is this a good price for pellets

[stuart]

i cant wait till Sat am 2 tons of pellets will be here in the am i orderd oak at $240 a ton plus $65 for del

 

[HarryBack]

Id say its a fair price as long as its a premium hardwood pellet...whats the brand?
$65 for delivery...possibly slightly high, not unreasonable tho for 2 tons...
good job, by the way, for having the foresight to get it early!

 

[stuart]

cubex from Canada

 

[HarryBack]

yea, fair deal......we sell Cubex for $239/ton....BUT...there is little to no oak in Cubex.....its primarily beech and maple (northern hardwoods).

 

[stuart]

yea they say it has a high heat output and more ash

 

[jsagraves]

Have the cost of pellets increased over the past year? I haven't bought a pellet stove yet, but my buddy was getting Pennington pellets at $180/ton last year. We live in Ohio and $230-240 is quite a bit higher than what I thought they were going for!

 

[begreen]

What month did you buy in? That is a good price for the east. It's what I paid in WA state last year / ton.

 

[Shane]

For Ohio the 180 per ton sounds reasonable. The the coasts the 240 a ton is reasonable. Here I see prices from 182.50 per ton to 240.00 per ton. Hardwood pellets are alot more expensive out here so they may be a little higher. I don't even look at them because they make it economically unfeasable to heat my home for less than NG.

 

[HarryBack]

Pellets have gone WAY up this year...last year at this time we were selling hardoods for $180/ton....same time, a year later, between $239-259/ton.

 

[warminwisco]

130 a ton canadian fir bulk and 130 a ton bagged hardwood. thanks

 

[BrotherBart]

I like the concept of pellet stoves, but it's hard to ignore the relationship to the fossil fuels in terms of price.

That is, the price of pellets is tied directly and indirectly to the price of oil and natural gas. As those two go up, production costs for pellets and demand for pellets goes up.

You even hear about small businesses talking about going pellet.

Consequently, while I like the concept, I can see a pellet stove getting relatively more expensive to run every season for the next 20 years.

On the other hand, I just checked out the window into the back forty at Gideon and I confirm that hardwood here is still zero dollars per ton. So I'm a big fan of Eric's signature, because the Man sells the pellets, but this man cuts the wood.

I have cut and heated with my own wood for years but have never kidded myself that it is saving money. It is an eye opener to keep track of the gas and oil used by a saw and splitter to process one cord of wood. And one year the emergency room bill was exactly the local cost of the two cords I had processed prior to processing my left leg.

 

[begreen]

Gideon, what do you normally get paid per hour? What would cost be with that factored in? How are you transporting the wood? Cost of transport?

 

[cbrodsky]

BeGreen -

No comment on the pay per hour. With that factored in, I couldn't afford to heat with wood. But that's like saying is it worth me changing my oil. Well, it costs me about 7 bucks to change the oil and about 20 minutes. So should I not do it if I make more than 21 bucks an hour after tax?

Throw in the cost of mileage to your oil change shop, then the time spent sitting and waiting for it to get done, and you probably still make money. The only time I pay for it is when I need an inspection and have to go anyway but what a PITA in my time.

One other important point about working for yourself around the house - it's like tax-free "income."

Suppose you process a cord of wood worth $160 in 8 hours. You could say that you "made" $20/hr assuming you already own your equipment (as most of us rural folk do).

But depending on your tax situation, purchasing $160 of wood could have easily required that you earn $273.50 at your day job before taxes (assume marginal tax rate of ~41.5% for 28% fed, 6% state, 7.5% social security/medicare) are deducted.

Since most people think of their salary/wage in pre-tax terms, you effectively had to have "earned" $34/hour at a day job to break even with processing your own wood after accounting for the taxes. This can tip the scale quite a bit in these comparisons and when you look at it like this, it's not such a ridiculous hobby to chop wood And if you are scrounging already cut wood from tree services, etc... and further shortcutting the process, it starts to become a no-brainer.

