Calculator
Fuel Cost Comparison Calculator
To use this form simply enter the costs of the various fuels for your region. The form is pre-filled with typical
values for the Northeast United States.
**Average 50 million BTU’s per heating Season – about 3 tons of pellets
Assumptions:
| Fuel | Heating Value | Efficiency |
| Wood Pellets | 16.4 million BTU/Ton | 83% |
| Firewood | 20 million BTU/Cord | 77% |
| Coal – Anthracite | 25 million BTU/Ton | 80% |
| Fuel Oil #2 | 134,500 BTU/Gal | 83% |
| Natural Gas | 1.03 million BTU’s perMCF | 80% |
| Propane | 91,200 BTUs Per Gallon | 80% |
| Electricity | 3413 BTU/Kwh | 100% |
Natural Gas: 1 CCF = 103,000 BTUs
Natural gas: 1 MCF = 10 CCF = 1000 cubic ft
Natural gas: 1 therm= 100,000 BTU
Sources:
Chimney Sweep Online
USDA Forest Service
Energy Information Administration Gas prices
Wikipedia – Anthracite
34 Comments »
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The calculator above doesnt work right for natural gas or propane.
It drops the number you enter.
on your fuel calculator you assume that pellet fuel appliances are 83% efficient. The boiler 2 brands I sell are 90 % efficient and all the stoves I sell are a min. of 86% efficient can you make the efficiency number a variable ?? It is very misleading on operating costs for pellet fueled appliances
[...] Originally Posted by sarti I live in central Illinois and my lock in price for propane is $2.40 a gallon Do you think you can save alot with pellets or corn stove. I hate cutting wood.. I would have to install a stove,,,whats the pros and cons of corn or pellets I installed a pellet stove about 4 years ago (3 winters). I have a propane central furnace (81% efficient) and a 2900 sq ft 2-story house. I have found pellets to be about 45% of the cost of propane on a BTU to BTU basis. I haven’t had a propane fill in those 4 years, I was getting them monthly in the winter before that. Stove is in the living room which is open to both floors. Downside to pellets or corn is: 1) work, you have to store the stuff, haul the stuff in to the house, fill the hopper regularly etc etc. 2) initial cost, I bought top of the line that can burn corn or pellets and spent $4,500 on my stove. 3) circulation, The first floor corner rooms are colder and we run fans all winter to move warm air into them. Big pro to pellets or corn is the stove can run on a thermostat just like propane. Some people have mentioned that the newer ones can even regulate, when the room is warm they just turn way down and when lots of heat is called for they fire up to full. Mine is on/off from the thermostat and the level, low/med/high, is controlled by a switch in the stove. Pellets and propane have gone up every year, so far the difference is still about 45% even though total costs have gone up. My stove will be done paying for itself this halfway into this next winter. Being in the central states both corn and propane are cheaper where you are at. There are fuel calculators out there that can help you determine which is the cheapest heating source… at least for the fuel, installing a system could be quite expensive. One of the calculators: compare wood pellets natural gas propane and electricity [...]
Any idea if pellets will start coming down in price. At $300 a ton they are more expencive than oil. I was told the price of pellets was going up this summer due to the increase in gas prices. So what is the driver now greed? It would be a shame to see this green energy price itself out of the market.
We have 1200 ha planted with jatropha trees in Honduras, we will planting 1000 ha more in this year. The dried fruit has 16000 btu/pound. the principal interest is rpoduce biodiesel, but the tres are young, and the production is very low in this moment, I want to know if there a good idea utilize the dried fruit for a premium pellet with a hig btu and a good density. We are interesting in develop any business in this direction.
thanks
y web page is http://www.agroipsa.com
here in Maine you can get green firewood for about 150 acord. Season it for a year and you have the cheapest way to heat your home. Half the price of wood pellets. As of 10/17/09 oil is cheaper the pellets. If people are going to go throught the expense of changing over to pellets the price will have to get alot lower.
The “Wood Pellets – 16.4 million BTU/Ton ” seems unrealistic to me given that 1 bag usually contains about 8000BTU x 50 bags in a palate(ton) = 40,000BTU/ton.
Anyone know the reason for the HUGE discrepancy?
Hi,
I believe the math goes like this: 8000 BTU per pound, times 40 pounds of pellets in a bag, times 50 bags in a ton would equal 16,000,000 BTU total.
I don’t know if the bags state that they would provide 8000 BTU per POUND of pellets or per BAG of pellets.
I’ll have to read one when I get home. Hope this helps…
Casey
this math is wrong:
8000 x 50 = 400,000
so, I would believe the next post after this one, by Casey.
to clarify my post:
Quote:
“Kat says: The “Wood Pellets – 16.4 million BTU/Ton ” seems unrealistic to me given that 1 bag usually contains about 8000BTU x 50 bags in a palate(ton) = 40,000BTU/ton.?”
end quote.
this math is wrong:
8000 x 50 = 400,000, NOT 40,000BTU
so, I would believe the next post after Kats, by Casey.
Golden Fire Pellets website claims their pellets produce over 8500 BTU’s per pound.
The comparison doesn’t take into account that when my electric furnace is on it heats the whole house, including the bedrooms which aren’t used much other than at night. When the pellet stove it on, it primarily heats about half the house – primarily the rooms that open to each other. It could heat the whole house if it was cranked up but we never use it over low or we’d be toasted out of the room. The stove is manual- no thermostat but who needs it if it’s always on low?
We can easily burn 1700-2000 kwh’s per month without it.
Comparison:
Before stove: 4-15 to 5-19 of 1994 = 2074 kwh’s ,
average 61 kwh’s per day.
