Ordering heating oil for your home can be quite troubling. Two of the most important decisions that you can make when you’re ordering oil are how much to order and who to order from. But another question that isn’t asked as much tends to come up often, which is “When should you order?”. In this blog post, we’ll answer that question for you and tell you when it’s the right time to order!
The Basics of Home Heating Oil
If you use fuel oil to heat your home, then there are quite a few things to be aware of. Firstly, your home must have a tank to store your heating oil in. The tank will often be in your basement or garage. Sometimes, you can find it outside your home above ground, or under ground. Check out this blog post on how heating oil tanks work!
When the oil truck comes to your house to fill your tank, you will often see the driver connect your fill pipe to their truck to fill your tank, like seen in the above.
When Should You Order Heating Oil?
When you’re deciding when you should order heating oil, you’ll want to make sure that you order before you’re on the verge of running out. Ordering when you’ve still got a little bit of oil in the tank, can help prevent you from running out when you need it most.
You’ll also want to order when the oil prices are at the best they can be. To monitor oil prices, use the FuelSnap website to monitor oil prices in your area from your local dealers.
Avoid Running Out of Heating Oil
If you’ve recently run out of heating oil, it’s important to get a delivery ASAP! Take a look at this blog post here on what to do if you run out. Luckily, you can throw some diesel in your tank if you ever run out. Simply run over to a nearby gas station and get around 5-10 gallons of diesel to hold you over for a little bit.
To prevent your tank from running out of oil, we recommend you order oil when your tank is around a quarter full. This should be done regardless of season. The prices of heating oil tend to not fluctuate as much throughout the different seasons. A majority of oil suppliers work on a “cents per gallon” margin, which tends to not change very often throughout the year.
“Reorder at a quarter” is a good rule to live by.
One of the biggest reasons why you shouldn’t let your tank get down past a quarter tank is because, sometimes it can take a while for your oil delivery to arrive. A quarter tank is usually enough to hold you over for a little while. Since the average heating oil tank can hold up to 275 gallons of oil, a quarter tank is usually around 70 gallons. An average home will often burn 3-5 gallons a day during the winter months. This will give you a cushion to prevent running out of oil.
It’s important to order heating oil as soon as your tank hits 1/4 full. This will help you avoid running out and ensuring that you get the best deal you can on heating oil.
Getting The Best Price for Heating Oil Online
When you order oil online when your tank is at 1/4 full, you have an advantage. This will leave the tank with enough space to fit 150 gallons of oil. Most dealers tend to require a 100-gallon minimum delivery size. Some dealers will also give you a better price if you order 150 gallons, for others it’s 200 gallons.
When you order heating oil online using FuelSnap, you’ll be able to compare not only their prices but delivery dates as well! If you’re willing to wait a few days for your delivery of heating oil, you’ll likely get a better price! If you search “Home Heating Oil near me” on Google, you’ll get several different options! Be sure to check FuelSnap to compare local dealers in your area and their prices.
Monitor Your Heating Oil Gauge and Order when Low!
If you don’t have a working oil gauge, you’ll need to get one! Replace your current one with a brand new one so you’ll be able to monitor your oil level and usage. If you want to make sure that you don’t run out again, get yourself a Smart Oil Gauge! The gauge gives you an exact readout of your tank’s oil level and will send you various alerts whenever you need a fill, get a fill and much more!
With Peak Heating Oil season over the horizon, it’s important to be prepared for what’s to come. Many folks have questions like “What is my local oil price?” or “How much oil will I burn in one day?”. These types of questions are being asked constantly, and for good reason. In this blog post, I’ll answer the most important question that you should know.
If you ever do run out of oil, you can stop at your local gas station and pick up 5-10 gallons of diesel. This will keep you warm for at least another day or so during the colder months, while you wait for your delivery. We touch more on running out of oil and what to do in this post here.
Ambient outdoor temperature is one of the biggest contributors to high heating oil usage in your home. During the colder days, your house might go through 5-10 or more, depending on the square footage of your home.
What Impacts your Consumption of Heating Oil?
Many factors will effect how much heating oil you’ll burn on any given day. Here are some of the contributing factors:
Outside Temperature: Your home heating oil system is constantly at work, trying to keep your home’s interior temperature warm. The colder the outdoor temperature is, the harder your heating system has to work to heat your home. That means that your system will be consuming more heating oil to warm the rest of your home.
Inside Temperature: Surprisingly, your internal temperature can affect your oil consumption as well. Setting your thermostat to around 68-70 degrees Fahrenheit provides the most comfortable indoor temperature. If you set the temperature higher, you’ll be burning more oil because your furnace will be working harder to heat your home. If you want to conserve heat, try adding some more insulation and lowering the interior temperature of your home.
Size of Your House:The bigger your home is, the harder your furnace is going to have to work to heat your home. Your home’s layout will also sometimes affect this. A ranch-style home is often harder to keep warm compared to a simple two-story home. This is because the ranch home has a bigger exterior surface area compared to the interior space. This often means there are more spaces for heat to escape from in a ranch-style home.
Insulation: A home that has good insulation will retain more heat than a poorly insulated home with single pane or drafty windows. It’s important to seal up drafty windows in an older home. This will ultimately make your home more comfortable on cold winter days.
Heating System Age: The older heating oil systems get, the more they lose their efficiency. This means that you’ll end up using slightly more heating oil over time and that heating oil will generate the same amount of heat that it would produce when it was new. Higher-quality equipment tends to last around 30 years. A new furnace will be able to pay for itself.
How You Use Heating Oil: Another consideration that you should have is what you’re heating with your oil. If you’re using heating oil for just hot water, then you’re going to burn through it a lot slower than you would with heating oil. If you use it for both heat and hot water, you’ll burn through heating oil a lot faster than you would normally with just one or the other.
This is an example of a heating boiler. Most heating oil systems use this to heat up the oil in your home to be able to heat your home.
Home Size and The Impact of Temperature
To make sure things remain simple, we’ll discuss two important factors. Those are the size of your home and the outside temperature. On the below chart, look for your home and see if you can get a broad range of usage. If you have a newer home that’s well insulated, you’ll likely have a little bit of a lower oil consumption. However, if your home is old and not well insulated, consider a higher range of usage.
