How many gallons of fuel oil equals one ton of wood pellets?

Answer 1

According to the Forest Products Laboratory, #2 Fuel Oil has a Net Heating Value of 115,000 Btu/gal and Premium Wood Pellets have a Net Heating Value of 13.6 million Btu/ton. Btu is a unit of energy to describe the heat value of fuels.

From an energy standpoint it would take 118.26 gallons of #2 Fuel Oil to provide the same heating energy as one ton of Premium Wood Pellets.

118.26 gal of fuel oil x 115,000 Btu/gal = 13.6 million Btu = one ton of wood pellets

At 50 bags per ton, this equates to 2.36 gallons per bag of wood pellets.

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Sorry but #2 heating fuel has between 138,700 and 141,000 btu/ gallon , not 115,000.

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Another edit: The Building Performance Institute and other sources generally give #2 heating oil a heat value of 139,000 BTU/Gallon, but that's not the whole story. Most oil furnaces have a combustion efficiency of about 84%, although this can vary. 139,000 BTU times .84 is ~117,000 BTU. So the original poster was pretty close to right in terms of heat delivered when a gallon of oil is burned, but the second poster is right in terms of the total heating value of the oil if it has a 100% efficient combustion.

Once combusted, the heat distribution system efficiency must be looked at. Are you heating an uninsulated basement rather than your living space?

Likewise, there are a range of numbers found on line for the heat value of wood pellets. I've seen from 13.6 to 16.4 million BTU. It depends on the quality of the wood pellets, and "Premium" pellets in one region may not be the same quality as "Premium" pellets in another. And once you have your bags of pellets, you have to account for the combustion efficiency of the pellet stove in order to figure out how much you'll really get. One source claims that older models burn at about 65% efficiency, while newer ones burn at 80%. Sealed combustion, with combustion air coming from outside, is generally more efficient. And again, how efficient is the distribution system? Most pellet stoves are in the living space, rather than in the basement, which would be typical of an oil burning system, and this may or may not overcome the distribution system losses.