Convenient Pellet Delivery
As heating fuel prices have soared, more and more people have been taking a look at wood pellet stoves to reduce their utility costs.
Pellets that fuel these stoves are made from wood scraps ground into pellets to form a smooth burning fuel. They are a cheaper way to heat, but they are a bit less convenient than just turning up the thermostat.
The wood pellets typically come in 40-50 pound bags. And every day, sometimes twice a day depending on usage, you have to reload the stove.
But according to Peter Howe of NECN, Jon Strimling had a better idea: Flick a switch to have a hopper load the stove. Then get a guy with a truck to load the hopper for you.
“We’re taking pellets in bulk out of the back of this truck, by bulk I mean there’s no bags in them, and we’re flowing them down this pipe into the garage” says Strimling.
Two fills like this a year should be enough to heat a home. That’s three to four tons of product that the homeowner doesn’t have to move.
Strimling’s company now charges about three hundred and twenty five dollars a ton, delivered, for pellets on pallets. In heating value, 30 to 40 percent less expensive than heating oil. They’ve just started selling hopper systems they hope will make pellets even more popular.
Not only is bulk delivery of the pellets less hassle than pellets in a bag, it costs about 10 percent less too. There’s actually ten to fifteen percent of the product cost tied up the packaging.
Despite the hands-on requirements of wood pellet heating, it’s popularity has grown quickly in recent years. Over 800,000 homes in the U.S. use pellets for some or all of their heat, burning 2.2 billion pounds annualy. The industry has grown to 80 pellet makers and 23 manufacturers of fireplace inserts, stoves, and furnaces.