This chart will be a helpful tool in telling you how many gallons of heating oil you should expect to use on your average day. For a home that is 2500 square feet, you’ll likely use 5-7 gallons of heating oil on a normal winter day.
On a normal winter day in the Northeast, you should expect to use an average of 5-7 gallons of heating oil. However, only use this as a baseline. This isn’t always the case for every home in the Northeast.
With a standard 275-gallon oil tank, you’ll have a maximum capacity of around 250 gallons. However, this doesn’t mean that you can let the tank get low. If the oil level is too low, the feel lines will tend to suck up the sludge that builds on the bottom of the tank. With that in mind, consider setting a “usage” capacity of around 200 gallons. With an average of around 5 gallons a day, that should last you around 40 days during the winter season before you would need a fill.
This is a 275-gallon tank. This is the most common tank size available in the Northeast. The tank’s maximum capacity is 250 gallons. It’s important that these tanks do not run out of oil.
Yearly Heating Oil Usage
Most of us only use oil during the colder months of the year. However, some like to use it all year round. During the summer months, if you use your oil for hot water, you’ll normally average out to 0.5-0.8 gallons of oil per day.
During the winter months, you’ll often be using much more than that. Depending on house size and outside temperature, you could be using much more oil than other homes simply because of those factors. Looking at a typical winter you should be able to follow the below graph for reference:
The Northeast’s average home tends to use around 880 gallons of heating oil per year.
Tracking Your Oil Consumption
Keeping track of your oil consumption is important, and the best way to do so is to install a sensor on your tank. The Smart Oil Gauge is the best sensor for the job! It uses an ultrasonic sensor to measure the oil level hourly and uploads that data to our servers throughout the day. You’ll be able to monitor these readings on your phone and even your computer! It will be able to provide you with usage data as well as oil-level data. You’ll be able to take a look at daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly usage data. You’ll then be able to export this data from the Smart Oil Gauge website into an Excel document for more accurate numbers.
Take a look at this graph from one of our gauges back in early 2022. It shows a consistent decrease in oil level as we burn oil. Once it gets low enough, we’ll need to get the tank filled.
Regularly Check Your Level During the Winter
It’s important that you check your oil level frequently and still have a working gauge. Check out this post here, to learn How to Replace an Oil Tank Gauge. This is important and should be taken seriously. Running out of oil can lead to sludge in your feed lines, or even worse, your pipes might freeze and burst. Set a weekly reminder on your phone to check your tank’s level, especially during the colder months of the year. Getting a Smart Oil Gauge will help you tremendously with all of this! It will alert you when you need to get a fill as well as when you get one!
Making sure that your Smart Oil Gauge has a proper installation is crucial for the device to accurately read your oil level. A standard pipe adapter that you would pick up at your local Home Depot or Lowe’s will not be able to help. You will need to purchase one of our adapters from our online store. We have many different sizes available for the smart oil gauge. In this post, we’ll cover all of the different types of adapters that the smart oil gauge has available to use, so you know which adapter is appropriate for your tank.
These are the adapters that we have available to us on our website. Most oil tanks do come with a standard 2″ NPT fitting, so not all tanks are required to have an adapter installed alongside the gauge.
What are the Dimensions of the Smart Oil Gauge?
The Smart Oil Gauge’s body is essentially just a short piece of piping that has threads located on both the top and the bottom. The gauge has a 2″ NPT thread which equals around 2.375″ in the gauge’s diameter. NPT or “National Pipe Tapered” fittings get threaded tighter the farther it’s screwed into the tank’s fitting. These types of fittings are great because once they get tight they create a seal.
You may be curious as to why these threads are 2″ NPT when the actual diameter is 2.375″. This is because the 2″ it’s referring to is the interior diameter of the threaded pipe. The actual exterior diameter is 2.375.
When the cap is on the gauge and the gauge is the tank, the outer dimensions are 2.8″ x 2.8″ x 5.3″. For easy access to the cap when replacing the batteries, we recommend giving the gauge at least 6.2″ of headroom above the tank. This will both make sure that the cap has proper installation and will give you access to the top of the smart oil gauge.
This is what we are talking about when we mention 2″ NPT fitting. As you can see above, the outer diameter is approximately 2.375″.
Where Should You Install the Smart Oil Gauge?
The smart oil gauge must be installed on the top of a heating oil tank. Any pipe that raises the gauge or any generic adapter will only interfere with the sensor sending the signal out properly. If your tank doesn’t have any extra fittings, then you might need to remove your current float gauge from the tank to be able to install the smart oil gauge on your tank.
If you have a fill pipe and float gauge combination, then you CAN’T USE that fitting for the smart oil gauge. The slot that the float gauge is wedged into the combination pipe is too small, it wouldn’t send the signal properly if it were to be able to be installed. We have various installation guides on how to install the Smart Oil Gauge. Depending on which tank you’re using, the process might be different. For steel oil tanks, follow this tutorial here. For Roth tank installations, follow this tutorial.
The Smart Oil Gauge or the adapter has to thread directly into the tank on the top. You CAN’T use a float gauge and fill pipe combination with the smart oil gauge.
Adapter for a Roth Double Wall Tank
If you have a Roth Double-Wall tank, you will need a Roth Adapter for your Smart Oil Gauge. The adapter is a requirement for installation on these tanks. Without the adapter, the smart oil gauge won’t be able to properly send the signal. The gauge’s signal is sent out in a cone-like shape and it will bounce off the bottom threads of the fitting without the help of the adapter’s guide cone.
The Smart Oil Gauge and the Roth adapter are compatible with the Roth 1000L, 1000LH, 620L, and the 420L. They ARE NOT compatible with the Roth 1500L. This is because the 1500L tanks have a support baffle in the tank’s interior that will prevent the gauge’s signal from going down all the way and the sensor will never read past half a tank. We go more over the Roth Tanks in this post here.
The Roth adapter is compatible with all Roth Tanks except the 1500L.
Steel Tank and Small Fitting Adapters
As previously mentioned, the standard tank fitting size is 2″ NPT. If you have a tank that is less than 20 years old, you more than likely have a 2″ fitting and do not need an adapter.
However, for older and rarer tanks, you will need an adapter.
1.5″NPT Adapter:
The 1.5″ NPT adapter is our most common and popular adapter. It threads into tanks that usually have an approximate 1.9″ exterior diameter.
