Free Republic

Many Americans are bracing for high heating bills this year, but the frosty New England winter won't put a chill on Erik Fey and Kathleen Rutty-Fey's energy budget. The Feys are one of many families reducing their costly household oil or gas dependence by turning to a traditional fuel with new-found popularity: wood. The Feys first used a wood stove to supplement heat in their New Hampshire home, then migrated to sustainable wood pellets and have never looked back. "I was hooked immediately: no more wood piles, or chopping wood; no more wood critters crawling around inside, or wood debris...

arty Farnum can't keep pellet stoves in his Northern Lights Hearth Sports store on Wilton Road in Farmington. Nor can Mack Curtis, who owns Wayne's Stove & Canoe Shop in Madison. Ditto for The Stove Barn on China Road in Winslow, owned by Wade Bullard. Heating-oil prices that could flirt with $5 a gallon this winter have more people ready to switch away from oil. For an investment of roughly $3,000 plus the cost of pellets, a pellet stove might pay for itself in a year or two, shop owners say. Mainers appear to be believers, and they're scooping up...