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brk-lnt · 10-07-2015, 12:55 PM

If you want to really get down to the details, you have to look at the operating cost of the furnace/stove as well.

Our house has 2 oil furnaces, and Harman stove (which is mostly for heating a large room at one end of the house). From doing my generator setup I realized that the furnaces actually use a LOT of electricity (relatively speaking) just to operate. I forget the exact data, but I recall each furnace using about 3x the wattage of the Harman stove (other than startup of course, the stove lights the pellets via electric current). It makes sense, the furnace has a large blower, plus the oil pump/ignition and the Harman has a small blower and the pellet feed motor.

If the price of oil and pellets are within a few % of each other it's probably a wash in terms of TOTAL operating cost. If oil drops significantly below pellets it might make sense to save the pellets.

You also have a sunk cost with the pellets, you're out that dough and using oil will burn (pun intended) even more money.

Overall it seems like it's in the "not worth worrying about it" range. Although if oil drops back to around $1.25 or less per gallon a better conversation might be "should I buy a couple of extra 250gallon tanks and stock up?"

10-07-2015, 12:55 PM	#10
brk-lnt Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: South Down Shores Posts: 1,944 Thanks: 544 Thanked 570 Times in 335 Posts	If you want to really get down to the details, you have to look at the operating cost of the furnace/stove as well. Our house has 2 oil furnaces, and Harman stove (which is mostly for heating a large room at one end of the house). From doing my generator setup I realized that the furnaces actually use a LOT of electricity (relatively speaking) just to operate. I forget the exact data, but I recall each furnace using about 3x the wattage of the Harman stove (other than startup of course, the stove lights the pellets via electric current). It makes sense, the furnace has a large blower, plus the oil pump/ignition and the Harman has a small blower and the pellet feed motor. If the price of oil and pellets are within a few % of each other it's probably a wash in terms of TOTAL operating cost. If oil drops significantly below pellets it might make sense to save the pellets. You also have a sunk cost with the pellets, you're out that dough and using oil will burn (pun intended) even more money. Overall it seems like it's in the "not worth worrying about it" range. Although if oil drops back to around $1.25 or less per gallon a better conversation might be "should I buy a couple of extra 250gallon tanks and stock up?" __________________ [insert witty phrase here]