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Author: Steve Williams

Gas or Oil Heat: Which is Better to Heat Your Home?

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gas or oil heat natural gas meter

Choosing a home heating fuel type is a major decision if you live in the northeast. While smaller homes or condominiums may offer electric heat, most larger homes do not, as it becomes too expensive to heat large spaces. Instead, more cost-effective heating fuels exist, and we will break down which is best in this post below.

Heating Oil, Propane, and Natural Gas

The three main heating fuel types are heating oil, natural gas, and propane. Each has its pros and cons, and it’s important to choose one based on what you are hoping to get from your house. For instance, if you must have a gas stove at the house, you will want to have natural gas or propane available – even if it is for cooking only.

Natural Gas

Natural gas is a popular choice in the northeast, but tends to only be available in cities and the densely populated surrounding towns. It is piped through underground lines beneath the street. You can often tell where there is natural gas available because the roads are constantly being cut open and patched to access and maintain the lines. You can also look at the homes along the street and see if they are fitted with meters like the one pictured below. These meters regulate and track the flow of natural gas into the home. The homeowner is then billed by the natural gas company just like they are billed for electricity usage. Outside of the cities and in the suburbs, you will find that houses are more spread out, roads have more hills and rocks, and natural gas is much less common. For this reason, houses in the suburbs are often equipped with storage tanks at the house for either heating oil or propane.

Look for a natural gas meter like this to determine if a home is connected to a natural gas supply line.

Propane

Propane is very similar to natural gas, but it is stored in holding tanks on the property instead of being plumbed in from a pipeline. The gas is pressurized in the tank and actually stored as a liquid – hence the common abbreviation L.P. for liquid propane. The tanks are most often stored above-ground, and are rather unsightly. For approximately 95% of the tanks in the northeast, the propane provider actually owns the tanks as well. This is problematic, as it prevents you as the homeowner from ordering propane from anyone else. This leads to a very high price per gallon for propane – sometimes as high as 2X the price per gallon of heating oil. If you are considering choosing propane for your home heating fuel needs, make sure you read this post here.

Propane is stored in outdoor tanks such as this one shown here. Occasionally they are buried beneath the ground. In most cases with above ground tanks, the propane tank itself is owned by the propane delivery company, making it extremely difficult to compare prices and shop around for propane.

Heating Oil

Heating oil is a favorite for home heating because it puts out a tremendous amount of heat – approximately 35% more effective BTUs per gallon than propane – at a much lower cost than propane. While heating oil and natural gas tend to be comparable lately in terms of cost, there were times when the price of heating oil rose and made natural gas a much more attractive option. Oil prices have declined significantly in recent years, however, and remain low today. Another benefit of heating oil is that it can be bought off-season and stored, allowing the homeowner to benefit from lower prices in the summer. There are also dozens of heating oil providers in nearly every town in the northeast, meaning there is always competition to choose from. This competition ensures that prices stay reasonable, and you will not be stuck with a monopolistic utility provider as you will with natural gas.

Heating oil is stored in fuel oil tanks like this one shown here, typically in a basement, garage, or just outside the home. Heating oil can be purchased off-season, or only as-needed, allowing the homeowner to get the best price available at any given time.

Choosing Between Heating Oil, Natural Gas, and Propane

If given the choice between all three options, it’s important to consider the trade-offs. In terms of cost, heating oil and natural gas are the clear winners. Propane is often twice as expensive when used to heat a house. Since natural gas is provided by a monopoly utility provider, you may prefer heating oil so you can choose from multiple suppliers. If you do not want to worry about your fuel supply, you can sign up for ‘automatic delivery’ of heating oil or propane, in which case the truck will come automatically on a schedule, and the experience will be much like that of having a natural gas line plumbed right into your house. The one limitation of heating oil, however, is that while you can use it to heat your home and hot water, you cannot use it for a gas stove, gas fireplace, or generator. For these, you will need a propane tank outside the house, or natural gas.

Conclusion: Heating Oil and Propane OR Natural Gas

If you find a house that has natural gas coming in from the outside, then you will be able to cost-effectively heat your home, and run auxiliary systems such as fireplaces, stoves, etc.

