The most popular alternatives for whole house or supplemental heating are corn and wood pellet fueled stoves. These appliances are easy to operate and the initial capital outlay is significantly less than solar, wind or geothermal systems.

A vital question to ask before you start evaluating the merits of pellet vs corn stoves should be: “Which fuel, corn or wood pellets, is the most readily available in my locale and therefore the cheapest to burn?”

For instance, in Massachusetts corn for fuel is virtually non-existent. The closest Agway store I contacted (3/2/06) had only eleven, 50 pound bags in stock at a price of $9 each or $360 a ton. Over the course of a New England heating season, a stove will consume 3 tons of fuel. If you compare this to $260 a ton for wood pellets from a well stocked Connecticut supplier, the wood pellet stove becomes your only choice.

Likewise, if you lived in Iowa, why would you buy a wood pellet stove?

In some regions of the country like Wisconsin and Minnesota there is an abundance of wood pellets and corn. According to the dealers I’ve surveyed, wood pellet stoves outsell corn stoves 2 to 1.

Wood pellet and corn stoves have much in common. They are comparably priced at around $2000 for a unit large enough to heat 1200 -1500 square feet, and share an efficiency rating of approximately 80%.

Please note: Since most house layouts do not allow the free movement of air through the house, a centrally located stove will not heat the whole house. If this is the case, size the stove to heat the room where the stove is located.

Both types of stoves require electricity to run fans, controls, and the auger that feeds corn or wood pellets into the stove’s firebox. Under normal usage, they consume about 100 kilowatt-hours (kWh) or about $9 worth of electricity per month. Unless the stove has a back-up power supply, the loss of electric power results in no heat and possibly some smoke in the house.

In addition to weekly ash disposal, both corn fuel and wood pellet stoves need to be cleaned and inspected annually.

The storage of corn, as opposed to wood pellets, can be problematic. Owners of corn burning systems who store corn inside their homes need to use tight storage containers, clean up corn spills immediately, and avoid storing corn for long periods of time to prevent problems with rodents and stored grain insects.

A third option to consider is the multi-fuel stove. Typically they are advertised as corn stoves that also burn wood pellets or vice versa.

The #1 stove with consumers that burns corn as well as wood pellets, is the Dansons Group Cheap Charlie Model HCCC2GD corn burning stove.

I recently updated my fuel cost comparison chart and the results were surprising. As of 3/20/06 it was actually cheaper in Metro Boston to heat with natural gas than with wood pellets!

During these times of fuel price volatility, it’s important to keep a close eye on the relationship between fuel prices. Any homeowner who uses a wood pellet stove to supplement a gas furnace could be losing money by continuing 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 compare 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 generate 1,000,000 BTUs, divide the cost per ton by 16. At $198 a ton for wood pellets it costs $12.38 to produce 1,000,000 BTUs.

Cost To Burn Natural Gas

The price per therm (look at your gas bill) of natural gas in Boston is $1.1813. When you multiply that by 10.30 (10.30 cubic feet) it costs $12.17 to produce 1,000,000 BTUs.

It’s easy to see that natural gas heat now costs about $0.21 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 produce 1,000,000 BTUs.

Price per therm of natural gas x 10.30 = Cost to produce 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 different 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 obtain 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 formula to obtain the effective, or true cost, of the fuel you are burning.

Wood Pellets: $198 divided by 16 x 1.18 = $14.60

Natural Gas: $1.1813 x 10.30 x 1.18 = $14.36

By expanding the quick formula to include the effective cost calculation, the spread between the two fuels has now widened to $0.24.

Assuming fuel prices don’t go crazy, you could save as much as $75 during 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 powerful tools to help you quickly and confidently determine when one fuel is more cost effective than the other.

Here are the formulas to help you determine the true cost to produce 1mil BTUs of heat content 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 =

The first step to buying a pellet stove online is to research which corn, wood or wood pellet stove is appropriate for your home heating needs. Take into account the size of your home, its floor plan (is it open or divided?) and the existing heating system.

A rule of thumb for sizing a wood or pellet stove is 30 Btus per square foot. So a 350 square foot room would require a 10,000 Btu stove. (350×30=10,500)

Now go online and type in “buy wood pellet stove” or “buy corn stove”.

You’ll get 344,000 pages of results from Google. You only need 2 pages worth. Basically there are only three online sellers of corn and wood pellet stoves: Homeclick, MoreHome and NorthernTool.

Check out the over all reputation of the online store you’re considering for your purchase. I like BizRate shopping search for this.

Once you’ve decided which stove to buy, and from whom, there are a few more factors to consider:

Discounts and Credit Sales
10% discounts are frequently available to online wood or pellet stove buyers. Most online stores offer free shipping, zero down and/or extended payments. Some will offer all of the above.

Sales tax
With the exception of a few states, buying online will save you sales tax of 5% or more. For the most part, only online stores with a physical presence in the state where you reside, like Wally Mart, are obligated to collect sales tax.

Delivery
Many stoves bought online include free shipping. However; due to its weight, your stove will be delivered by truck. Don’t count on the truck driver for any help offloading. So unless you have forklift in your garage, you’ll have to recruit some help.

Hopefully, the trucking company will be able to accommodate your schedule. Also, online stove retailers will not deliver to a Post Office box or APO address.

Installation
Don’t bother ordering vent pipes, elbows, etc. from the online store where you purchased your stove. Let your installer order the parts that conform to local building codes. Estimated installation costs will run $400 - $700+. If you don’t know an approved installer, companies such as Service Magic can help you locate one in your area.

Support
Online support can be trying at times. No matter how knowledgeable the person on the other end of your emails is, the information you get is only as good as the information you give.

Substantial savings can be had by buying a wood pellet or corn stove online. It also requires substantial planning, preparation and patience.