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[mountainman]

In western Maine, former ski mogul Les Otten is banking on European wood pellet furnaces with his Maine Energy Systems Inc., which he launched with two other investors. Otten once headed American Skiing Co. and was later a part-owner of the Boston Red Sox.

Otten already has 400 orders even though he hasn't taken delivery of his first shipment -- they're not due to arrive by container ship until later this month. To fuel those furnaces, he's arranging for a fleet of trucks to make home deliveries of pellets made at plants in Maine, New Hampshire and Quebec.

Otten, who has a pellet furnace in his home in Greenwood, said it works much like existing forced-water heat systems, except the burner is fueled with wood pellets rather than oil or natural gas. Pellets are made out of compacted sawdust, wood chips or other wood material and look something like rabbit food.
Not a bad idea though hope he has better luck with this adventure.

 

[AdironRider]

If I was building a house, and hopefully I will within the next 5 years, thats the route Im going.

 

[Moe Ghoul]

My friend has one with an autofeed, works well, but he noticed the pellet prices have gone up. I think a pallet ran him about 300$. .

 

[Sky]

I thought of swapping my wood stove for a pellet version...but opted to stay put.

One reason....the wood stove is great during a power loss. I'm thinking, no power, no pellet stove.

As for heating the house (forced hot water), it would be no different than any thing else electrically controlled.

I suppose there's always the personal generator option.

 

[hardline]

the pellets are like any commodity. if demand is up the price will go up.

 

[Terry]

the pellets are like any commodity. if demand is up the price will go up.

And I think the supply will become scarce. At least with a woodstove you can always find wood to burn. The pellets are a specialty item and you can't burn anything else in the stoves.

 

[deadheadskier]

the pellets are like any commodity. if demand is up the price will go up.

yep, if you can find the pellets at all.

A friend of mine works for a wood pellet stove dealer. Already for next winter, they will only sell pellets to people who purchase a stove from them.

I'm sure there will be plenty of other 'best' ideas that come out in the coming years that ultimately will end up being no more affordable or better for the environment than what is currently available. Just like with automobiles, the biggest way people will save will be through downsizing to smaller, more efficient houses.

The gov't was way behind the 8 ball in demanding higher mpg standards for the nations auto fleet. The next area that needs a series look is insulation ratings for homes and overall energy needs to heat a home. People don't 'need' 3000+ square foot homes with todays average family size. Just like they don't 'need' a suburban to transport a family of 4.

 

[Geoff]

And I think the supply will become scarce. At least with a woodstove you can always find wood to burn. The pellets are a specialty item and you can't burn anything else in the stoves.

The supply already is scarce. I know people who are scrambling to find pellets.

In the medium term, I think this is a good way to go. If I were installing a system this year, I'd certainly want a backup that ran off oil or gas in case I couldn't obtain pellets.

 

[deadheadskier]

supply for the stoves alone is scarce. If you haven't bought in yet, it will most likely be too late for next winter

http://seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080713/NEWS/80713007

 

[noski]

True on the scarcity of stoves. We bought the last one that was part of the 2008 allotment for this one dealer. It will be shipped in November. We will continue with propane boiler for auxilary. Due to the frequent outages here in the hills, we will use our generator- though there is a battery back up for the stove, but would only last about 12 hours.

I think the pellets will become more available as teh market calls for more and more facilitites are brought on line. I would think that for things like this, market demand will increase production once the initial squeeze is over. Our pellets are about $245/ton.

 

[Stache]

Maybe my info is out of date but a few years ago when I looked into pellet stoves (Austroflame with a baking oven on the top) they could burn pellets or CORN. The feed motor ran on 12 VDC so if 110VAC went out you could run on a car or other 12V battery. Also a ton of pellets and a cord of wood offered about the same BTUs for about the same $$. I opted for the real wood stove for the availabilty and the ambiance. My wife still wonders how much cleaner a pellet stove would have left the carpet.

 

[jarrodski]

i've been looking into a geo-thermal instalation at my place. I know its stupid expensive up front, but the consitancy of earth's sub surface temps makes sense to me, that you can capture it with a radiator system of sorts and use it to heat / cool your home. I dont see any need to do much more with it than install it, and then use the wood stove to gain more heat if we find it neccessary...

What i do know at this point is that I'm getting sick of paying for oil and will be working on getting away from it as soon as I can. It's lame to think that its that expensive for reasons I don't understand.

 

[eastcoastpowderhound]

economics 101...supply of pellets is being outpaced by demand so the prices will go up. I've got a buddy who's the operations manager of a large paper mill, he says the demand for pellets has outpaced the supply of timber industry "by product" that has typically been used to make the pellets. So now the pellet companies are harvesting trees to make pellets...that's driving up the prices for anyone using lumber...paper mills, wood furnaces, pellets, etc. It also still takes a tremendous amount of oil to harvest the trees, convert them to pellets and deliver the pellets to your house. If I could start over I'd opt for a combination of wind, solar, and a more energy efficient home construction.

 

[o3jeff]

I picked up 3 tons of pellets last month for $245 a ton and I think that is still what they are getting for them this month. I read on the pellet stove forum and I don't know how true it is is that 110 gallon oil = 1 ton of pellets, so if it is true, there is a big savings at $245 a ton for pellets.

As far as pellet supply, I don't foresee that being a big problem even though lumber sales are down and that is were the pellet dust comes from. They can just make the dust from the lumber they aren't producing.

 

[deadheadskier]

they could burn pellets or CORN.

stated this opinion elsewhere in another thread, but I CAN'T STAND the concept of utilizing the bread basket for fuel.