The soaring price of home heating oil has many people who rely on it scrambling for affordable alternatives, and at least one of those alternatives reportedly has produced a 22-week backlog of orders.
The backlog is for pellet or bio stoves, among the cheapest forms of home heating. Other alternatives range from geothermal heat pumps to electric heat pumps and gas furnaces.
Geothermal heat pumps, once installed, offer the most economical cost of operation. The downside: installation of that type of system costs in excess of $40,000.
Aside from geothermal systems, operating an electric heat pump system may be the cheapest way to heat a home, according to Mel Johnson, owner of Carl & Dan Heating & Wiring Co.
"I try to talk most people into heat pumps," Johnson said, considering the moderately priced installation and operating costs.
Installing an electric heat pump system in an existing home costs between $5,200 and $6,000, according to Johnson.
Wintertime operating costs are much cheaper with an electric system than oil, according to Johnson. He said the seasonal difference is about $1,000 versus $2,500.
"With the economy the way it is now, people are taking a lot of them (oil burners) out," Johnson said. "This week, I got rid of two oil burners and put two heat pump systems in."
As oil prices remain high, Johnson has noticed that fewer people are getting their oil burners cleaned. He reported no more than three maintenance calls so far this year, compared to 30 for all of last year.
Avery Mullens of AC Mechanical has helped other homeowners leave their oil heaters behind in favor of natural gas systems.
He said he gets an average of eight daily calls from people who are interested in changing from oil to gas systems.
For a home that has existing hot air ductwork, it would cost about $2,500 to convert to a gas furnace, according to Mullens. It costs about $7,000 to install new ductwork and a new gas furnace in a newly constructed home, he said.
Especially troublesome with oil systems, Mullens said, is efficiency levels of about 83 to 86 percent.
Backing Mullens' claim, Glenn Markle, owner of Markle's Plumbing & Heating, said natural gas furnaces definitely are becoming more popular.
The ignition unit is the heart of efficiency, according to Markle. Gas furnaces can be anywhere from 80- to more than 90-percent efficient, he said.
Throughout the home, higher heating efficiency may be achieved through extra piping in various rooms, Markle said.
On the flipside, coal heaters seldom are installed today, according to Markle. He stays busy installing gas and other units, but hasn't fitted a home for a coal furnace in at least two years.
"There's not a big call for coal," Markle said.
Coal can be messy, according to Markle. "Some people don't want coal to be in their basement," he said. "They don't want to clean the ash."
Markle prefers to burn wood or oil to heat his own home.
Several years ago, he found it convenient to burn oil that cost 69 cents per gallon. Since that price is now beyond $4, he's been burning more wood, which is about $70 a cord when he doesn't gather it himself.
Burning oil was more convenient than cutting and stacking his own firewood, but Markle doesn't mind the extra chore when oil prices are high.
Wood tends to thoroughly heat a room, according to Markle. "You get hotter heat with wood," he said. "It makes the room hotter."
Markle has been meeting with many homeowners who want to convert their coal furnace to gas or oil. Considering the installation of a new furnace and the routing of new piping, that costs anywhere from $6,000 to $6,500, he said.
Some homeowners are getting rid of oil heaters for electric heat pumps, according to Matt DiRocco of Airmen HVAC Service.
"They're probably the most popular selling system this year," DiRocco said of electric heaters. "A lot of people are wanting to get off oil." He attributes that to the high price of home heating oil.
A homeowner who switches from oil to electric heat pays between $5,000 and $7,000 for the conversion, DiRocco said. A new electric heat pump system and all related ductwork costs between $7,000 and $10,000 in a new home, he added.
As for the operational costs, DiRocco said it costs about $2,627 to burn 565 gallons of oil annually if the price of the fuel is $4.65 per gallon.
In comparison, the annual operational cost of electric heating is about $1,600 for a standard system, he said.
Natural gas usage is even more affordable, at about $945 annually, according to DiRocco. Using geothermal heat is even cheaper, at about $715 per year, he said.
Another form of alternative energy involves burning cherry pits in "bio stoves," which are increasing in home heating popularity, according to David Zavetsky of Affordable Alternative Energy.
The stoves are capable of heating small homes around 1,500 square feet, he said. Another advantage is the ease of burning a variety of fuel, including the cherry pits, corn kernels and wood pellets.
Zavetsky sells outdoor stoves that can heat an entire home and indoor stoves that are used as space heaters for rooms. Those two kinds of stoves are similar in that they both are meant to burn wood pellets.
Cherry pellets are becoming more popular to burn than wood pellets or corn kernels because of lower fuel cost, Zavetsky said.
The cherry fuel also is dry, Zavetsky said. That helps the pits burn efficiently.
Zavetsky referred fuel prices to Craig Hampson, who owns Agway stores in Wellsboro and Mansfield.
The disadvantage of using cherry pellets is their scarcity, according to Hampson. He said he doesn't carry them in stock and is uncertain of their prices.
He is familiar with the going rate of wood and corn pellets, though.
Wood pellets, according to Hampson, cost somewhere between $220 to $260 per ton. Seasonal price is dependent upon the manufacturer's wholesale price and transportation costs, he said.
Homeowners will need anywhere from three to four tons of pellets annually, Hampson calculates.
Lighter amounts of corn pellets are required, Hampson said. "Corn has more BTUs per ton than wood, due to the oils and sugars in it," he said. Cherry pellets also carry a high British Thermal Unit of energy, according to Hampson.
Corn pellets cost about $320 per ton, he said.
Outdoor pellet stoves and bio stoves each cost somewhere between $5,000 and $6,000 and indoor pellet stoves cost about $2,000 to $3,000, according to Zavetsky.
A disadvantage to installing any of those three stoves is the 22-week backlog, he said.
