Are you seeing any sales at the New England Big Box Stores this Spring?

I think that around here, wood heating is less popular and the stores just put less effort into the whole thing. Pull the pallets down off the top of the rack in the fall, and put whatever doesn't sell back up in the spring. End of story.

Thanks all for the input and I'll continue to poke around.

 

Come to New England.

 

Hi Folks,
For the past four weeks, I have been purchasing wood pellets on sale from the big box stores.
First, I purchased 12 tons from Home Depot for about $180/ton including shipping.
Then the pellet pig in me got a hold of me, so I purchased another 8 tons from Home Depot
for $180/ton.
Then heating oil prices went to almost $5.00/gal. So, I purchased 8 more tons from
Lowe's at $165/ton including shipping. When Lowe's loaded the eight tons on to
their truck, some
bags had water damage, so they delivered to me, almost nine tons.

Then for a few days I purchased partially damaged bags from Lowe's for $0.50/bag.
(Comes out to $25/ton.) I had to sort through the damaged pallets and put some
torn pellet bags into plastic recovery bags. Plus I had to transport about 30 bags home
at a time in my Cherokee, six trips. I purchased about 3.5 tons as individual bags.
The damaged 50 cent bags are never advertised or listed in inventory. Lowes refuses
to even deliver the damaged pallets of wood pellets because they are losing money on
them and Lowes does not want a customer to ever complain. It works best
if you are good friends with the employees who work in the Garden Center. They
know me well enough to know that I will never complain. (As a pellet pig, wood pellets
bought at a fire sale are a gift from God.) (I hope our forum administrators allow me to
use the word God.)
Feel free to PM me if yon want more details.

 

We all want know where u stored all those tons.. my math sez Bout 28 tons??

 

x2

 

Hi, I bought about 32 tons. Plus I have eight tons left over in inventory that I purchased
two years ago. I have 1/2 acre of property. I have the wood pellets in clusters of about 3 to 7 tons
each, which I have covered with canvas tarps (I purchased from Chicago Canvas and Supply.) I use 16 oz and 18 oz thickness canvas. I have experimented with canvas
sizes ranging from 12' x 12' to 12' x 14' to 14' x 16'.
The porch contains a few
tons and the garage contains three tons. In clusters of pallets stacked side by side in rows two and three deep, it really does not look like 40 tons. A friend was by on Sunday, and he said
that it does not look like 40 tons stored on my property. I am expecting fuel oil and wood pellets to be high in price for the next a few years, until Washington decides to allow the US to become energy independent. (Not trying to be political, just stating an economic fact.)

I have stored most of my pellet inventory outdoors since the pellet sale of Spring 2016. I cover the a pallets with canvas tarps. As long as the canvas tarps do not touch the ground
or hold moisture, the canvas tarps do not not rot for some 5 to 8 years. I have had less than 0.01% loss of pellets due to moisture damage. I always welcome friends and visitors from
wood pellet community to stop by. Feel free to send me a PM if you want my exact address and phone number. My plan in the future is to install a wood pellet boiler (powers forced
hot water zoned heating) and burn both
bulk pellets or bags, whatever is cheaper at the time. The State of NH has rebates for installing wood pellet boilers that use bulk pellets. Over time, we will see more and more
dealers of bulk pellets.

 

Good price for any pellets with delivery. Even GS..

 

I usually pick up my own too. Last time I had delivery was during the firesales in 2015. But, being able to get 6 tons, with delivery for about $3.75/bag, and believing that pellet prices would rise dramatically next fall, I just couldn't turn it down. Was hoping to have work done on my underhouse garage floor this year, but that will have to wait since I'm not moving those 6 tons out of there unless it is to actually burn them.

 

I make sure I have about six tons of wood pellets indoors, by each Fall. That is enough
to heat all winter, if I were unable to bring in more pellets from outdoors. But I have found
that there are enough warm days, and thaws all winter, that I am able to move pellets from
outdoors to inside the porch or my garage. Most of my inventory sits outdoors covered by
canvas tarps.

 

Hi Jay,
Many Lowe's Stores have damaged pallets of wood pellets that do not show up in
inventory and are not sold through the regular process. Lowe's will not even deliver
the damaged pallets because the pallets are written off as a lose. (Lowe's does not make
any money on the $79 deliveries.) I have found that if I
become good friends with the Garden Center employees (A bribe might help, not that I have done
that.), they will allow me to search through the damaged pallets. I have been picking out good
bags, but paying only 50 cents per bag. I am actually helping the Garden Center people do their
job and clean-up the area. Jim (a Lowe's employee) and I have searched through about four damaged
pallets. At most, a damaged pallet might have up to ten damaged bags. That leaves 40 good
bags. I carry masking tape to sometimes cover a few holes. I slide a few bags of pellets into Lowe's
Recovery bags and tie shut the recovery bag with twine. I hauled home several trips, some Northeast
pellets that I was told are leftover
inventory from Winter 2000-2021. I am pleased with the Northeast Pellets. The pellets
are SuperPremium of Spruce and Fur, as communicated to me by Matthew Bell, the CEO of
Northeast Pellet Co. Ashland, ME. In my opinion, the Northeast Pellets sold by the Big Box
Stores and Walmart may be the best deal in existence on wood pellets. A 100% softwood
SuperPremium pellet at big box store prices.

 

So I decided to follow slvrblkk's lead and stalk the Lowes near me. And.... I DID find a couple of them that are selling off at a reduced price. Most of them are still selling at regular price, but Lowes Warrington is selling at $3.58 per bag, and Upper Moreland is selling at $4.17 per bag.

I went to Warrington and they had at least 12 tons up on the racks. Mix of Green Supreme and O'Malleys. I bought a pallet and told them I wanted the GS (and not the Power Pellets). I couldn't tell which GS variety they were from the ground. but out front, they had Allegheny spayed open for individual bag purchase.

So it was about $170 for a pallet and I sprung for delivery. In the end, $250 at my place. Not awesome, but not bad.

What arrived was the Northeast Blend (not the Allegheny hardwood), but I felt kinda awkward telling them that I didn't want the O'Malleys, and I also didn't want the Northeast. I figured I would take my chances on which variety showed up. And of course, Murphy and I are good friends.

So in the end, I've got a fresh ton of shoulder pellets here for $250.

Probably a little too far south for you Lehigh Valley guys, but Tulleytown might be close enough.