The high price of oil has driven demand for pellet stoves, according to area stove retailers.
But the pellets to fuel the stoves are in short supply, and a leading pellet supplier is advising consumers to limit their purchases.
Home Depot, Lowe's Home Improvement and Wal-Mart on Southside in Oneonta, which all carry pellets, did not have any in stock Wednesday. Home Depot and Wal-Mart employees said they were not sure when their next delivery would be. A Lowe's employee said a shipment could come Friday or Monday.
Annutto's Farm Stand in Oneonta had the fuel at $265 a ton, but an employee there said the store was running low.
A pellet stove burns a compacted wood or biomass pellet, which is automatically fed into a burning area within the stove. Some stoves are multifuel and can burn corn or cherry pits.
Pellet stoves, which have a high efficiency rate, have gained in popularity in recent years as the price of home heating oil and other fuel has skyrocketed.
The price of wood pellets has gone up 59 percent in nine years, said Steven Walker, president and CEO of New England Wood Pellet, based in Jaffrey, N.H.
This compares with a 428 percent increase in home heating oil; a 283 percent increase in propane; and a 117 percent increase in natural gas over the same time period, he said.
"This has been an incredibly busy summer for us," said Alysia Howard, co-owner of Hearths A' Fire on Oneonta's Southside. "There's been a huge interest in pellet stoves. It's been our busiest summer ever."
But more stoves being sold means more demand for pellets, she said.
The pellets are selling for about $300 a ton right now, she said, but her store's distribution is limited.
"We only sell to our pellet stove customers," Howard said.
It would take three or four tons to heat an average-sized home through the cold months, she said.
Walker, who heads the region's largest wood pellet supplier, agreed that more stoves are putting a strain on supply. "There is going to be far more demand just because of that," he said.
But Walker said there may be another factor at play.
"I fear that some people are buying more than they need," Walker said.
Because pellets can easily be purchased by the ton and stored, consumers have the ability to stock up, he said.
"Unlike oil, the consumer is the largest inventorier of the fuel," Walker said.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, he said, but it seems like everybody decided to buy all at once beginning around May 15.
Walker said the company still doesn't understand fully how the market got to where it is today.
A year ago, he and his colleagues sat at a company board meeting and wondered why people weren't buying more pellets.
"Oil was steadily climbing for almost a year (at that time)," he said.
One contributing factor may be that some pellet stove dealers have been offering a year's supply of pellets packaged in with their stoves, Walker said.
"Most years, we are begging for people to buy our product in the summer," Walker said.
All of the pellet stoves at Hearths A' Fire are sold or reserved, Howard said, though the store is expecting "quite a few" stoves to come this fall.
Howard said there was a concern among consumers that there wouldn't be enough pellets to go around, and that led to people buying up as much as they could.
"I think there was a little bit of a panic out there," Howard said.
However, he said, that the supply situation should stabilize.
"I feel that in the long term, there is not going to be a problem," Walker said.
Pellet stoves are still a smart choice because they operate on a renewable energy source and the fuel has a relatively stable market price, Walker said. His advice to customers: Don't buy more than you need and be patient.
"We've only produced about one-third of what we are going to produce for the winter," Walker said.
The company is bringing in pellets from other areas of the country, as well as ramping up production at its plants, including the recently opened Schuyler plant outside Utica.
"Schuyler is running 24-7," Walker said.
Also on Wednesday, the city of Oneonta Planning Commission tabled a site plan from two men interested in opening a pellet and firewood processing facility in the former Delaware & Hudson railyards.
Tim Massey and Mark Krupinski are seeking to erect a 30-by-60-foot, open-sided pole barn at 198 Roundhouse Road.
The facility would produce 175 face cords of firewood and 15 tons of pellets a week, according to the plans submitted to the city.
The Planning Commission decided to table the review for a month to enable the proposers to supply more specific information about noise levels that would be generated by the facility.
The proposers were not expecting to be open until next year, said Planning Commission Vice Chairman Karl Seeley.