This is what your standard 1.5″ NPT fitting looks like.
1.25″ NPT Adapter
This adapter is a lot less common when comparing it to the 1.5″ adapter. It has an exterior diameter of 1.5″.
This is what our standard 1.25″ NPT adapter looks like.You can refer to this adapter chart to tell you which adapter is the appropriate one for your tank.
Setting your Gauge’s Offset
After you’ve selected the correct adapter for your Smart Oil Gauge, you’ll want to set an offset for your sensor. The adapter typically raises the sensor an inch. Without programming an offset into your gauge, the smart oil gauge’s readings will not be accurate. To configure the offset you must first open up your smart oil gauge app. Follow these steps to change the offset: Settings >> Tank Style >> Advanced >> Sensor Offset. Set the offset to 1.0″ for both the 1.5″ NPT and 1.25″ NPT adapters. An offset is not necessary for a Roth Adapter.
Set an offset of 1″ to be sure that your Smart Oil Gauge is configured correctly once it’s installed into your tank.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve measured the fitting on your tank, you know what size adapter you will need! Only if you need an adapter that is! If your tank isn’t showing up on our app, please feel free to reach out to us! You can reach us via telephone (203-456-1499 Option 3) or email (Contact@smartoilgauge.com)! Just be sure to include a picture of your tank as well as the tank’s measurements so we can help you configure the right tank and make sure that your new adapter works on your tank!
A huge benefit to ordering heating oil is that you can buy oil based on your schedule! While some homes have multiple tanks that get a fill once or twice during the year, others only have one tank that needs to get a fill multiple times throughout the year. But with rising oil heating prices, is there a time of year that offers the best prices? In this blog post, we go over the best month to order oil!
Why do Heating Oil Prices Fluctuate so much?
To figure out when the best time to order heating oil is, it’s important to understand why prices fluctuate often. There are a total of three primary driving factors as to why heating oil prices tend to fluctuate so much:
Supply and Demand for Crude Oil
Competitive Oil Pricing/Supply and Demand of Local Dealers
How you buy heating oil (either ordering heating oil online or relying on automatic delivery)
Supply and Demand for Crude Oil
The prices for crude oil have a larger effect on heating oil prices than you might think. Home heating oil is a derivative of crude oil, which means that the global supply and demand prices can directly affect prices for heating oil. Crude oil is known as the base fuel that often sees usage in gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil, and a lot of machinery lubricants.
Usually, when the global demand for crude oil declines, so does its price. This is due to oil production rates not decreasing right away, with oil producers still needing to offload their supply of crude oil. This happened in the beginning of 2020 when COVID-19 caused everything to become locked down and travel was stopped. Out of nowhere, nobody was flying on planes or even commuting anywhere for work. Due to this, there was a massive amount of produced oil that was in an overabundance. The prices for heating oil dropped drastically, bringing it to an all-time low! Some dealers even dipped their prices to less than a dollar!
With COVID-19 locking down all travel around the globe in April 2020, oil prices took a huge nose dive! There was suddenly a huge supply of oil with no demand for it! Producers needed to get rid of their supply, and decreased the price as much as they could!
The Supply and Demand of Local Heating Oil
This is another factor that tends to greatly affect the prices of heating oil. Long Island, for example, is home to hundreds of thousands of homes that use home heating oil and a large amount of heating oil dealers at their selection. The dealers in the area have to be very efficient to offer the best possible prices available and fast delivery. Due to this, heating oil prices in Long Island are cheaper than anywhere else in the Northeast United States.
In much less densely populated areas, there is normally only one or two heating oil dealers to choose from. Due to this, they can charge much more for heating oil and they don’t have to deliver immediately. This is because they control most of the heating oil in those types of areas. With less oil in supply in these areas, oil tends to be a bit more expensive.
This leads to the question of which month is the best to order heating oil. Normally you might expect prices to be lower during the summer/the off-season. But, dealers tend to make fewer deliveries during the summer because the demand isn’t as high. Due to this, dealers are less inclined to lower prices during the summer and be a bit more competitive. The below graph shows the historical price for heating oil over the past 30ish years. The takeaway here is that the supply and demand of crude oil affect oil prices and outweigh any seasonal effects or discounts that might be put in place.
The prices of heating oil tend to fluctuate with the market price of crude oil. This can be seen of the past 30 years and prices tend to not fluctuate as the seasons change. On the flip side, colder weather doesn’t always mean that price for heating oil will be more expensive.
Should you go with Automatic or Will-Call Delivery for Heating Oil?
While the price of oil fluctuates often on the market, there are two more important aspects to understand. The price you pay for oil is also determined by using either will-call delivery or automatic delivery. Both of these will very heavily influence the amount of money you spend on heating oil. Automatic delivery for starters, often charges you a “premium” price for heating oil.
Dealers can and will charge you at least an additional $0.50 per gallon, but it can even go as high as $1.00 extra per gallon or more! Imagine a winter where you paid an additional $1200 in heating oil over the year while your neighbor paid $1200 less on oil! That’s a perfect example of the difference between will-call heating oil and automatic delivery. If you use automatic delivery, then the best month to order won’t apply to you. This is because the dealer will deliver to you on time.
You’ll be able to take advantage of various deals on heating oil when you need it! Ordering from sites like FuelSnap will give you the ability to shop around for the best prices in your area! But, if you’re afraid of running out of heating oil, then installing a Smart Oil Gauge will be the best thing you can do! You’ll be able to monitor your tank from anywhere and know how many gallons of oil are in your oil tank, just by looking at the app!
The Verdict: Order Oil Any Time Of the Year
Is there a month where it would be more ideal to buy oil than others? That depends on the current market price of crude oil, but it doesn’t matter if you order in a particular month compared to another. The only real exception to this rule is when it’s very cold out which makes finding heating oil in a more timely manner difficult.
Even when we’re being hit with a cold snap, you’ll always be able to check your prices for heating oil near you with sites like FuelSnap. You’ll be able to check to see what dealers are not available as well as their prices! Ultimately, you’ll end up saving hundreds of dollars over a year.
