pellet vs LP vs cord wood: price of heat calculation

Ok so after 2 years in our new home and coming into our 2nd-3rd winter we find ourselves wanting to cut the LP bill. There are many things I know we can do but since I am a hoarder of chainsaws... LOL...

My question is if anyone has actually looked at the btu price points of LP, pellet, and cord wood.

I have tossed around alot of ideas about alternative heat sources to cut heat bills but it really comes down to economics for me.

Which is cheaper heat?

Cast out the cost of gas, oil, and chain for a moment and logs get delivered right to my house so wood is free practically for me. I want to see what the btu cost is for pellet heat so I can compare to LP and wood.

 

just read this short article...
How Much Does it Cost to Run a Pellet Stove?

it seems they are listing LP, fuel oil, and electric as more expensive than pellet heat.

 

There are calculators for this let me see if I can find you one .

 

Try this one .

Fuel Comparison Calculator for Home Heating

 

thanks, that helps a ton!

even with LP at $0.88/gallon here and me spending $100/cord (not costing me nearly that) and knocking the MMBTU rating of a cord down to 20mil... it still cost 1/2 to heat with wood!

I'm sure changing the effencies will change that a little but that does tell me we need to get something wood burning hooked up to the house!

 

Yes you do I was a wood burner for 20 years ,got in to pellets 5 years ago , I like it so much I'm replacing the wood burner with another pellet stove . My only other option is electric not cheap if you have other ??? lots of good folks here to help .

 

Don't forget to figure in that a stove is NOT a central heating system. Some rooms will be cool while others very warm. Do you have a basement? where will you locate the stove? Do you want your bedrooms as warm as the rest of the house? Now, there are pellet furnaces and wood furnaces. They will heat the whole house much as the same as central heating system. We often change to wood and pellets and think how much we saved without consideration to the fact that not all the home is being heated the same.

 

Nice pun! I do same thing except my options are fuel oil, wood, and pellets. Wood is still cheaper for me with very efficient stove but pellets are higher than oil right now and are more of a PITA cleaning stove only 24 hours on hopper etc...

Thanks will711 for a great chart

 

Thanks from me also. I keep loosing the one I had. This time I have downloaded that URL in a file.

 

Here's another one if you guys want to compare:

Compare Fuel Costs

 

How disheartening - you at 88 cents/ gallon - me at $2.50+/gallon. Guess that is why I don't even blink at prices of pellets that so many people are upset about - I still pay $12 less per million BTU's using pellets (plus can heat the basement too, which my FHW is not set up for).

 

Hey Dex! You coming back out to Iowa this fall???

That can be a cost of living thing too... I know alot of east coast guys that do the same exact work I do, and get paid 1/3 more out east.

Honestly I really can't complain about cost of wood. I have a local tree service that brings me loads of oak, ash and maple trunks 40-50" in diameter right to my log landing. They also drop their wood chips too. So I use the wood chips to make a nice soft landing to cut and split wood on. Also helps b/c you don't have to worry about getting your chain in the dirt. I wasn't too thrilled about maple wood but that's easy cant wood for GTG's and it dries quick and is good starter wood to get a hot bed of coals going. Also had a buddy bring me a bunch of green treat decking to make some HD storage pallets that I can pick up with my 3 point forks. So receiving, transporting and storing wood became a lot easier for me this year.

We still don't have anything that burns wood or pellets hooked up in the house. I think I might take my 30gal boiler up to the house from the shop and then modify the old 250gal Dahl wood boiler for the shop. You'd think I'd want it the other way around but I have my reasons...

Thanks for the links guys!

 

Let's see 1/3 more of 88 cents is $1.20 (rounded). Nope, that don't account for it. It is actually because every blessed ounce of the stuff is trucked in from a gajillion miles away. And then I am out away from any of the larger towns, which means they stack on more trucking charges.

 

yea we are 2.5 miles from our Co Oil company that fills our tank. I also know the guy that drives the truck. We also get a 0.10/gal discount for paying cash on delivery which saves a little.

 

Got a Propane delivery today. I didn't schedule it, but that is OK. I was surprised that the cost was down to $1.53/gal.
using the cost calculator, the cost of a million BTU is $17.63. For pellets, @ $250/ton, the cost is $19.15 per million BTUs. For #2 oil, @ $1.88/gal, the cost is 17.47 per million BTUs.
Then today on the news, OPEC says that it will be 25 years before oil is $100/barrel. I'll still burn pellets, but I won't be so aggressive. I am under no delusion that these prices will remain steady.