BOSTON -- The wood stove and wood pellet stove market is hot, hot, hot.

NewsCenter 5's Jim Boyd reported Wednesday that the high cost of oil has homeowners warming up to some alternative heating sources.

Joshua Coutu said that he can barely keep up with the business at his fireplace shop in Natick, Mass. Orders for new wood stoves are now backed up five to six weeks.

"This time of year we're starting to do about 20 stoves a week," Coutu said.

The reason people are turning to wood-burning stoves is simple. Just ask Nathan Kittler, who was shopping for a wood-burning stove.

"The biggest motivation is not liking oil," he said.

The majority of homes in New England are heated with oil. But Coutu said that a significant number of his customers are looking to lower their oil bills by supplementing the heat in their homes by using wood-burning stoves.

Gaining in popularity are stoves that burn wood pellets made from recycled sawdust and other waste wood.

"With wood pellet stoves, they can reduce their heating costs by 40 to 50 percent over the length of the winter," Coutu said.

He said that the wood-pellet stoves require a relatively simple installation, are much cheaper to run than oil and much less work than wood-burning stoves.

"Basically, with a pellet stove you just turn up the thermostat as you do now, not having to run outside and get the fuel as you have to do now with a wood stove," he said.

Coutu said that the only drawback is the wood pellet stoves are becoming so popular that pellet manufacturers are having difficulty keeping up with demand. While the stoves are in adequate supply, some of the pipes needed for installation are now on back order.