Shortage?

[woodsman23]

After reading and replying to many many posts here is it me or is there really a shortage of pellet pipe, pellet stoves and wood pellets. I must be missing something because each hardware store, lumber yardy etc.. has stoves out the wazoo around here. There is plenty of vent pipe from adapters, elbows, thimbles, straight pipes of all brands in excellent supplies around here. So tell me if there is a shortage where you are at.
If anyone really needs something like pipe, parts, etc let me know we may be able to work something out. I would not charge more than what the cost is and shipping.

Jim

 

[schoondog]

Thats cool woodsman. I'm good for now but some folks may not be. I know I was at a Lowes yesterday and they had almost nothing in the way of pellet stoves, pipe or supplies. Getting kinda frustrated at lack of pellets in the area too. I'm hoping there are some deliveries made shortly. Spoke to a guy today who is sellig his Quadra- fire pellet and buying a wood stove due to lack of/cost of pellets.

Schoondog

 

[welshcob]

I'm not seeing any real problem here in the Albany, NY area. I bought my Quadrafire Santa Fe a couple weeks ago and have it scheduled for installation next week. Local Lowes and Tractor Supply have stoves and furnaces on the floor. You're not going to see anything on sale, and you might not get your first choice of stove. I was leaning toward the Castile myself, but they had the Santa Fe in stock and the Castile was supposed to be in the October shipment but no guarantees. Ah well, the Santa Fe seems to be a more practical choice anyway.

Schoondog, keep looking for those pellets. With a little searching around I got three tons of pellets at the Lowes in Colonie for $297 a ton - when I picked the pellets up Sunday they still had several pallets left. The same day they got a truckload, the Lowes in Glenmont also got a shipment - first store had Clean Fire, the second one had Tidy Timbers??? Walmart is still talking $247 a ton, but they don't know when they might get a shipment.

 

[rap69ri]

We're seeing a shortage of stoves here, but pellets and piping can still be found fairly easily.

 

[rmac]

Can't find them here either. HD, Lowes & Walmart say they are coming, but they don't know when. Agway has started a waitlist.....

 

[PDawg]

There are no pellets to be had in central NH. Talked to the local Agway dealer last week, they had over 2000 tons of pellets pre-ordered and are currently working through the list. As of last week they still had over 350 tons to deliver with nothing in stock. I am still waiting for my 4 tons. As for my Harmon XXV, ordered mid June with a late August delivery date, got a call mid August with a new date of early December.

 

[mkmh]

There seems to be no shortage in Seacoast NH, ME at this time.
They have pellst at the Portsmouth NH HD (350) and Wallymart (250).
Ace Hardware Kittery also had pellets and stove.

HD had a bunch of very expensive American Harvest stoves (like 3K installed!). I only saw one reasonably priced Englander and it was kind of tucked away on the other end of the store.

It is going to be kind of comical if it turns out that July and August go down as the worst months for the great pellet shortage of 2008! Clearly the drop in oil prices has taken some pressure off.

 

[mascoma]

Still nothing available in the Upper Valley NH/VT.
Stove shop is selling only to existing customers. $299
I am still waiting for my order from Lavalleys I placed in June for NEWP, they have no clue when they will be able to deliver.
I see a lumber Co in Orford that says they have some for $398/ton...

 

[imacman]

Just went to the Newburgh HD today to get the parts for my pellet cleaner, and they had 2 Englander 25 PDV's in stock....and I didn't see any "SOLD" stickers on the boxes.

 

[MCPO]

I finally saw 2 Englanders for sale in the Pittsfield Ma Home Depot . That tells me the pre orders are filled. I expect to see stoves and pellets en-masse from this point on.

 

[woodsman23]

Lowe's here has pellets for 270 thats the highest i have seen them in this area.

 

[Reyn]

Sorry to hear about the shortages in some areas of the country. We just had our new QuadraFire Mt. Vernon delivered today along with three tons of pellets at $179 a ton. Two major pellet stove dealers in the area had full showrooms and stoves in stock as of last week.

 

[globewyre]

Things may pickup again when heating season starts. The summer was suppose to be a slow time of year.

 

[Mom2Czars]

I ordered 4tons of cleanfire from pelletsales.com in Goffstown, NH about two weeks ago for $289/ton, plus ~$32/ton delivery. Had them within 5 days of payment. Guy even put them into the garage with the forklift.

 

[mloupagu]

I too ordered from pelletsales.com and they had the pellets delivered within a week. Guy with the forklift put the right where we wanted them.....

 

[NevadaBurner]

We're in small-town Nevada and were able to buy a Harmon P-68 and QuadraFire Mt. Vernon with no problem (except $$$). We got together with some friends to order a few truckloads of pellets and ended up getting 10 trucks and 252 tons of pellets. The pellets were $190 a ton.

 

[imacman]

We're in small-town Nevada and were able to buy a Harmon P-68 and QuadraFire Mt. Vernon with no problem (except $$$). We got together with some friends to order a few truckloads of pellets and ended up getting 10 trucks and 252 tons of pellets. The pellets were $190 a ton.

NICE!! It pays to buy in bulk....what brand pellets did you get?

I wish we could get pellets as cheap in the Northeast...the very best price I could find in SE New York was $239/ton.

But there is such a run on people putting stoves in here due to the high cost of oil, it just ran the supply out, and the price higher. Fortunately, the pellets and stoves are starting to be more available now, but the prices have gone up, generally.