For this reason, I think people frequently underestimate what a drain it can be on your finances to hire out work around the house - it's much more expensive than you think when you are paying with after-tax dollars. That plumber may get $50/hr, but you have to earn about $85/hr to pay him his $50/hr.

-Colin

 

[begreen]

All valid points. But it depends what one intends to do with one's "spare" time. I frequently have a lot more tasks to do besides chopping/spitting wood. I can't do them all so I have to pick and choose. Right now the garden is screaming for attention and there's cherries to be picked. That's when I ask how much am I paying per hour for someone else to do it versus me doing it. Right now I can be a surrogate plumber, electrician, and sheetmetal mechanic, saving me about $50-60/hr. and can hire someone to split for about $10/hr if I provide splitter. Easy math, as much as I enjoy it, I'll be hiring someone to split the pile in all likelihood this year. That is unless someone comes up with a great clone.

 

[BrotherBart]

Yep BeGreen. Probably more important to have your house back on the ground before winter than to have the wood split. And have electricity and water hooked up to it. Some problems in like just have to be pistol whipped with your checkbook.

 

[Choppedliver]

It still blows me away how much shipping is adding to the cost of pellets back east.
I posted are pricing this morning for this fall and I've already gotten someone to call me a gouger

(broken link removed to http://www.pinecam.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31446)

Rocky Mountain Stove 2006 Pellet Pricing

Rocky Mountain Forest Premium Pellets
June 30th. -July 31st.
$180 a ton ($185.40 after tax)

$175 a ton* ($180.25 after tax)
*if you purchase 4 or more tons at one time
ALL PELLETS PURCHASED AT THIS PRICE MUST BE
PICKED UP BY JULY 31ST

August 1st.-Sept. 2nd
$185 a ton ($190.55 after tax)

$180 a ton* ($185.40 after tax)
*if you purchase 4 or more tons at one time
ALL PELLETS PURCHASED AT THIS PRICE MUST BE
PICKED UP BY Sept 9th.

Sept 4th-
$205.00 a ton ($211.15 after tax)
$4.10 a bag#40 ($4.22 after tax)


Rocky Mountain Premium Pellets are 80/20 mix of Radiata/Poderosa pine
testing over the years has always shown 8600-8700 BTU per lb.
Pellets are in 40# bags, 50 bags to a ton (2000lb.)

 

[HarryBack]

wow, CL, Im jealous! My pellets COST me more without freight than you are retailing yours for, and my pellets are coming from only an hour away!
Those seem like fair prices to me.......I SO wish ours were that cheap. Our pellets are Hardwood, rather than softwood, but even so, I think folks dont know a good deal when they see one. Frankly, you could give the pellets away at cost and some folks would still call you a gouger....you could give them the pellets for free, and some folks would be PO'd becuase you didnt stack it in their garage for them....go figger.....
As an aside.....went to school at CSM in Golden....beautiful area.....
I dont really think its all shipping tho adding to the prices....I have a feeling some pellet companies are making an inordinate margin on their product, but, what can you do? Its their perogative to sell at whatever levels they like, and make as much as they like as well. Our only course of action is to buy a chaper pellet from further away and pay more freight.....I pay like $15/ton freight on those pellets an hour away....my next closest option....I pay $45/ton for freight, plus the cost of the pellets...and you know what? It about evens out. Then I go ahead, figure what i want to make in profit, and sell my pellets for that. If folks dont wanna buy my pellets, well, buy from the competition who has no pellets currently...wont have any for 2 months yet. They can always go to a Big Box and buy some in September too, and roll that die...........
Dont let the naysayers get to ya, CL....do what you feel is right....work your hardest....and if at the end of the day everything has gone to poop, you can at least say you did your best. Good Luck! ;-)

 

[begreen]

Yep BeGreen. Probably more important to have your house back on the ground before winter than to have the wood split. And have electricity and water hooked up to it. Some problems in like just have to be pistol whipped with your checkbook.

Well put Bart. House is back on terra firma. Feels good to not be rocking with every footstep.