$$$$ question

[stallau]

I've been watching the price of brent oil go down so nicely in the last few weeks and was wondering how you figure out what the price of oil would have to be for figuring when oil would be cheaper than the pellets I've bought??

I don't think its close though.

I saw somewhere once that a ton of pellets is equal to about 125 galls of oil. So with my awesome math skills I figuring that oil would have to be $2.40 (I have a dream) to basically be equal.

Is my math right or have I been sniffing too much ash dust??

 

[BrotherBart]

You won't see $2.40 but you will see gradual decline at least until December. The WTI Brent spread is pretty much meaningless anymore but we are up to our ass in crude oil.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

It's just a matter of how much it costs to generate a given amount of heat with a particular fuel, at a particular efficiency.

Here is a link to a calculator: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/

 

[TimfromMA]

Its not a straight forward BTU vs BTU calculation. I use alot less BTUs from my pellet stove than I do from oil furnace even though I keep the thermostat set at 70.
I was able to cut 600 gallons of oil from my annual consumption amount when I switched to pellets. To make a long story short, oil would have to drop below $2 per gallon OR pellets would have to climb above $550 per ton for my oil furnace to become the cheaper alternative.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

Its not a straight forward BTU vs BTU calculation. I use alot less BTUs from my pellet stove than I do from oil furnace even though I keep the thermostat set at 70.
I was able to cut 600 gallons of oil from my annual consumption amount when I switched to pellets. To make a long story short, oil would have to drop below $2 per gallon OR pellets would have to climb above $550 per ton for my oil furnace to become the cheaper alternative.

Then suggest you either have several parts of your home that are cooler using pellet stove vs. oil furnace (true for almost all of us, and for us not an issue) and/or that you have leaky ducts. So sure, you do need to factor those items in to whatever degree you can. But as for what's generated at the appliance, and a more reliable and repreatable method for a person to calculate costs, an online calculator works well. Otherwise, you're just winging it with a guess.

 

[TimfromMA]

Could be any number of reasons. The savings I see are the only calculation I care about.

 

[moey]

There are a lot of factors that come into play. You can simply do a btu to btu comparison but unless you had a very very knowledgeable person install your central heating system its probably choked/flawed in some way causing your efficiency to be much lower then stated. The same holds for a pellet stove but you do not have to factor in a crappy distribution system it also helps that pellet stoves are undersized.

Many folks on here have terrible central heating systems its evident by how much oil they state they burn in those cases a pellet stove is a great choice as it saves them lots of coin.