When is using your oil a better option than burning Pellets?

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md2002

Feeling the Heat
Oct 18, 2011
362
United States
This is my 1st year with the stove so I'm not sure when it's not worth burning pellets over using your oil. When is pellet consumption costing you more than burning oil?

About 3 weeks ago I only starting turning my stove on at night to take the chill out of the living room. Since I wasn't burning the stove 24/7 anymore my furnace has been kicking on here and there to keep the house @ 62 degrees ( the temps are averaging about 55 outside during the day and low 40's at night.)

When I do burn the stove 24/7 I go through about a bag and a half a day. So, doing some math, if I burn the stove 24/7 it is costing me on average $9.00 a day to burn pellets and I would have gone through about 22-26 bags of pellets in the last 3 weeks, about a half a ton or $160.00 ( I bought pellets that were $310 delivered). At this point with the weather mild outside I'm not sure I would spend that much on oil by letting the furnace keep the house warm rather than the stove.

Is it ever a good idea to let your oil heat the house rather than piss through pellets? With the stove running 24/7 all parts of my house average about 67 degrees.
 
some folks will use the oil once in the morning to get up to temp and then run the pellet stove to maintain that.

those are pretty mild temps you describe.
i have no idea how your stove performs on low. but that's where i'm running most times right now. and it's a little colder here.

paying $310 a ton for pellets seems like way too much to me.
if it were me, i would definitely be looking for a better deal on another pellet.

with pellets, you can easily see how much you are using.
every time you hear them drop into the burnpot you know it. and you know it's means money spent.

but i have to think that oil will never be cheaper when used as the primary heat source.
really the only way to know for sure it to measure how much oil you use to get the same heat as with your stove.
 
When they're the price XXV-AK saw them for at Lowes in Anchorage. $11+ a bag.
 
Hmmmm

My house is all electric and to use the electric heat would be prohibitive.

I use nut shells in the stoves and during a normal winter month with the Main Pellet stove running 24/7 it costs about $1 a day to heat the place (2300 + ft Ranch style house)

During the shoulder season (spring and fall) where we dont need heat on all the time the cost drops off considerably.

We have two Pellet stoves upstairs that we use regularly (actually have 3)

The little stove will burn about 50 cents a day.

Today is a nice spring day and I shut the stove off a while ago.

Oil is certainly not a cheap way to go.

I have never paid more than $225 per ton for pellets.

The large quadrafire (dont use it often) will heat the house on a bag a day.
The other two stoves are whitfields (One Large advantage and one little Prodigy)
These get the shells.

Snowy
 
For us never.

to run the oil furnace to heat the house costs $16 a day.

a bag and a half of pellets per day $6.10

and that is for cold mid winter usage.
 
Never!!

Tom C.

Yep.. Never. If its cheaper in the Winter. Then its cheaper in Spring and Fall too.

You said it yourself. Your not burning 24/7 now. So your using less and saving more.

Does your stove have a t-stat on it? Big savings from eunning on a stat w/ on/off function this time of year. Thats the only time I recommend running on/off is in the shoulder. Otherwise its low 24/7 or stat w/ hi/low function.
 
I have no T-stat. I did do the math though after reading the responses. It's not an exact science but I figured before the stove in the months of November and December I spent $540.00 on oil, if I figure 60 days, it's about $9.00 a day to heat with oil. It's not as cold now as it was then, so maybe a little less than that to heat with oil right now. The difference is the house is colder with just using oil than it is using pellets 24/7. I guess the way I'm looking at it is if I ease back on pellets now I will be able to carry over a half ton of pellets for next year.

I know $320 is allot for pellets but that's the price up here in Mass. for good pellets. You can't find pellets (good pellets) for cheaper than $240, unless you stumble onto a deal. Then I have to pay $60.00 for delivery charge. The other option is to spend more on pellets and less on delivery charge. So my dilemma this winter was to spend $240 on pellets and a $60 delivery charge or $280 for pellets and $20 for delivery. See what I'm saying? The places that deliver for cheap money only sell expensive pellets, the places that have the less expensive pellets charge you more for delivery.

All that being said, it's my 1st year and I'm still learning. My plan is to buy a trailer and see if I can use that to pick up the ton of pellets with my 4 runner. I saw a good post on the subject and it seems doable.
 
Your stove accepts a t-stat correct ? Disnt the Milan replace the Windsor?

Does it have an ignitor? Your savings will come with a stat.