Keep in mind that you should not be letting your tank get too low while you’re waiting for a good price to come up. If you run out of oil during the winter, your pipes will freeze and you’ll have a much bigger financial burden on your shoulders. If you were to run out of oil, the best month would no longer matter. The best thing to do is to order oil once you’ve hit a quarter tank, regardless of the time of year.
Home heating oil can get expensive, especially in the Northeast! It creates a large amount of heat per gallon, making it highly sought after. But, it can lead to high energy bills in the winter months. So, you might be asking yourself, Should I lock in an oil price? In this post, we’ll go over weather or not you should do just that.
The Various Types of Heating Oil Prices
Heating oil prices are a little bit more complex than you might think. The first and most important question, is if you should be on automatic delivery or will-call. We discuss them in depth in our blog post here. But ultimately, will call is much cheaper than automatic delivery.
If you want to sign up for automatic delivery that’s perfectly fine! It is both convenient and easy to understand. However, please be aware that you will be paying more money in the long run. That being said, you should also be aware of what the other forms of pricing are.
Pretty much all heating oil companies offer both automatic and will call delivery, They use the same exact trucks, but will often have premium prices for those that order with automatic delivery.
Automatic Delivery: Market Pricing
If you are going with Automatic delivery, you will be charged whatever the “current rate” for automatic delivery is. This rate often tends to be determined by the oil dealer themselves. They normally take the price they pay for oil and increase it by $.80 to $1.00 per gallon to take as their profit. On average, this is $.50 more per gallon than your average will-call customer will pay. Please keep that in mind if you are thinking about buying automatic delivery at the market price.
Will-Call: Market Pricing
When comparing the market pricing of will-call heating oil, to that of automatic delivery, will-call is usually always cheaper. This is due to the fact that will-call is often more competitive. It’s more competitive because as a will-call buyer you are free to shop around and get the lowest prices available to you. The dealers are actively seeking your business, which is why will-call prices are so much lower. You can check heating oil prices in your area by using the FuelSnap website.
Fixed Price Per Gallon: Some dealers tend to offer a fixed price per gallon of oil. This typically works by agreeing to a permanent price for a specific amount of oil at a pre-decided price. The amount of oil is based upon your estimated usage throughout the year. But, there is usually a fee that comes with this, or sometimes the dealer will require that you get a maintenance plan alongside it to cover that additional fee. This is sort of a double-edged sword. On one hand you’ll save money during some years, while during others you might end up spending more.
Price Capping: This is one of the more enticing plans that dealers will give you. With this plan in particular, you only have to pay up to a certain price. Sound too good to be true right? Well, that’s because it is. They’ll normally get you to pay a fee up front, or the oil price is actually inflated! Meaning they charge you more, simply to make a profit. Another important thing to note is that if the price of oil goes down, then you’ll still be paying for the capped price. This is because, like with fixed price, you’ve decided on a price with the oil dealer. Your dealer has no requirement to drop the price of oil if it goes down everywhere else.
We’ve simplified all of the information that we have explained into this little graph for your convenience. If you do decide to sign up for automatic delivery, while convenient it will cost you more money in the long run compared to will-call.
Getting the Best Price for Heating Oil
If you’re looking for some ways to save on heating oil, then check out our post on 10 ways to save on heating oil! However, the best way to save money on heating oil is by going to will-call delivery. This is because you’ll be able to shop around and get the best price on oil. But, you will either need to check your tank periodically, or install a Smart Oil Gauge.
If you decide to go with will-call, one of the best things that you can do is order from FuelSnap. That’s because not only does it give you the lowest prices possible, but it also locks you into the price you paid for at checkout! That means that if the price goes up, you will still have only paid the cheaper pricing!
If you decide to stick with automatic delivery, we recommend paying the market price. That way, you won’t have to worry about any extra fees for your oil or delivery! If you want to stick with a more peace of mind choice then by all means go for it! However, be aware the you are using one of the more costly forms of delivery and it will cost you more money as time goes on.
With winter fast approaching, it’s important to be aware of the danger of frozen pipes. Our previous few years of winter have been pretty brutal with some temperatures dropping to the single digits! Frozen pipes can happen to anyone! Although more common with old homes, pipes can freeze in newer homes if the right precautions aren’t put in place.
In mass-produced homes that have corners consistently cut during construction, frozen pipes are a little bit more common. It could start with something simple, such as a piece of insulation coming loose in your bathroom walls for your pipes to freeze. In this post, we’ll cover all the important details to prevent your pipes from freezing this winter season.
In older homes, ice tends to form on the single-pane glass windows. This is because the single thin pane of glass can provide little to no insulation which causes the heat to escape through them.
Why Frozen Pipes are Bad
While at first glance, frozen pipes might seem more annoying than serious. In a majority of cases, that’s all it is. If your pipes have water flowing through that line for a period of time, you should be fine. However, if you don’t, your pipe will actually burst which can cause major flooding and damages to your home.
What Causes Frozen Pipes to Burst?
When water in a pipe freezes, it creates a blockage in the pipe. The blockage prevents any water from flowing through the pipe. As the water in the pipe expands, turning to ice, it creates intense pressure. This pressure slowly builds up until it has nowhere to go. So the pipe will keep expanding until it eventually bursts. Water will then begin to flow out of the burst pipe until someone finds out about it or turns off the valve.
This is just an example of what a frozen pipe burst looks like. It will normally lead to thousands of dollars in repairs.
The Best Ways to Prevent Frozen Pipes
The best way to prevent your pipes from freezing is to avoid them at all costs. You might be asking yourself, how do I do that? In the below list, we go over all of that for you:
Leave Your Water Dripping During Cold Nights: Water naturally has a harder time freezing when it’s running. During the freezing cold nights, slightly open up the faucets throughout your home. For pipes in exterior walls, this is significantly more important. Allowing the water to drip will make it a lot harder for these pipes to freeze.
Insulate Your Problem Pipes: In older homes, you’ll start to notice that specific pipes freeze more often than others. Adding an additional foam insulation to these pipes will stop them from freezing. It is cheap and simple to apply. Applying an extra layer of insulation helps protect the problem pipes from becoming more exposed to the cold.
Leave Cabinet Doors Open: The pipes in your home can often freeze from inside your cabinets in your bathrooms and kitchen. Even if the room itself is warm, the closed doors of the cabinet will prevent the heat from entering the cabinet, freezing your pipes as a result. Leaving your cabinet doors open will allow heat to enter and warm up the interior of your cabinet, allowing your pipes to receive some warm air.
