I recently updated my fuel cost comparison chart and the results were surprising. As of 3/20/06 it was well cheaper in Metro Boston to heat with natural gas than with wood pellets!
During these times of fuel price volatility, it's prominent to keep a close eye on the association in the middle of fuel prices. Any homeowner who uses a wood pellet stove to supplement a gas furnace could be losing money by lasting to burn wood pellets when the price of gas is falling.
If you can use a calculator, you're only minutes away from figuring out which fuel is the cheapest to burn at any given time.
When you assess fuel heating costs make sure it's apples to apples. The standard quantity used for comparing residential fuel costs is 1,000,000 Btus of fuel heat content.
Cost To Burn Wood Pellets
Since a wood pellet stove needs only 125 lbs (1/16 of a ton) of pellets to create 1,000,000 Btus, divide the cost per ton by 16. At 8 a ton for wood pellets it costs .38 to furnish 1,000,000 Btus.
Cost To Burn Natural Gas
The price per therm (look at your gas bill) of natural gas in Boston is .1813. When you multiply that by 10.30 (10.30 cubic feet) it costs .17 to furnish 1,000,000 Btus.
It's easy to see that natural gas heat now costs about Body.21 less per 1,000,000 Btus than wood pellets.
Here are the quick fuel cost comparison formulas for wood pellets and natural gas:
Price per ton of wood pellets divided by 16 = Cost to furnish 1,000,000 Btus.
Price per therm of natural gas x 10.30 = Cost to furnish 1,000,000 Btus.
The quick formulas are useful only for comparing natural gas to wood pellets since their fuel efficiencies are similar.
If you are comparing fuels with dissimilar efficiencies, all you have to do is find the coefficient of the fuel efficiency percentage rating. Please don't run screaming out the door because I said coefficient. Just divide 1 by the percentage's decimal equivalent to derive the coefficient.
For example: The fuel efficiency rating for natural gas and wood pellets is 85%. If you divide 1 by .85 you get a coefficient of 1.18. Now plug this into the quick method to derive the effective, or true cost, of the fuel you are burning.
Wood Pellets: 8 divided by 16 x 1.18 = .60
Natural Gas: .1813 x 10.30 x 1.18 = .36
By expanding the quick method to contain the effective cost calculation, the spread in the middle of the two fuels has now widened to Body.24.
Assuming fuel prices don't go crazy, you could save as much as while the remainder of this heating season by switching from wood pellets back to natural gas.
When prices do change, you have armed yourself with two simple, yet mighty tools to help you quickly and confidently rule when one fuel is more cost effective than the other.
Here are the formulas to help you rule the true cost to furnish 1mil Btus of heat article for six more fuels:
Electricity: Price per kilowatt hour x 293 x 1 =
Corn Pellets: Price per ton divided by 16 x 1.18 =
Fuel Oil: Price per gallon x 7.1 x 1.25 =
Lp Gas: Price per gallon x 11 x 1.25 =
Wood: Price per cord x .0607 x 1.67 =
Kerosene: Price per gallon x 7.41 x 1.25 =
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