High cost of winter heating fuel

[Larry]

We usually fill our propane tanks July or August to get a cheap price and we can make it through the winter without a fill up.  I ordered propane about 3 weeks ago and the cash price was $1.15 and the contract price even higher.  Took delivery today and found out it is still going up.  Highest price I have ever seen.  A lot of people could really hurt if we have a bad winter.  I suspect we are really being gouged on the price of propane.  

Looks like a real good year for firewood cutters.  Think I will add a little extra automation to my old splitter as it might get quite a bit more use this year.

[sprucebunny]

Is that $1.15 a gallon?? They got $1.80/gal. here last winter, Sometimes more.

[Patty]

Contracts up here were $.98 a gallon . We chose not to do the contract with hopes that the price would come down .

[Norm]

The main reason we don't contract for LP is they make you gestimate what you're going to use for the season, oh yeah that's easy to do in June. The futures price is way off it's highs but the coop is stuck with what they paid and try to pass it on. I was going to try and hold off on putting in a wood boiler but prices like that may change my mind.

Maybe I'll just hook up a flexible pipe to elmer and recycle that methane. ;D

[Ed_K]

 We're doing the contract price here, at $1.45  :'(. They are talking that fuel oil will be $1.70 by Dec.

[chet]

Propane here is $1.55 if you own the tank. Not sure what fuel oil is, but off road diesel is $1.60, so it must be there abouts. Sure glad I heat with nothing but wood.  

[Minnesota_boy]

Maybe I'll just hook up a flexible pipe to elmer and recycle that methane. ;D

Patty,
I want a copy of the video!!!  :D

[Frank_Pender]

I purchased some propsane this morning for $1.65 that I use for my splitter.  :-/ I do not know what bulk costs are.

[bull]

Burn Wood !!!! If you have your own supply.... Seasoned wood is selling for $ 165.00 a cord and is headed for $170.00 next week, we go up $5.00 a cord every two weeks until we are out
of wood. Actually sold the last cord for 2003 January 5th 2004  @ $255.00,guy called said he had electric heat and was going to be out of wood and had $255.00 in cash if delivered the next moring 8) he got his wood !!

[GF]

Propane went up here about 15 cents a gallon to current price of about $1.45 on average.  Curious if anyone is using any of the corn burning stoves and how well they work compared to a pellet stove.

[MrMoo]

We got a propane delivery in June and it was $3.25 a gallon! Glad we only use it for cooking.
Fuel oil is about $1.45.
Happy to say though we heat with wood and can supply that ourselves  8)

[Ron Wenrich]

I heard a report that said that heating oil will be going up in price, but not as much as propane.

The problem with propane is that they had a huge expansion in demand over the last several years.  A lot of small gas-fired power plants have been put in.  They were brought on line when gas was cheap.  Now, there is excess demand.

Let's hope the winter isn't too cold.

[SwampDonkey]

Well I got two years worth of wood sittin in my yard ready to go in. I filled my oil tank which was half full (200 gallon take), cost me $250 so it didn't go up too much cause a full tank cost me $480 last year. I use it for backup when away from home for a day or two. Year before last to fill the tank it was $370. Well, 2 cord of wood is equal to 1-1/2 tank fulls of oil and it cost me $118/cord treelength. I actually like handling stove wood and it feels alot nicer than oil heat in the winter.

cheers

[Ron Scott]

Current local costs here posted 9/13/04 are:  

Propane: $1.39 per gallon
Fuel Oil: $1.59 per gallon
Natural Gas: $66.2 cents per cubic foot
Wood: $45.00 per face cord.

Some cost estimates to heat a 2000 square foot house are:

Wood: $500.00
Wood Pellets: $700.00
Propane: $1000.00 - $1200.00

[Patty]

Minnesota boy,

If I could get a video of that little scene, I'd be a rich woman.  ;D

Seems we have several "should've had a camera" scenes around here with that darn pig.  

[beenthere]

Current local costs here posted 9/13/04 are:  

Propane: $1.39 per gallon
Fuel Oil: $1.59 per gallon
Natural Gas: $66.2 cents per cubic foot
Wood: $45.00 per face cord.

Some cost estimates to heat a 2000 square foot house are:

Wood: $500.00
Wood Pellets: $700.00
Propane: $1000.00 - $1200.00

Bringing this forward. Prices are higher, but appear to be coming back down a bit.

Looked at the propane prices for the last 5 weeks reported for WI, and see that the residential propane price has dropped from $2.34 down to $2.22 in 5 weeks.
However, interesting that the wholesale price dropped from $1.44 to $0.97 in the same time.
That is about a 5% drop compared to a 33% drop. Wonder if going up would be so slow to react to the wholesale price change. ??

Heating oil was at $3.62 per gallon, and dropped to $2.67, for a change of about 26%.

[Kansas]

I see the local farmers co-op has propane now at 1.89.   For once, procrastination paid off-I didnt get around to prepaying at the higher prices this summer.

[flip]

I had them top it off last week, they put in 50% and handed me a bill for $610   $2.19/gal.  I thought LP would have gone down with the price of fuel ???

[Norm]

Not sure about others but our coop contracts a price in the summer and then sends out contracts to us at that price. I did not prepay but did contract a gallon amount at $2.38. I'm going to see what cash prices are here in a couple of weeks as the price of natural gas is dropping fast. I can assure you as most know that someone along the line from well to me is making a killing.

[Kansas]

Used to be able to simply contract , but they have it now that you either have to prepay(and get a few cents discount) or put 10% down. They used to have what they called maximum price contracts, but havent seen those for a few years. About 5 years ago propane was very high in the summer, and then dropped a bunch. Coop didnt drop the price all winter, meaning those maximum price contracts were worthless. Thats when I switched propane companies.

[mike_van]

I paid 2.99/gal this afternoon to get to gas grill  tanks filled     Oh well, we won't have to eat raw meat at least -  :D

[Ironman]

One thing we can all do to support loggers and renewable 'wood' heat is to put in pellet stoves.  They provide a real efficient heat source and the pellets are compressed wood, courtesy of the local logger.  Some pellet mills pay in excess of $30 a ton for raw softwood that would otherwise go to the pulpwood mill for $15.

From everything I have seen these pellet mills can really help improve the local economy for loggers.  Primarily because it creates a demand for raw wood and gives another outlet to local loggers for their less than lumber grade logs.

At one point I had a logger in CO tell me he was no longer grading his wood because the pellet mill was paying $40 a ton and it did not make any sense for him to take it anywhere else.

There are some really affordable stoves out there that will heat a home all winter for a little more than $100.  I saw one recently that you could tie into your central ducting system and it was really slick.  It would live in the garage, like the water heater.  I think the price was $2 or $3,000.

[Corley5]

I don't know how it is in the rest of the country but up here if you didn't get your winter supply of pellets by August you're WAY down on list waiting for them.  I've picked up two firewood customers who dumped their pellet stoves because of  the availability issues associated with pellets

[SwampDonkey]

They are on long lists here waiting to. Part of the problem, and often biggest part of the problem depending on where your are, is they are mostly exported to Europe to help meet 2020 emission targets under Kyoto.

[Corley5]

There was talk here a year or so ago about a pellet plant coming into the old GP plant in Gaylord.  It didn't happen : :(  If it would have all of its production would have went to Europe  :-\