If natural gas is not available, however, we recommend heating oil to heat your home. Heating oil is significantly more cost-effective than propane, and affords you the ability to shop around from multiple suppliers to get the best price. Since propane suppliers almost always own the tank, there is very little you can do to negotiate a good price. With heating oil, however, you can use a site like FuelSnap to check heating oil prices from local, reputable heating oil dealers in your area and order heating oil online in seconds.

If natural gas is not available and you would like the best of both worlds, then we highly recommend heating oil and propane. Using heating oil to heat your home and hot water is the most cost-effective solution available. And having a single propane tank for stove-top cooking, gas fireplaces, and maybe even a standby generator is a great option as well.

Happy heating,

Steve

10 Ways to Save Money on Heating Oil

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insulation can be added to conserve heating oil

If you live in the northeast, you have probably become accustomed to spending significantly more on energy in the winter months as you heat your home. If your home is heated with heating oil, there is good news: there are several ways to save money on heating oil over the course of a winter season. Below are the top 10 ways to save money on heating oil, starting with the most significant.

  1. Discontinue Automatic Delivery. Automatic heating oil delivery was popular for decades, since it meant homeowners did not have to periodically check their oil tanks and call the company to refuel. Because of this convenience, however, dealers charge an average of $0.50 more per gallon for automatic delivery! This equates to hundreds of dollars per year when compared with simply buying oil as needed. To estimate how much oil your house goes through in a given season, check out this post here. Since an average home uses over 800 gallons of heating in a given season, you can expect to save $400 dollars or more simply by ordering oil as needed and taking advantage of the ‘spot’ price.
  2. Install a Smart Oil Gauge. As they say in business: what gets measured, gets managed. Establish a baseline to determine how much the following steps save you. A Smart Oil Gauge will tell you – by the hour – how much oil your heating system is consuming. It will show you daily, weekly, monthly, and annual totals as well. Track this to see how much heating oil these improvements save you over time. It also will alert you when your tank is low, so you can cut cancel your automatic delivery contract and start saving hundreds of dollars per year right away.
  3. Install a Programmable WiFi Thermostat. Once you’ve gotten the usage data out of your Smart Oil Gauge, you can start to monitor your heating oil consumption throughout the day. You can see, for instance, how much oil you burn during the day when nobody is home. Then you can set the thermostat to automatically lower a few degrees during the day and see how much oil this saves you. With some systems, you may find that you burn more oil by adjusting the temperature – only a Smart Oil Gauge will give you this type of insight though.
  4. Tune-Up Your HVAC System. You should have your HVAC system tuned up annually, or at least every other year to ensure it is running as efficiently as possible. Cleaning out the system will ensure that as much heat as possible is created for every gallon of heating oil used, and that your filters are clean so air can flow freely through your house if you have forced hot air. A tune-up also acts as preventative maintenance so you will be less likely to have a breakdown in the middle of winter.
  5. Seal Drafty Doors. Adding something as simple as foam tape around the perimeter of an entry door can seal off the door quite significantly. Touch your hand to the perimeter of the door and feel for cold spots to know where cold air is coming in. Usually the bottom of the door ends up letting the most cold air in. If this is the case, installing a simple under-the-door sweep can seal it off nicely while still allowing the door to open and close easily.
  6. Seal Drafty Windows. Especially in older houses, you will find that a lot of heat escapes through the windows. To find out, put your hand near the window and feel for a draft. To eliminate the draft, install plastic film over the windows to create a seal. Cut the plastic to size, use double-stick tape to secure around the perimeter, and then use a hairdryer to shrink wrap the film in place. Consider doing this on any exterior French doors that you are not using during the winter as well.
  7. Add or Improve Insulation. Insulation – the pink cotton candy-like substance that you see inside walls – is what acts as your home’s blanket. Insulation keeps warm air in and cold air out during the winter months. Homes built earlier than the mid-1900s almost never have insulation. If this is the case, you should consider getting a quote for some blown-in insulation. You can add blown-in insulation from the exterior of the house without replacing all the siding. Instead, you can add insulation through small holes or by removing individual strips of siding. This can pay dividends if you plan on staying in your home long term.
  8. Close Off Unused Spaces. We especially recommend this for homes with forced hot air. Simply close the air vents in any unused rooms, and close the door to that room as well. Be sure to not close off too many vents in one particular part of the house though. This could create back pressure that is detrimental to your heating system. If your home uses a boiler, adjust the temperature down in the parts of the house that are unused. Just be careful during extremely cold weather though, as turning the heat down too far can lead to frozen pipes.
  9. Upgrade Your HVAC System. Oil-fired HVAC systems tend to last as long as 30 years! That said, they do tend to lose efficiency over time. As a result, they convert less of the heating oil to heat as the furnace ages. If your furnace is over 15 years old, you may consider installing a new one. Newer oil furnaces or boilers are much more efficient and generate more heat than older ones. Track your consumption using a Smart Oil Gauge to see exactly how much heating oil the new system saves you.
  10. Replace/Upgrade Your Windows. Along with replacing your HVAC system, replacing your windows can have a major impact on your heating oil consumption. That said, both of these improvements can be quite costly. Therefore, we we only recommend them if you are going to be in the home for many years and you’ve already gone through the list above. Newer, dual-paned windows are significantly more energy efficient than the single-paned windows found in older homes. Dual-paned windows feature an air gap between the panes that acts as an insulative barrier keeping the cold air out and the warm air in.