I get the whole delivery/pellet thing. But saving money using pellets is what its about. If your gonna save money by using the pellets you have now, by not using oil, you will have more dough when it comes time to buy pellets. Or spend more money on Oil now and.....

Everyone does what they do for a reason. I swore to never use LP again. I got lucky by being able to heat my entire home with just my Quad (1st stove) after a couple seasons I bought and installed a woodstove and a pellet furnace. I do it to save money and as a hobby. Went from spending about $3,800 a yr on LP (3-4 tanks a yr) to needing to fill our tank once every 4-5 yrs (only cook with LP)

Again, if its easier and makes more sense in your situation. Then by all means. Burn that Dino juice. But burning pellets will always be cheaper. Just depends on how you look at your savings and when the return comes... That trailer sounds like a great idea. They can be had for pretty cheap at times.
 
pellets are cheaper all the time for me. burning less than a bag a day at 5.50 per bag. switch it on auto and let it kick in when needed. its off for a good part of the day.
 
This is my 1st year with the stove.....When is pellet consumption costing you more than burning oil?......

When you can input your oil cost and pellet costs in this calculator, and the cost of oil gets close to wood pellets, then use oil. If you consider how much easier it is to just raise the thermostat, and not have to carry bags of pellets, clean the stove, etc, etc, then oil is the way to go.

http://pelletheat.org/pellets/compare-fuel-costs

All that being said, I don't see oil getting anywhere near the pellet price......ever.
 
I did some fuzzy math once, and came up with $2.36 a gallon as my break even point. If oil is that price or cheaper, its cheaper to use the furnace. since oil is like 3.90, its clearly better to use pellets.

If you're burning on low all day, you're wasting fuel. Most stoves are not efficient here. Get a thermostat, and run it on medium a couple hours on and off.
 
I looked at one of the energy calculators, because I have oil in my garage, it has 14 foot ceilings and insulated well in the attic area. concrete block construction, about 2700 sq feet. Pellets were about 73.00 cheaper per month at 3.85 gallon for oil, even at 4.50 it was only about 123.00 a month cheaper with the pellets, Factoring in what the cost of the pellet furnace was and having it installed plus the maintenance and feeding it was not worth it for me. I used 170 gallons of oil last year for the heat and I only keep it about 50 degrees which is good for me.

I guess my point is that sometimes there is more to factor in than just monetary values.
 
When you can input your oil cost and pellet costs in this calculator, and the cost of oil gets close to wood pellets, then use oil. If you consider how much easier it is to just raise the thermostat, and not have to carry bags of pellets, clean the stove, etc, etc, then oil is the way to go.

http://pelletheat.org/pellets/compare-fuel-costs

All that being said, I don't see oil getting anywhere near the pellet price......ever.


Exactly. I pay, on average, about $300 a ton (including delivery). Oil would have to be about $2.50 per gallon to match that number.

Right now, cheap oil in CT is at 3.75, and that's down from peak season.
 
This is my 1st year with the stove so I'm not sure when it's not worth burning pellets over using your oil. When is pellet consumption costing you more than burning oil?

About 3 weeks ago I only starting turning my stove on at night to take the chill out of the living room. Since I wasn't burning the stove 24/7 anymore my furnace has been kicking on here and there to keep the house @ 62 degrees ( the temps are averaging about 55 outside during the day and low 40's at night.)

When I do burn the stove 24/7 I go through about a bag and a half a day. So, doing some math, if I burn the stove 24/7 it is costing me on average $9.00 a day to burn pellets and I would have gone through about 22-26 bags of pellets in the last 3 weeks, about a half a ton or $160.00 ( I bought pellets that were $310 delivered). At this point with the weather mild outside I'm not sure I would spend that much on oil by letting the furnace keep the house warm rather than the stove.

Is it ever a good idea to let your oil heat the house rather than piss through pellets? With the stove running 24/7 all parts of my house average about 67 degrees.
Typically when I am not home and at work all day I would rather keep another heat source going. This is because I keep the house quite cold. Under 60 degrees F. It seems that if I tried to keep a low house temp. with a pellet stove, it doesnt work well because the automatic igniter stove would be kicking on and off without burning for long. However, I could set the pellet stove at a slightly higher temperture than the oil heater so if the oil heater doesnt kick on for some reason, the pellet stove will go on as a backup. When I come home, then I run the pellet stove to bring the room to a hotter temperture about 80 degrees F.
 
Your stove accepts a t-stat correct ? Disnt the Milan replace the Windsor?

