BY GINGER KOZLOWSKI

If there’s one person who’s doing well in this changing economy, it’s John Labbe.

Labbe is the owner of Hearth Designs in Hooksett, and he sells pellet stoves, wood stoves, fireplaces and other heating-related items.

With people looking for alternatives to heating with oil, he said pellet stoves are outselling wood and gas stoves 10 to one, and his store has been swamped.

“Most people have already decided they want a pellet stove,” said Labbe, about the customers he has. “They’ve done their research.”

And no wonder. Heating with wood pellets has become considerably cheaper than heating with oil. That is, as long as pellets are priced about where they are currently – around $280 to $300 a ton.

Labbe said the energy output of pellets at $280 per ton is equal to the energy output of oil when it’s at $2.40 per gallon. Those days appear to be far behind us, with fuel oil well above $4 a gallon.

It’s an investment, though, to convert or supplement your home’s heating system. Pellet stoves run about $3,000 to $4,000 installed, said Labbe, so it can be daunting to come up with that kind of money when one is already struggling to pay last year’s oil bill. And the stove really won’t eliminate your oil bill, as it’s more of a supplementary system that allows you to turn your oil system down or even off, depending on the configuration of your house and how warm you want each room to be, said Labbe.

How to decide if it’s worth it? It’s not easy.

“Electricity follows gas and oil prices,” said Tom Belair, a spokesman for Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH), which provides electricity to this area. “It doesn’t matter what (fuel) you use, efficiency is what’s important.”

Belair points out that all forms of energy tend to rise together, so it may not be long before pellets, electricity and gas go up in price as well, negating the savings you expect from a conversion or supplementary heating system.

Indeed, pellets and cord wood are already in high demand and low supply, according to Lester Robinson, manager of Osborne’s Agway in Hooksett.

“We’re out of wood until September,” said Robinson.

His store sold out of pellets when they advertised a pre-season sale in May and June for $250 per ton. His vendor now can’t guarantee product until September, and he expects it will cost about $300 a ton.

“We cut our own firewood,” he said. “Had 100 cords, we sold it all.”

And it’s not just fuel. He said his Agway has sold more vegetable seeds and chickens this year than ever before, with people trying to save money by growing their own food and getting eggs fresh from the chicken.

So what do you do about that high heat bill?

“Make sure you’re not wasting (energy),” said Belair. “Making a long-term decision (based on today’s oil prices) may be short sighted.”

Diversity is probably a good idea, he said. Adding a pellet stove to an oil system at least gives you the choice of using whichever fuel is least expensive at the time. Having an electric space heater in the one room you sit in in the evening and turning down the heat in the rest of the house can save on the oil bill.

But make sure that portable space heater is safe, Belair emphasized. It shouldn’t be used as your main heating source.

“Buy a safe one!” he said.

Solar power could help 

BY JENN MCDOWELL 

While solar energy can save homeowners big on their heating bills, it’s pricey to install and based on current heating oil prices can take over five years to pay for itself, according to Malik Haig of Sustain Ablity New Hampshire, a Laconia-based solar products distribution company.

Haig said manufacturers have said a solar air heating system could save about $500 per year on fuel bills. “But of course, that was based on last year’s prices,” Haig said.

A solar air heat box can alone warm up to 1,000 square feet, Haig said, by pumping the heated air into the home. It takes about 10 minutes from the time the sun comes out to heat the box, which pulls cool air from inside the home and pumps it back in at temperatures between 90 and 100 degrees. It uses about 30 watts of electricity to run the fan that blows the air inside, Haig said.

A bigger savings can be found in using a solar hot water heating system with rooftop solar panels, or “flatplate collectors.”

“This doesn’t replace an existing heat source, just vastly reduces it,” Haig said, adding the equipment needed to run such a system starts at about $3,635, plus a few thousand dollars more for installation depending on the size of the house and the amount of copper piping it has running in it.

Haig said homeowners could reduce their oil or gas consumption by about one-third over a winter, but said the savings won’t be realized for about seven to 10 years after the system has paid itself off through fuel savings. If fuel prices continue their upward trend, that payoff could be a lot sooner, Haig said.

“There’s a lot more interest now, and lots more people coming in and saying, ‘I can’t take any more of these rising fuel costs,’” he said.

Geothermal's a good choice 

BY MATT SCHOOLEY 

Geothermal heat pumps can be an expensive up-front cost, but in most cases are worth that high price in the long run.

Leeds Burchard of Ultra Geothermal and Ultra Heating and Cooling in Barrington said there is no way to estimate a cost without knowing the specifics of the house, as two homes with the exact same dimensions could end up costing different prices based on the ground source.

“There are no drawbacks,” said Burchard. “When it comes down to new construction, it’s the only way to go. It’s time the country got off the dependency of fossil fuels.”

For existing houses, geothermal may not be the best fit, as Burchard said not all homes are good candidates for a retrofit.

Burchard said since the company started installing the systems, they have seen an increased demand due to rising costs of fossil fuels.

“We’ve definitely seen a significant increase,” he said. “Twelve years ago we started installing, and we were lucky to do two a year. Now we have 40 to 50 on order and have over 300 installed.”

Firewood's a traditional choice 

BY SARAH LEBRUN 

Though pellet stoves are the hot item this year, many people still choose to buy the traditional wood stove.

According to Bob Gardner, manager at Fireplace Village in Concord, wood stoves range in price from $800 to $2,500, and some are capable of heating a 3,500-square-foot area.

According to www.alternative- heating-info.com, a cord of wood as of June 10 was selling for an average of $240 per cord, or a stack of wood that is 4 feet high and 8 feet wide.

According to Pat Dean at Joe Gauci Landscaping in Bedford, they are selling split and seasoned wood this year for $325 per cord, delivered locally to Manchester, Bedford and Goffstown.

“We expect this to really go fast because the prices keep rising,” said Dean.

“Don’t wait too long to buy wood or pellet stoves this year,” said Gardner. “You might not get one. Manufacturers are backed up like crazy.”

Firewood's a traditional choice 

BY GINGER KOZLOWSKI 

Pellet stoves are the hot alternative to the traditional wood stove, and they’re selling like hotcakes, according to John Labbe of Hearth Designs in Hooksett.

While it’s like using a wood stove, the pellets, which come in 40-pound bags, are easy to load into the hopper of the stove, and the stove itself can regulate itself with a thermostat, keeping your home at a steady temperature without poking at wood to keep it burning.

For about $3,000 to $4,000, said Labbe, you can have a stove installed in your home. The beauty of it is that you don’t need the traditional venting. A pellet stove can be located almost anywhere. A heat sensor can be run as far as 100 feet away from the stove, allowing the room’s temperature to be set where you like it.

One consideration is where to store all those pellets, though. They’re typically bought by the ton, said Labbe, so you’ll have a delivery of quite a few 40-pound bags on a pallet. Most people store them in their garage, he said.