Turn Up The Heat: Sometimes during really cold nights, some people will lower the heat to save money. But, you actually want to do the exact opposite. When it’s really cold out, you want to raise your overall temperature so that you will prevent the cold areas of your home from freezing.
Install a Space Heater: These heaters are very good to use for in sections of your home that tend to get cold fast. These can include areas in your basement or places located underneath a back porch. Space Heaters come in handy when you need to warm up a cold section of the house fast!
Use Heated Cabling or Tape: Using heating cabling or tape as an additional heat source in locations where pipes tend to freeze is helpful. This requires you to be a bit more involved because there will be times where you need to turn the cabling on and off. Try to only use this if extra insulation and dripping faucets don’t work out for you.
Ensure that You Have Enough Heating Oil: If you run out of heating oil, then you’ll have no heat. That means your pipes are extremely likely to freeze. To prevent run out, order oil when you’ve reached a quarter tank of oil. After you’ve ordered oil, run to the gas station and pick up around 5 to 10 gallons of heating oil to keep you warm until your delivery arrives.
This is typically what insulating your pipes looks like. You install foam insulation around the pipes so that they can retain heat.
Conclusion
Stopping frozen pipes before they even start to form will be a huge help to you. It’ll also save you thousands of dollars in repairs as well as some nasty headaches. Make sure that you always turn the heat up when the temperature is forecasted to be extremely low. Ensure your baseboards are warm enough by touching them throughout your home. This normally indicates that water is flowing through your pipes and that no blockage is present.
Leave your faucets dripping, cabinets open and insulate your pipes and you should have no issues with frozen pipes! If you notice a frozen pipe in your home, contact a plumber immediately! It’s important to be on top of these issues as some pipes can burst while thawing. So it’s important to have a professional handle it from here.
In this article, I’m going to give you the rundown on everything you need to know about heating oil. It’s one of the most efficient forms of keeping your home warm. Most heating oil users tend to consider it to be one of the safest and most reliable forms of home heating in the northern US. With the ability to produce more BTUs than propane, it has risen in popularity significantly in the past few years. There are hundreds of different heating oil providers in the Northeast alone, so prices tend to fluctuate a lot to remain competitive.
If you are relatively new to heating oil, then there are quite a few things to know. In this article, we’ll be going over all of the important information to know. Including the most cost-effective ways to keep track of your supply of heating oil! That way, you will make sure that you never run out!
How is Heating Oil Stored?
Heating Oil Is Stored in an oil tank that is usually located somewhere on your property! Normally it’s located in your basement or garage. Sometimes, its even located outside above ground. Although there is the occasional underground tank, but they aren’t that common nowadays. If you still have an underground oil tank, you must replace it ASAP. This is because these tanks in particular are more prone to leaks which can cause an expensive environmental disaster if not found soon enough. We go more in-depth on this topic in particular in our article on removing your underground oil tank.
The safest and best way to keep an oil tank is in an above ground tank that ideally, is stored inside. Indoor tanks are not exposed to the elements of the outdoors. That allows these tanks to last longer than outdoor tanks. They won’t become rusted or damaged from snow, rain or direct sunlight. That will allow the indoor tank to have a longer lifespan than outdoor tanks.
The most common form of oil tank is the 275-gallon Granby heating oil tank. They are typically stored inside but can be found outside. Being installed inside allows these tanks to become less likely to become corroded over time. Outdoor heating oil tanks will always be exposed to the elements. Weather changes drastically and outdoor oil tanks do not have as long of lifespans as indoor tanks. With constant exposure to direct sunlight, the lifespan of these tanks shortens significantly.
How does Heating Oil get Delivered?
The only way to get heating oil delivered to your home is by a truck. There is no underground network of pipes that deliver the oil directly to homes like with natural gas. Due to this, the truck must deliver oil to your home, connect to the fill pipe and fill your tank through there.
Usually when the truck arrives, the first thing the driver will do is find your fill pipe. Typically, your fill pipe will normally be located on the side of your house for an indoor tank While for outdoor tanks, the pipes normally stick up from the top of the tank.
After the driver has connected his truck with your fill pipe, he will begin pumping. As he is pumping oil into your tank, he will keep an ear out for a whistling sound coming from your vent pipe (usually located next to the fill pipe). The whistle will make a sound to indicate that air is leaving the tank as he’s pumping oil into it. If you’re interesting in a more in depth delivery process, please check out our article on How to Fill a Home Heating Oil Tank.
This what your typical fill and vent pipes look like. The fill is located on the right in this example and the vent on the left. The driver will attach his truck to the fill pipe on the left and begin filling the tank. As he fills the tank, he will hear the sound of the whistle going. Once it stops, the driver will stop pumping.
How To Order Heating Oil
I can’t call this Heating Oil 101 if I don’t tell you how to order oil! There are three types of methods to deliver oil from. These will offer you three consistent ways of getting an oil delivery to your home!
Automatic Delivery:This is when you make a deal with your oil provider to deliver oil to you consistently. When doing this, you are locked into a set price determined by the dealer. Based upon your usage and outside temperature, they will come and deliver to your home based upon their availability. This is a very limiting form of delivery and you are usually paying the more expensive prices.
Will Call/On-Demand: Easily the more cost-effective method of ordering oil. You will not have any restrictions on where and who you order from! You will unfortunately have to check your tank every so often and order oil online to schedule your next delivery. You will be able to order whenever you want, and can even pay with cash or card, as well as avoiding random deliveries!
Will Call with Smart Oil Gauge: This one will give you the best of both worlds when it comes to heating oil delivery. You will get the peace of mind that comes with automatic delivery and the cost effectiveness of will call. You can use the Smart Oil Gauge’s app to order oil as well as to keep track of your oil level! The Smart Oil Gauge is a useful tool to help you keep track of your oil level and manage your deliveries!
With the Smart Oil Gauge, you’ll be able to avoid crazy prices with automatic delivery and order oil when you need it! Plus, with the added benefit of being able to keep track of your oil level, you’ll never run out! You can check your tank remotely and monitor it from anywhere!
Make sure to check that you’re actually out of heating oil.