Does it have an ignitor? Your savings will come with a stat.

I get the whole delivery/pellet thing. But saving money using pellets is what its about. If your gonna save money by using the pellets you have now, by not using oil, you will have more dough when it comes time to buy pellets. Or spend more money on Oil now and.....

Everyone does what they do for a reason. I swore to never use LP again. I got lucky by being able to heat my entire home with just my Quad (1st stove) after a couple seasons I bought and installed a woodstove and a pellet furnace. I do it to save money and as a hobby. Went from spending about $3,800 a yr on LP (3-4 tanks a yr) to needing to fill our tank once every 4-5 yrs (only cook with LP)

Again, if its easier and makes more sense in your situation. Then by all means. Burn that Dino juice. But burning pellets will always be cheaper. Just depends on how you look at your savings and when the return comes... That trailer sounds like a great idea. They can be had for pretty cheap at times.

Here's the thing with the T-stat. I was told by the guys who installed my stove that a T stat is not a good idea. They tell me that with a T-Stat your stove keeps shutting on and off and it will kill the ignitor much faster. They don't recommend them so I never looked into it. Reading the responses though it sounds like it may be a good idea for next year... since my stove runs all day everyday during the cold months.
 
The amount of fuel you save will save you enough money to keep a spare ignitor on hand. The igniter for your stove is about $130.00. You will definitely kill it faster with the on-off cycle but most find it well worth while. It will also keep you from roasting in the shoulder seasons.
 
The amount of fuel you save will save you enough money to keep a spare ignitor on hand. The igniter for your stove is about $130.00. You will definitely kill it faster with the on-off cycle but most find it well worth while. It will also keep you from roasting in the shoulder seasons.

I'm ganna look into it. Are they easy to install?
 
Pretty straight forward, connect 2 wires to stove terminals and run to thermostat. Set stove to run in thermostat mode. I would do a temporary install and try various places to mount your thermostat to get the results you want. Once you determine the best location I would then mount it permanently.
 
For me, cost isn't the only factor. Sure it's the biggest one, but utilizing a fuel produced literally 45 minutes from my house as compared with a fuel that potentially comes from half way around the world and supports the economy of that nation rather than my own, is a close second to cost.

Having said that, I don't think fuel oil will be competitive with pellets anytime soon here in upstate, NY. There's a tremendous supply of pellets available from multiple manufacturers and from multiple suppliers and that shouldn't change anytime soon. That is to say, costs of pellets should remain fairly stable for the foreseeable future.
 
I'm ganna look into it. Are they easy to install?
Easy to intall and some ignitors last a long time. I went almost 3 yrs on my 1st one and probably could have gone longer (had a couple mis-fires) My ignitors are less than $40 on ebay, so wasn't really worried.

Some people have gone a decade on an ignitor. Some may only last a couple seasons. But the money saved will be worth that much.

My Quad is the main heat source in the shoulder seasons. It has been set to 72 on the stat for what seems like 2 months now. Kicks on and off at will all day. The thing to keep it from cycling really fast is to have a swing temp on your stat of about 2° (or even 3°) and also dont run the stove full bore. Run a heat setting that is just enough to overcome the heat loss. So the stove will run for awhile heating up the objects in the room, and not just the air. So because it ran longer and gave a good soak temperature, it will stay off longer because of the heat retained by the walls and all the objects in the room. Lower setting and a swing... That simple.
 
This is my 1st year with the stove so I'm not sure when it's not worth burning pellets over using your oil. When is pellet consumption costing you more than burning oil?

About 3 weeks ago I only starting turning my stove on at night to take the chill out of the living room. Since I wasn't burning the stove 24/7 anymore my furnace has been kicking on here and there to keep the house @ 62 degrees ( the temps are averaging about 55 outside during the day and low 40's at night.)

When I do burn the stove 24/7 I go through about a bag and a half a day. So, doing some math, if I burn the stove 24/7 it is costing me on average $9.00 a day to burn pellets and I would have gone through about 22-26 bags of pellets in the last 3 weeks, about a half a ton or $160.00 ( I bought pellets that were $310 delivered). At this point with the weather mild outside I'm not sure I would spend that much on oil by letting the furnace keep the house warm rather than the stove.

Is it ever a good idea to let your oil heat the house rather than piss through pellets? With the stove running 24/7 all parts of my house average about 67 degrees.
Roughly, 2 gals oil= 1 bag of pellets{40lbs}.
 
I might be burning oil soon, only 1 bag of VT's in the basement.
 
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