 

[NevadaBurner]

We use propane and it's very expensive, too. To heat my house adequately would be about $800 a month ($3.06 a gallon and we use about 250-325 a month)--so our pellet stoves save us lots of money. I'm sure we don't get as cold as you guys--but, we are usually below zero at night. We got White Flame pellets, but could have gotten Eureka Premium, too. The pellets were $145 a ton at the plant--so if you live in Utah--it would have been very cheap. In the stores HD--$300, Wal-Mart $285 and many places for over $300.00. That's why we ordered on our own--people donated the use of forklifts and greatly helped each other load and stack pellets. I have a ton in my pick-up right now that I need to unload and stack for an older couple trying to save money.

 

[www_godzilla]

I went into Lowes and Home Depot this week. Lowes didn't have any stoves. Home depot just received about 12 Englander pellet stoves. First come,first serve there. They also had wood pellets at Home Depot. I didn't see the price. Home Depot had all the accesories to go along with the stoves. Judging by what I have seen this year. Your low end wood pellet stoves can be found if patient.Higher end wood pellet stoves are not around at all. I just ordered a Quadrafire Santa Fe. It was $2099,I had to put a $200 deposit down on it. I was told I would get it by February.ALSO...I have a friend who works for a wood cutting/harvesting company up in Strong,Maine. He mentioned that his company has chosen NOT to get involved in the wood pellet industry.He said they predict that there will be a glut of wood pellets by next year.Therefore,not going to be profitable.

 

[krooser]

I guess I'm really lucky having a GREAT dealer less than 30 miles from my house. They buy pellets by the train carload and bag them on-site. A great softwood pellet that sells for around $220.00 per metric ton (60 bags per ton).

They also sell Marth, Pellet Pro (when available), Bear Mountain (a great fir pellet that's clean and hot... when available) and a few other brands. No shortage here so far... in central Wisconsin.

We also have pellets available at Lowes, Wally World, Home Depot and our local lumber yards.

 

[nhdblfan]

Central NH still has a pellet shortage.I am still waiting on a 4 ton order of NEWP placed in first week of June (paid in full) and the might have it by Nov.Called around a 30 mile area yesterday to the usual suspects (Sam'sLowesHD ect) all out.Did find a small farm store I was able to get 10 bags from out of the 20 they had left.

Stoves caa be had,dealer I picked up my Harman XXV from(June order) last week had a couple Harman P61's and some Brekwell's.

 

[Wet1]

Once all the existing orders get filled, there's going to be a LOT of surplus stoves and pellets on the market.

Oil is now as cheap or cheaper than burning pellets. Lets face it, there have been a lot of people that bought alternative fuel burning devices, and I know most people will use them for a little while, but these people will soon realize they are taking a bath on this. Yes newbies. you've spent a lot of money rolling the dice and it looks like you're crapping out. This includes me... I replaced my pellet stove this year ($1500), pre-bought 5 tons of pellets (at $1025, and still haven't received them), converted my boilers over to NG (about $3500 after doing the work myself), picked up a used wood/coal stove ($700), will have to reline my flu ($1000), and have harvested about 10 cords of wood so far this year. All because I was pissed at big oil. Well, at today's oil prices, my payback should be about 867.9 years, plus or minus a millennium. Okay, maybe not quite that long. Now granted, I have (or will have) plenty of fuel for the coming years, I'll be in a position to burn whatever is cheapest at any given time, plus we all know at some point oil will rise again (although I don't expect to see another bubble anytime soon like we saw earlier this year). Regardless, the people who burn oil and sat back and did nothing to protect themselves against rising oil prices are the ones who inadvertently made the right move. Now granted, most of these same people either 1) couldn't afford to do anything, or 2) had enough money that they didn't care either way. Regardless, these folks appear to be the people who will make out this winter.

If oil remains cheap (and it should until the economy corrects, which won't be this winter), and the pellet manufacturers don't throttle way back after filling existing orders, we are going to see a major surplus of pellets going forward. I can tell you one thing, you won't be seeing $300+ pellet prices next summer!

Me, I'm sure I'm going to make out in the long run since I can now opt for any one of several fuels, but I can tell you this has already been a costly year and the payback will take a little longer than I initially thought.

 

[nhdblfan]

"Oil is now as cheap or cheaper than burning pellets"

Not quite,but getting closer.I ran a chart with pellets at 270.00 ton pellets (what my 4 tons order cost) VS oil at 3.25 (going rate up here) and pellets are still 10.00 cheaper per million BTU's

(broken link removed to http://www.pelletheat.org/3/residential/compareFuel.cfm)

Of course if you factor in buying pellets tomorrow (if you can find them) vs another drop in heating oil we could very easily get to even.I suspect a lot of the drop in oil has been overdone with hedge funds unwinding some over leveraged positions along with liquidating by both Hedge Funds and Mutual funds for redemptions.Just a guess of course as this market is irrational.

 

[mloupagu]

My reason for putting in the pellet stove was not necessarily to save money, YES, that's important..but....I think more importantly I feel good about the fact that I am helping the environment and more importantly, lessening our dependence on foreign oil. Sick of worrying about it and making the sheiks richer and richer.

I am DOING MY PART

 

[pelletizer]

I think wet1 has a point but I don't think oil is cheaper to heat ones home as toasty warm as a pellet stove can do.
I also agree that a lot of newbies will lose interest and go back to oil or what ever they have.
I myself am new this year and I don't see myself bailing on my pellet stove as the heat output and warmth is great.
IF I were to keep my house as warm using oil as it is now with pellets I would be going through a lot of oil.
Funny how pellet prices vary from area to area they seam high here in NE compared to other areas but I think the prices will drop in mid to end winter and that's when north east pellet pigs can stock up at a good price.