Does a pellet or wood stove pay against heating oil?

What this does not count

Comfort, resale value, storing the fuel, and the chance of a chimney repair are left out. So is a heating system that has to be replaced anyway. Your time counts only if you enter a value for an hour. Power failures have no dollar value here: a cordwood stove burns without power, while a pellet stove and an oil burner both stop.

Safety, permits and insurance

This page does not cover safety, clearances or permits. See EPA's page on wood-burning installation and maintenance. Your local code office decides what permits you need. Tell your home insurer before you install, and ask whether they want a professional installation or an inspection. No insurance cost is counted.

How this estimates

The oil system now delivers your gallons times 138,500 Btu a gallon (a Btu is a unit of heat) times its efficiency. The stove supplies the share you enter, and burns that much heat divided by the stove efficiency in fuel. Tons or cords bought are that fuel divided by its heat content. The oil you stop buying is that share of your gallons times the oil price. The oil system's own efficiency is assumed not to change.

The running cost is the stove fuel, electricity (kWh a day times days run times price), upkeep, and your time (hours a week times days run divided by 7, times the value of an hour). Year 1 net is the oil saved minus the running cost. The money up front is the installed cost minus any rebate or credit, never below zero.

Each later year, the oil saving grows at the oil rate, the fuel at its own rate, and electricity, upkeep and time at the third rate. Payback is where the running total crosses what you paid up front (the shared payback engine, with no discounting and no loan). The net over the years is that total in the last year, with no sale value. The flat-price test sets all three growth rates to 0%. The break-even oil price and share are the values at which that total is exactly 0. The two inputs that move the answer most are found by moving each 25% down and up. Dollars round to whole dollars.

Sources and date checked

Starting numbers were checked on 2026-10-17. The oil price is the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) New York price for the week ending 2026-10-12, before taxes. Last year's $3.837 is that price less the $2.498 rise EIA reports, so it is worked out, not read.

No official New York pellet or cordwood price could be read, because the pages of NYSERDA, New York's state energy agency, did not open from our build computer. Those two prices, the stove cost, upkeep, electricity use, hours of work, years of life and price growth are round typical values, not researched facts. The federal credit for biomass stoves ended after 2025-12-31 (IRS, checked 2026-10-17). The last New York stove incentive we found was $1,500 in 2020 (unverified, from a search excerpt), and other sources list it as no longer active, so confirm any rebate with NYSERDA. No sales tax is added to fuel: New York exempts wood fuel used for home heating, according to a source we did not check against the state. Prices vary by dealer and county, so check your own. The table below lists every source and how each figure was checked.

Not advice. This is a planning estimate at the inputs shown, not heating, safety, tax, insurance or financial advice. Get written quotes for the stove and its installation, and confirm any rebate or credit before you count it. Your results will differ.