Start To Save Money on Heating Oil Today

Hopefully you’re able to take some of these suggestions and start to save money on heating oil today. Just remember, the biggest savings is achieved by cancelling your Automatic Delivery contract. Instead, ordering heating oil online through a site like FuelSnap. You’ll start saving money immediately, and then you can start to look at energy efficiency improvements. And to really understand your consumption, start by tracking your heating oil usage using a Smart Oil Gauge. Understand your baseline heating oil usage by collecting data for a year. Then, start working your way through the list above to save money on heating oil. Most of these improvements will pay for themselves over time, and all will lead to a more comfortable home during the winter months.

Happy heating,

Steve

Why Do Households Use Oil For Heating?

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cold snowy house with oil heat

Heating oil is a popular choice for home heating – especially in the Northeast. But what makes heating oil so popular here? It turns out that home heating oil is not only extremely efficient, but also very safe and easy to come by in the Northeast. In today’s post we’ll break down the origins of home heating oil and why it remains such a popular fuel for home heating.

Home Heating Oil and Forced Hot Air

The Northeast US has some of the oldest homes in the country – with many dating back to the 1800s or earlier. In the early 1900s, many homes were heated with coal-fired furnaces in the basement. Coal was delivered by truck and shoveled into a hot furnace to keep the home warm. In the 1930s, oil-fired furnaces were introduced, and slowly began to replace coal or wood-fired systems of the past. Oil was much more convenient than coal or wood. Not only did it produce more heat, but it was much easier to operate, as the oil could simply be stored in and drawn from a heating oil tank directly to the burner. This eliminated the need to manually add coal or wood to a burner in the basement.

The Transition to Home Heating Oil From Coal

The ease of heating with oil, coupled with the low cost and high heat output made home heating oil increasingly popular in the mid-1900s. Many coal delivery companies began to evolve into coal and home heating oil companies, and eventually began selling only heating oil.

The Benefits of Home Heating Oil

Home heating oil has many benefits when compared to other fuels such as natural gas, propane, electricity, or kerosene. For example, consider the difference between home heating oil and kerosene. Below are the main benefits of using home heating oil:

  • It’s Safe: At room temperature, home heating oil cannot be ignited. In fact, heating oil must be heated to 140° F and atomized before it can be ignited in a burner.
  • It’s Efficient: Heating oil produces over 138,000 BTUs per gallon. Home heating oil is significantly more efficient than propane, which produces approximately 91,500 BTUs per gallon. While oil furnaces are not able to deliver 100% of that heat to the home, they are able to deliver about 85% of it to the home, for about 117,725 effective BTUs per gallon. This compares to propane furnaces, which are about 95% efficient, and therefore produce approximately 86,925 effective BTUs per gallon.
  • It’s Cost-Effective: Oil prices in today’s market have dropped significantly from their peak. Oil is currently in the mid $1.50 range in the Northeast. This compares to propane which is well north of $2.00 per gallon. And considering a home needs 1.35 gallons of propane to produce the same amount of heat as one gallon of heating oil, the price for propane is nearly twice that of heating oil!
  • The Homeowner Is Free to Shop Around: Heating oil tanks always belong to the homeowner. Unlike with propane, you are free to buy from any supplier you’d like. This gives you maximum flexibility and saves you hundreds of dollars per year.
  • You Can Add Diesel If You Run Out: Since heating oil is virtually the same fuel as diesel, you will not be left in the cold if you accidentally run out. You can simply go to the gas station, grab five gallons of diesel fuel, and add it to your oil tank. Five gallons is usually enough to last the night until you can have the heating oil tank filled. Be sure to follow our guide if you ever run out of heating oil.

