COLONIE, N.Y. -- This time of year, as the chill creeps in, customers are attracted to these stoves like moths to a flame.

"But this year, well, it started in May. Unbelievably. If you remember back oil was $120, $130, $140, $150 a barrel and home heating was approaching $4.50 to $5 a gallon,” said Wayne Stritsman, owner of Best Fire Hearth and Patio. “And it's a frightful sight to see that oil truck pull up, put in 200 gallons of fuel oil at $5 a gallon. That's $2,000 ma'am pay me right now. That's a pretty scary fact so people came in looking for a heating solution.”

A pellet stove, he says, is a very popular one, at that.

“Most of my manufacturers have even doubled up their production and still are backlogged out six, eight, nine, ten months. It's almost a 50 percent cheaper, less expensive solution,” Stritsman said. “Those are locally grown; the local economy right here is the people who produce the stuff. It just grows back again and again and again, but a lot of people still are using natural gas too, but they're just not heating as much of their home. We call that zone heating.”

However, even with the alternatives, if you still feel like you could use some help from the government paying for heating costs, you should check out a new state website. You can see if you are eligible for benefits, check out your application status or even check your account and the state says soon it hopes that folks will be able to sign up for benefits, right on the site.

The Governor recently raised the maximum benefit as a way of counteracting the spike in fuel costs, something Stritsman has watched closely over the years. For this businessman, at least, it'll be easy to stand the heat.