Order Oil! It’s important to go online and make sure that you have a delivery scheduled sometime soon! Make sure to call the dealer as well to make sure that your order was received!
Stop off at the gas station and get 5-10 gallons of diesel to hold you over.
Restart your burner by pressing the restart button
Do you Have to Be Home for Your Oil Delivery?
This doesn’t happen with all dealers, but some dealers do require a one-time inspection of your tank. This is for both your protection and theirs. They check to make sure that your tank is sturdy enough to receive a delivery. They also check to make sure that your tank has no leaks or protentional issues that could arise during the fill process. However, some companies will only require photos of the tank prior to your first delivery with them.
Additionally, it’s always a good thing to inspect your own tank from time to time. We go over the steps to inspecting your tank in this post here.
Conclusion
There’s a lot to unpack here. For that reason, it might be best to read this over a few times just to make sure you got all in the information that you need! Heating Oil is overall a great asset to have as your main source of heating in your home. It mostly sees usage to heat your home, as well as for hot water.
Additionally, with all the technology we have at our disposal, we can be a bit more flexible and do more research before we come to make big decisions such as signing up for automatic delivery!
I hope you enjoyed my Heating Oil 101! You’re now ready for this coming winter and have enough information to start your preparations!
One of the first things you should do when you’re new to home heating oil is, to figure out if you want to sign up for automatic delivery or not. Automatic delivery is a contract that you sign up for with your oil distributor for at least a year. The agreement is usually pretty simple. It normally states that you will only buy heating oil from them, and they deliver to you without ordering. On the surface, this sounds like a great idea, but this could become a major financial liability. We’ll touch on that more below.
If you don’t choose automatic delivery, your other option is “will-call”. This is also referred to as call by deliveries. This is when you order oil only when you need it. There are many pros and cons to each and in this post, we’ll break those down for you!
Automatic delivery forces you to order oil from one supplier. This means that if their prices go up, then you’re unable to do anything about it. You’re locked into their premium pricing which could be a frustrating financial liability.
The Basics of Heating Oil
You will have to have heating oil delivered periodically, unlike natural gas or electric heating. But before you order your first delivery of heating oil, you’ll want to be familiar with these terms in particular:
Automatic Delivery: This is an arrangement that you make with your oil company that tends to last around a year. Your oil company will deliver you heating oil consistently by their schedule. There is a program that dealers will often use called “Degree Days” to estimate when you will need your next delivery as well as your tank’s level. You will often have to pay a premium price for these deliveries in particular.
Will-Call: The alternative to automatic delivery is will-call. By being a will-call customer, you can take advantage of the best heating oil prices. That means that you will get access to prices that are lower than what your oil dealer is offering you with the automatic delivery. However, the only downside to this is that you will have to keep track of your own oil level. Whenever you need oil, check out our FuelSnap website to get the best deals on heating oil!
Service Contract: This is a form of maintenance plan that provides you with 24/7 support. This is very useful if your heating system were to suddenly fail during the winter. Sometimes this can be included for “free” with your automatic delivery service, but this isn’t always the case. Sometimes dealers will say it’s free, but you’re actually paying an additional dollar or two per gallon of oil. That could add up to $800-$1200 extra per year! There are dozens of local service providers that are willing to service your tank in an emergency. You can also periodically inspect your own tank, to ensure that it doesn’t get to the point where you need someone to take a look at it.
Budget Payment Plan: This is a budget friendly option that spreads out your spending on heating oil over the course of a few months. This can help get rid of huge heating oil bills during the peak season by evenly distributing them across multiple smaller bills. These types of customers are typically the most profitable for oil companies. This is because they can charge very high prices for heating oil without the consumer even knowing.
Fixed-Price Agreement: This is an agreement when you sign up for automatic delivery with your heating oil company. A major benefit to this is that it locks in your pricing if major increases in price occur. Unfortunately, this does come with a price. Sometimes you will tend to pay an additional 20 cents extra per gallon for estimated usage. On top of that, if oil prices were to go down, you will still be paying your fixed price. So while yes, it does have it’s benefits, it tends to be a double edged sword.
Price-Cap: A price-cap is a plan that you make with your oil distributor for when prices fluctuate, your payments wont exceed a certain amount. This is an agreement that many homeowners fall for. A lot of homeowners believe that there is no downside to this, but unfortunately that isn’t the case. There’s a saying, “If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is!”. When oil prices on the market drop, dealers are not obligated to lower their prices for their consumers. While you’re protected incase prices shoot through the roof, you’ll be paying extra if the price drops. This is a situation that’s similar to the Fixed-Price Agreement.
Choosing Between Automatic Delivery and Will-Call
In the past, those were the only two options to go with, when it comes to ordering heating oil. You could either pay the premium price of automatic delivery, or order your oil every so often as a “will-call” customer. Even in today’s day and age, dealers are still charging up to 50 cents more per gallon of oil with automatic delivery. Some even charging up to an extra dollar per gallon! Keep a close eye out for this so that you don’t get roped into buying the premium prices for oil with automatic delivery. Even if they promise you a cheap first fill, the price will continue to go up afterwards!
With the will-call option, you’ll avoid over-paying for heating oil. You’ll be able to price shop before settling down on one price. Additionally, make sure your oil gauge is working properly! The last thing you want is for your gauge to be reading incorrectly! If you need to replace your gauge, make sure to read our detailed guide on how to replace your oil tank gauge.
As a will-call customer, having a working tank gauge is crucial to be able to know what your oil level is and when it’s time to buy more oil
There is some good news. There are no longer only two options. A third option has been added which combines the cheap oil prices and ease of having automatic delivery. That third option is the Smart Oil Gauge. The Smart Oil Gauge is a gauge that you install onto your tank that connects to your WIFI. It will keep track of how much oil is currently in your tank and will alert you if the oil is low and remind you to order! The app also gives you the ability to order directly from it! That makes ordering oil incredibly convenient!
With the smart oil gauge, you’ll receive some peace of mind when it comes to ordering oil. You’ll get the best prices in your area! Ordering oil and the your tank’s status will be at the tip of your fingers! You can monitor your tank and order oil from anywhere!
What is the Best Heating Oil Delivery Option for You?
So what’s the best option? We’ve compiled the three options together and have rated them against each other for your convenience.
