I have an ominous feeling that this inflationary economy as well as the huge increase in the cost of diesel fuel, will combine to set pellet prices substantially higher than in 2021. Glad mine are all in the barn presently because I bet 400 bucks a ton won't be unusual, maybe even 500 a ton. and Delivery cost will be high as well. Considering the escalating price of utility payments, they will still be a good buy, just a lot more expensive buy.
agree.... we can complain about the increase of pellets but all the other utilities will go up also so...... i will stick with pellets as opposed to heating oil...I do buy top softwoods as i can lower my feed rate and still put out more than sufficient heat.. more control of heating is what i am getting at.
Pellets aren't produced in a vacuum. The costs for manufacturers have increased far more than the "official" inflation rates.
I am watching them climb a bit, I pre bought 2 tons for the first time in 10 plus years. Matra for 310 and logik softwoods 1.1 ton 325.50. I had to replace my oil hw heater, went to electric. Though oil is close to 4 bucks a gallon I will use that as backup as I have a few hundred gallons in my twin tanks. I used to work at a place that sold them will be interested to see the cost, as I can check with a friend to see what they paid for them.
Good price for The Matra. Over 8800 BTU. I buy them exclusive now. Used to burn Douglas firs but the cost now is ridiculous. It's the shipping cost from Pacific Northwest.
Starting this month the cost of electric will double from previous. So if I use the same amount of electricity, 368kwh, in August as I did in July (and at the way the month has been so far, I'm guessing more), my bill will be up by $42. this is a pass-thru cost, no profit but is purely based on the price of propane (the main electricity generator used for my area). If mine is going up by that much (figure ~$500/year), I can't imagine what businesses are going to be paying. They will have to offset that cost with even higher prices - and that doesn't include gas/oil/propane cost increases over last year. Glad I have 6 tons in the garage plus another 2 in the basement.
Yesterday, 8/4/2022, the peak hour wholesale electricity rate for the day in Maine was $317.60/MWh. Just under 32 cents per kwh. This is wholesale, not retail and is for the cost of electricity only, not delivery. Two years ago, on 8/4/2020, the peak hour wholesale electricity rate for the day in Maine was $36.77/MWh. Under 4 cents per kwh. This is having a huge impact on manufacturers.
I agree on the huge electric wholesale increase, but you picked a bad day. August 2020 Hurricane Isaias was rolling through new England, cloudy, windy rainy, and in Ct we had 800,000 power outages, so demand was way down . Yesterday was record heat. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Isaias_2020_track.png Seeing the same crazy rates with my natural gas. I'm getting pizzed how so much gas is getting shipped overseas driving up US rates. What will prices look like in January and February ?.. We need that gas here in USA.
I see a lot of retailers are close to the $400 a ton for premium pellets, jumping $5-10 every few weeks. Glad I prepaid, picking up next month.
Peak hour August 4, 2013 was $35.47 Peak hour August 4, 2014 was $47.79 2015: $47.14 2016: $46.09 about the same all the way to 2021 Even 2021 wasn't as bad. Higher than normal but nothing like this.
Lots of factors causing the increase in utility rates, many of which cannot be discussed on here but the bottom line is, it will be exponentially more expensive this winter than last winter no matter what you use for heat. NG, oil hardwood pellets or even chuck wood. I know, chunk wood?? The gas to run the saws and splitter has went way up like the bar oil. In the grand scheme of things it's still cheaper to burn alternate fuels, just cost more than last year. One of my renters was complaining about their electric bill going up to which I commented. 'you aint seen nothing yet'. Told them to turn down the ac and open the windows...lol
I believe that 400 a ton will be a bargain this year. Folks that pre bought (like I did will be ok this year but when the pre bought is gone... Well you know the answer to that.
It's a viscous circle Scott and you are caught in the middle of it too. Maybe it's time to extrude pellets during off peak times like in the night...lol
Just keep in mind young lady, when they are gone, they are gone and you'll replace them at the current price whatever that will be.
Yeah, that goes without saying - not sure exactly why you needed to tell me that because that is true of everything and shouldn't be a big shock to anyone. Once my solar array is installed I'll be able to use the mini split to heat without paying more for electricity than I did last year. I have a minimum of 1.5 years worth of pellets (if I only used pellets stoves and it is a hard-azz winter) and perhaps 3 years worth of pellets.
Why I'm fortunate to have a basically never ending supply of off grade seed corn to burn (even though seed corn produces 5 times the ash of wood pellets), the no initial cost outweighs the ash issue and gives me the option of running straight corn or mixing it with pellets I could make the 5 ton in the barn last maybe 5 years if I adjusted the mix ratio. I don't see pellet prices ever dropping, only increasing as the cost of production climbs. I remember back when I started roasting biomass, a ton of pellets was $110.00
Absolutely it is and not just in New England either but here in the Midwest too and input energy costs equate to higher product costs which contribute to inflation, viscous circle that consumers get to bear the brunt of.
Yup back in the day I was exclusive blazers and then was one of the first VT people, had a bad batch of VTs so it left a bad taste in my mouth. Matras are my first try, logic softies burn great.
Well, like everything else concerning heat, residential propane here is at $2.79 a gallon delivered. I'm sitting on 3 tanks at 85% currently and I just pre bought another 500 gallons at $1.99. Typically I use around 500 gallons per heating season on the average, most of it goes to heating the shop.
I just stacked 5 tons of DF's from the local mill. I paid $200/ton and may go back for 2 more tons just because I have the room.