Same period next year with the pellet stove:
814 kwh’s average 28 kwh’s per day.
(first one had 34 billing days/ second had 29 but the average still holds.)
First bill was $119/ second (following year) was $46.59.
Given the cost of pellets at $3 a bag back then, figuring 2 days per bag, the stove saved $28 off the electric bill.
If that rate was constant the stove would have paid itself back in 4.46 years. Rounding off to 5 years, since then (if all had remained equal) it would have saved me 3360. It is still operating.
Was basing it on price of stove ($1500).. at $1800 would have paid off around 5.5 years.
Stove is Glo-King P100F.
No- I have no info on who to call for parts (they are defunct.)
Hubby designed a system with a suction fan at the hottest point in the ceiling vented to all the bedrooms via woolly-worm through the attic – now we don’t roast in the family room and the other rooms are well heated at any setting.
From the manual:
my stoves BTU output- 5,673- 37,024
Approx pellet usage per hour: .9 -5.5 lbs per hour
High density pellets average 6% moisture content
1 cord of seasoned wood averages 20%
Green wood- forget it. It’ll weigh 70-100% more than seasoned due
to moisture content. Moisture content also creates creosote in your stove
due to lousy burn.
I’d rather pay for the pellets locally than pay for some sheik’s camel parking.
how much elektricity can be producet from wood prllets ? can you sand me a information on the proortion 1 ton wood pallets /how much kW/h produce
1kw = about 3414BTU/hour. One 40 lb bag of pellets has about 8000 BTU’s. So if you were to burn a bag in 2 hours it would produce about 2.3kw.
Should it not read:
1kw = about 3414BTU/hour. One 40 lb bag of pellets has about 8000 BTU’s/POUND. So if you were to burn a bag in 2 hours it would produce about 93.7kw.
Math: (40 lb/bag) TIMES (8000 BTU/lb) DIVIDED BY (3414 BTU/KwH) = 93.7KwH/bag
“burn a bag in 2 hours”, is strange too
I bit quick I think….2 Day????
if i burn 2 cords of wood a season..how much pellets wood i use. (2 tons? )
thanks
In calculating electrical generation you need to deduct for the eficiency ratio of your equipment. If you are using pellets to make steam and spin a turbine to produce electricity you might only turn30% of your theoretical Btus into electricity. Other equipment might be more efficient.
Alternate Heating System S260. The Bentley of all solid fuel boilers bar non. I put two s260 in last November one in a 8 unit and one in a 9 unit. All the figures are in we burned 8000 gals of oil $24,000.00 in one year with the s260 23.5 tons of Anthracite Coal I paid $150 a ton $3525.00, TOTAL SAVINGS $20,475.00 (and not one penny goes to opec). This is no bull I have the printouts from the oil company. (not 1 drop of smoke comes out of the chimneys clean clean clean). Burns Anthracite coal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LZcxS6mH3E
according to my calculations your coal furnace is newer and more efficient . with that amount of oil at equal efficiency you have twice the mbtus. so instead of 24000 you would have paid 12000. maybe oil has come down in price now compared to coal? if oil has come down it would close the gap even more.
video was removed…. thx for nothing
according to my calculations your coal furnace is newer and more efficient . with that amount of oil at equal efficiency you have twice the mbtus. so instead of 24000 you would have paid 12000. maybe oil has come down in price now compared to coal? if oil has come down it would close the gap even more.
i was just wondering where i can get some maineschoice pellets?
I just bought some at Tractor Suppy. I put a couple bags through my stove and liked the way they performed.
those aren’t maineschoice at tractor supply.
[...] a look at this cost calculator compare wood pellets natural gas propane and electricity It looks like propane is almost 2X more than oil. I would avoid an electric tank-less water [...]
Just found this website. Am putting in a Harman pellet insert (Accentra). The cost calculator is a bit confusing (haven’t spent enough time to work through it) but I did notice you’re using Anthracite coal as the coal representative. Anthracite coal is not used nearly as much as bituminous coal for heating simply because there is far more bituminous coal available country-wide than Anthracite (the main coal producing area is limited mainly to NE Pennsylvania). Anthracite coal burns hotter and with less residue than bituminous because it underwent more heat and pressure when it was formed. On the other hand, bituminous coal is a lot cheaper per ton than it’s metamorphic counterpart.
There is also a new pellet manufacturer here in SW PA–near Uniontown, PA. It’s called TriStateBioFuels (one of many plants, no doubt, that have sprung up across the US in the past few years…). We toured the plant today (long story) but they seem to have a good product–at least by the specs they list on their website–and are reasonablly priced (especially if you come and pick it up . Anyway–great website–we’ll be visiting it often. Nice job!
Hey Mike, Those WERE maineschoice pellets at TSC. They sell other brands as well. Don’t tell me what I did or didn’t buy.
Okies pellets are the way to vi
where does a guy buy some coal in minnesota? I want to mix it into my wood stove in my basement.
Hi Friend
I have gone thru reading Wood Pellets Fuels in your web-site, the more I’ve read the more confuse I get, and I have used a lot of brand name pellets, now I want to know if you going to buy wood pellets which brand are you prefer or your top 10 list??? I also want purchase wood insert stove.”BEST”???
Thanks for your helps
Your helps are highly appreciate.
xj
Hey, I wanna get some of this. Thanks brooooochacho. You made my night ;]
For an inground pool heater what is the most cost efficient fuel. Natural gas, propane or electric and are there significant differences. The pool is 18′ by 36′ and approximatley 25000 gallons. Desired pool temperature is 82 decrees.