While automatic delivery is more convenient than the others, it comes with a lot of restrictions compared to Will-Call with and without the smart oil gauge. You’ll more often than not pay 40-50 cents per gallon more with automatic delivery compared to will-call.
3rd Place: Automatic Delivery
If you don’t want to think about your heating oil, then this form of delivery is for you! You can sign up for automatic delivery at the beginning of the season and you will get billed at the beginning of every month. This is definitely the more expensive choice, but if money isn’t an issue for you then we recommend it! Alternatively, you will be able to choose a budget option if you prefer, which can spread out your payments more throughout the season! However, it’s only possible with automatic delivery. Just keep in mind that you will begin to slowly pay more as time goes on.
Despite the convenience of automatic delivery, there is still risk of a runout. So you can ask your heating oil company to install some kind of tank monitor, or you can buy one of your own to keep an eye on your oil level!
2nd Place: Will-Call
Will-call delivery is a great way to save money when it comes to ordering. It will save you hundred of dollars per year and thousands of dollars over a long period of time. However, all of those savings will be for nothing if you run out of oil while you aren’t home. Frozen pipes are a real issue and can cost several thousands of dollars to fix the damages.
If your tank is located in a convenient position, will-call is the easiest way to go! You’ll also have complete flexibility when it comes to choosing who you want to order oil from. You’ll also be able to shop around and get the best prices available to you! Just be sure that you check your tank regularly to ensure that you don’t run out of oil!
1st Place: Will-Call with The Smart Oil Gauge
The best way to save money with a delivery of oil is by using The Smart Oil Gauge alongside will call. For the low price of $150 the Smart Oil Gauge will give you the peace of mind that you get with automatic delivery. It will tell you how much oil is currently in your tank and will notify you when it’s time to order more!
With the inclusion of the app, you’ll be able to check oil prices for local dealers in your area. The app allows you to order oil from it by connecting to our FuelSnap website. With just the press of a button, you can pay online with a Credit or Debit card and have oil delivered to your home through the use of the app!
Is a Service Contract Worth It?
A handful of oil dealers will tell you that a service contract is a MUST and that automatic delivery is a requirement for a service contract. If your dealer says something along those lines, we recommend finding a new dealer. There are a lot of dealers that will provide you with a service contract without requiring you to buy an automatic delivery plan. DollarWise Oil is one of the few companies that offer a multitude of maintenance options. Ryan Anthony’s Heating Service Inc is another company that offers maintenance plans for your oil tanks! In the future, if your oil dealer is telling you that you are required to buy an automatic delivery plan to get maintenance, take a look elsewhere!
Conclusion
With all the technology that we have at our disposal, you’re bound to be able to take advantage of the best oil prices. By implementing the Smart Oil Gauge, you’ll be able to keep an eye on your tank’s oil level wherever you go! You’ll be able to have the peace of mind of automatic delivery, with the flexibility of will-call delivery. You can set your alerts to be able to send you notifications when it’s time to fill and when you get a delivery. You’ll also be able to order oil through the app to make sure you’re on top of your tank’s oil level.
The Northeast United States sees a large variety of temperatures and different types of weather throughout the course of a few months. Even during some winters, we sometimes see temperatures close to or below zero! If you’re thinking of moving to the northeast or already have a home in the northeast, it’s important to understand how home heating works. In this article, we discuss why it’s so important and why you should use it.
Steps to the Heating Process
To heat your home, your system of choice go through the process of heat conversion. All forms of heating must go through this process. Regardless of if you’re using heating oil in a furnace, or wood for a wood-burning stove.
First and foremost, your heat source of choice, must be delivered to your home. Second, your fuel source has to go through the conversion process to turn into heat. The conversion process varies depending on what form of heating your using. For fuel oil it goes through your furnace. While a wood-burning stove does it through the stove itself by starting the fire and adding in wood to keep it going. Finally, the heat must then distribute itself throughout your home. This spreads out via warm air that circulates throughout your home.
This is the basic premise of how the conversion of heat takes place. Each form of home heating goes through this process in one form or another.
Types of Home Heating Fuel
In the northeast united states, there are a multitude of different types of heating fuel. Each of them, have their own different pros and cons. Each of these types of fuel, require an at home delivery. However, they each have different ways of delivery:
Heating Oil: This is the most popular form of heating choices in the northeastern united states. Heating Oil delivery normally happens through the use of a delivery truck. Storage for heating oil is in a tank that’s located in your basement, garage or outdoors. The good thing about heating oil, is that it burns VERY hot. It will burn significantly hotter compared to natural gas or propane.
It is very cost-effective, especially when oil prices are low. In 2020, due to COVID-19 we saw some of the lowest prices for heating oil in a long time! Another good thing about heating oil, is that you own your tank. Which means you have complete control of who and where you can order oil from. Be sure to keep an eye on your oil level as well! Last thing you want is to run out of oil! If you run out of oil, check out our article on How to Fill a Home Heating Oil Tank.
Natural Gas: Another great choice for home heating is natural gas – that is, if you can find availability for it where you live. It pumps into your house from an underground array of pipes that connect directly to your home through the street. Natural gas is also a form of utility. Which means that you don’t have to worry about ordering your next natural gas delivery. It will simply come up to you automatically and all you have to do is simply pay the bill. Unfortunately, you are unable to choose multiple suppliers for natural gas.
Propane: Like heating oil, propane delivery takes place via a delivery truck. Propane also has a storage tank found outside your home. Sometimes, there are multiple tanks that store the propane. However, it tends to be more expensive than heating oil or natural gas. But the good thing is, propane has usage other than heating. Some of these include, gas stoves, fire places and even generators! For more information on Propane, check out our article on Heating Oil Vs Propane.
Electric Heat: Electricity sometimes sees usage for heating as well, most often in places where winter isn’t very cold. However, electric heat can be good as a backup source of heating. But it tends to be too expensive for larger homes or areas that have very cold winters.
Both propane and heating oil need to be delivered to your home. However, natural gas is simply pumped directly into your home from a network of pipes beneath the street of your neighborhood .Electricity is also supplied from the power lines on the street as well.
