

 

[mlwschultz]

This is our 1st year with our Harman XXV stove & we love the heat it provides! I've been tracking our oil usage for the last couple of years & convert that usage to gallons used/day for comparison purposes. We have our XXV stove in the great room (living room/kitchen/dining area) with cathedral ceilings. Our house is a ranch with the bedrooms at the other end of the hall (separate heat zone). We've set the thermostats at 64 degrees for backup purposes so the house won't get too cold if the stove goes out. We also use oil for our hot water. This last month, it's been very cold, I've been burning a little over a bag of pellets a day (NEWP), keeping the living area about a toasty 75 degrees and use the ceiling fan to disperse the heat, the bedrooms are staying at 64 degrees, the basement is also heated by oil to 65 degrees. I only saved .7 gallons/day in oil usage this past month. So for a 30 day month, that's 21 gallons less of oil usage. Doesn't seem right to me. I had to fill the oil tank (1/2 tank) in December & again last week.