Rising heating costs have people turning to alternatives

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Brian Dingee, who owns Dingee's Energy Systems in Florenceville, can barely keep his store stocked with pellet stoves, and it's only July.

In Fredericton, Brad Wood, who works at Sunpoke Energy Systems, says he's never seen a year like this for sales of both wood and pellet stoves.

Even Home Depot, which keeps a few pellet stoves in stock, has felt the boom. Lately, Home Depot has been selling a couple of hundred bags of pellets a week, and has to bring them into their Knowledge Park store by the truckload.

With the price of home-heating oil nearly doubling in the past year, many New Brunswickers are making the switch to alternative energy sources, and those in the wood and pellet stove business are reaping the benefit.

"We are getting huge inquiries on pellet stoves, and are selling quite a few of them, especially for this time of year," Dingee says. "With the rising cost of energy, pellets have become an inexpensive alternative for many people."

Pellet stoves retail between $2,000 and $3,000 each, but Dingee says they pay for themselves within a year or two, and that's why the demand for them is through the roof.

"We find they pay for themselves really quickly," he says. "My daughter just bought a house last year, and if we had put the pellet stove in last year, this winter she would have had it paid for just with savings on oil."

Wood, a customer service representative at Sunpoke Energy Systems on Hanwell Road, says wood stove sales in his store are up too, but it's the pellet stoves that are hot.

"Last year was our best year ever for pellet stoves and we are already looking at surpassing that this year," he says. "We will have at least a 50 per cent increase in sales this year. It's just been a huge, huge increase in both interest and sales of pellet stoves."

Wood says the main difference between this season and last is when it's starting. Typically sales of wood and pellet stoves don't pick up until the fall.

"It's a big change for us to be as busy as we are this early," he says. "It seems like a lot of people are getting their stuff in order right now rather then waiting until fall is upon us."

Glen Treadaway, manager of the Fredericton Home Depot, says his store has experienced modest increases in pellets stove sales, but it's the sale of pellets that has him surprised.

"Pellet sales are astronomical. It's very unusual, and just so unbelievable. We are literally selling hundreds of bags a week," he says.