The Conversion Process
This is the part of the home heating process that involves converting your fuel of choice into heat. For propane and natural gas, a burner ignites these gasses that release from the system’s gas lines. The burner is usually apart of the boiler system, which heats water which then gets house wide distribution. On occasion, propane and natural gas can typically use a furnace that heats the air and then distributes it throughout the house.
However, heating oil tends to be a little bit different. Heating Oil is NOT FLAMMABLE at room temperature. For heating oil to ignite, it must first be heated up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. It then goes through the process of atomization. This is the conversion process that heating oil goes through to become gas. After heating oil goes through the atomization process, it’s goes to the burner and ignites there. After it ignites, it turns into heat for your home.
Heating Oil is considered to be the safest form of fuel oil. This is because it needs to be heated to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and become atomized before it can be ignited. The left side of the burner is where the filter is located. The oil travels through the filter to arrive at the burner.
Transferring Heat Through Your Home
A very common method of heat distribution throughout the home is by a boiler. In a boiler system, water heats up and then travels through your home. Afterwards it is then pushed through the radiators that are spread throughout your home. On occasion, the boiler will send the hot water to a heat exchanger. The hot water then pumps out through a blower that will heat other parts of the home.
There are also electric radiators if you use electric heating. With electric radiators, they’ll simply turn on and begin to heat up when the thermostat requests heat and will shut off when it becomes warm enough. A major benefit to having electric radiators is that there isn’t a need to have a complex heating system installed into your home. However, we only recommend it for areas with mild winters or small buildings.
Baseboard radiators are very common. They are often apart of a boiler system that transfers heat throughout your home to heat up your home. While not as common as boiler radiators, there are still electric radiators that can be turned on and off to heat the desired rooms.
Another common form of home heating in today’s day and age is “forced hot air”. For this process, a furnace heats air in the basement before the blower sends the hot air through your home. The air pushes out from ducts in the floors of your home. It is a great way to quickly change the temperature in your home. Forced hot air is preferred because during the summertime, you can use those very same ducts as a way to cool down your house.
This is what your average air duct for forced hot air looks like. Any home that uses forced hot air has a furnace in the basement that heats up the air exchanger. The blower then forces the air out of the vents and into your home.
Conclusion
If you’re in the northeast and in the market for a new home, its crucial to understand how home heating works. The basics of it come from understanding what fuel source you are using for heating. However, some are more restricting compared to the others. If you use natural gas or electricity to heat your home, you don’t have much of a say in who you’re ordering from. While for propane, you have one provider that will provide you will all your propane for the year. But with heating oil, you have complete control of where you can order from because you own your tank.
While we don’t recommend it because of how costly it can be, you will also be able to sign up for automatic delivery so that you don’t have to worry about when your next delivery will be. However, using FuelSnap will not only get you the cheapest prices, it will give you multiple dealers in your local area to help you shop around a little bit before placing an order!
Understanding what type of heating system you have is very important. It’ll help you understand if you need to order fuel soon, or if you don’t need to order anything at all! If your home has forced air, then it’ll be very easy to add air conditioning or another form of central cooling to your home in the future.
The most important part about having an oil tank, is knowing how many gallons of oil you have left in your tank. Most oil tanks usually come equipped with a float gauge. But, it’ll eventually be time to replace your oil tank gauge. In this article, we will discuss the most common fuel gauges: dip sticks, float gauges and the Smart Oil Gauge.
Dipsticks
The simplest way to measure your oil level is with the dipstick. They measure how many inches of oil are in the tank. After you’ve gotten the inch amount, you will need to convert the level to gallons . This can be done by using either a tank calculator or a heating oil tank chart. While they are more often than not used on underground tanks, sometimes people like to use them for their standard oil tanks.
This is an example of an extendable yard stick that is often used to measure oil level within a tank. These are most commonly seen with underground tanks.
Fuel Tank Float Gauge
Another common gauge is the float gauge. Each oil tank comes equipped with a float gauge. They have a little bobber that will tell you what the oil level in the tank is like. However, the reading is only an estimate and is not the exact reading of what is actually within the tank.
Float gauges are a favorite amongst many. They have been around for several decades and have proven to be quite useful. However, over time these gauges in particular tend to have their bobber coated in sludge and oil over time. This can affect the readings which can possibly cause these gauges to be less accurate in the future. Due to this, these gauges need to be frequently taken out of the tank to be cleaned.
These gauges are both very common and very popular. Although it will only give you and approximate level. But they are still worthwhile tools.
The Smart Oil Gauge – WIFI Oil Sensor
The most modernized form of a heating oil gauge is the Smart Oil Gauge. This gauge in particular uses an ultra sonic sensor to accurately read the level of oil within your oil tank. The gauge’s sensor itself is very accurate.
However, one thing to note is that the sensor has an 8″ blind spot on the top of the tank. The blind spot itself only occurs after your tank has received an oil delivery and it normally clears up within 1-2 weeks of oil consumption. We have a bit more of an in-depth write up here.
The Smart Oil Gauge also has an app that corresponds with it! From the app, you can monitor your tank’s level and even order oil from it! The app also keeps track of your tank history! You can view your tank’s readings from the past year, month and week! The app will also send you alerts as to when you will need a delivery and when your tank is running low! If you’d like to get an idea of how installation for the Smart Oil Gauge goes, you can check out our Roth Tank and Steel tank installation tutorials!
The Smart Oil Gauge is one of the most versatile gauges available. You’re able to access it remotely via the app and order oil when you need it! You’ll also receive email and text notifications when you’re low on oil and need to order!
Conclusion: What is the Best Oil Tank Gauge?
Whilst comparing multiple tank gauges, we took the liberty of looking at four important factors. Those being Value, Accuracy, Remote Access and Ease of Use. The dip stick is the simplest to use and is the cheapest. We gave the float gauge a “2” for remote access. We did this because some people install WIFI cameras to keep an eye on their float gauge when they are away from home.
The Smart Oil Gauge has the most versatility and best combination of our desired four factors. We marked the float gauge second and the dip stick third.
Overall, the Smart Oil Gauge is the best heating oil tank monitor on the market. With an app that gives you up to date readings that also allows you to order oil whenever you need it is fantastic! You’re able to keep using your float alongside it which will make you more confident in how many gallons of oil are in your tank! You’re also always welcome to dip the stick into the tank to be sure!
Happy Heating,
Hunter
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