Home Heating Oil Is Extremely Easy to Monitor

Historically, folks with oil-heated homes have had to either sign up for ‘automatic delivery‘ or remember to check their oil tank periodically. This would ensure they do not run out of home heating oil on a cold night.

Today, however, tools like the Smart Oil Gauge exist to alert you when your oil tank is low. You can track your usage per day, week, month, or year to know how much home heating oil you are using. You can adjust the thermostat to save heating oil as well. And finally, when you’re low, you can use a site like FuelSnap to easily shop for heating oil.

Home Heating Oil is a Great Source for Heat

If you’re shopping for a new home in the Northeast, you should feel comfortable if it is heated with oil. Home heating oil provides great value in that it is relatively inexpensive and produces significant BTUs per gallon.

Having a heating oil tank inside the house means you can buy heating oil on a site like FuelSnap from whichever heating oil dealer you’d like. Check local New England oil prices, and pay with a credit card to have heating oil delivered in no time. Do not worry about getting stuck with one single supplier as is often the case with propane or natural gas.

Happy heating,

Steve

What is the Best Heating System for a New Home?

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radiant floor heat

Choosing a heating system for a new home requires understanding different ways homes are heated and how home heating works. From oil to propane, natural gas to electric, there are a variety of fuel types to choose from. And from radiant floor heat, to forced hot air that comes through vents in the floors, there are also many ways to heat the space inside the home. In this post, we’ll break down our favorites and reasoning for our choices…read on below!

How to Choose a Heating Fuel Type

Depending on where your new home is being built, your options for fuel type may be limited. If you are in the Midwest or Northwest US, natural gas may be your only choice. In the northeast however, you may be choosing between heating oil, propane, or natural gas. Electric heat is also an option, but we do not recommend it if you live in a cold climate, as it can be very expensive in the wintertime.

  • Natural Gas: If your neighborhood has natural gas, we recommend tapping into it for your home’s heating system. You can also use natural gas for fireplaces, backup generators, and pool heaters. The downside to natural gas is you are dependent on one supplier, and therefore cannot price compare and switch between suppliers. If the price goes up, you are stuck.
  • Heating Oil: Heating oil generates more heat per gallon than any other fuel type, and as of this writing is about as cost-effective as natural gas. The nice thing about heating oil is that you can choose from many heating oil suppliers and store a large quantity of heating oil in an oil tank in your basement. This allows you to stock up in the off-season and avoid fluctuating local oil prices in the winter.
  • Propane: Propane is the most expensive option when it comes to heating your home, so we recommend avoiding it. Propane not only puts out less heat per gallon than heating oil, but actually costs more per gallon. Further, when you use propane, the propane supplier will provide you with a tank. This prevents you from ordering propane from any other supplier – even if the price is lower! The only benefit to propane is it can also be used for cooking and gas fireplaces. That said, you can always use both heating oil and propane if you would like the best of both worlds and natural gas is not available.

Choosing a Heating System

There are two basic heating types: air-based systems and water-based systems.

Air-Based Systems (Forced Hot Air)

Air-based systems rely on a furnace to heat incoming air. Once the air is hot, a blower circulates this air through ducts throughout the house.

Benefits of air-based heating systems:

  • Duct work is relatively inexpensive to install during new construction.
  • Vents can be closed off in rooms that do not need to be heated.
  • The space can be heated very quickly.
  • The same ducts can be used for a central A/C cooling system.
forced hot air incorporates ducts and vents throughout the house and allows for central a/c to be installed to cool the air in the summer
Forced hot-air heating systems are extremely popular and feature vents like this to channel the hot air throughout the house. The added benefit of this type of system is that the same ducts can be used in the summer to channel cold air from the home’s central A/C system.

Water-Based Systems (Boilers)

The second type of system, which was more common before central A/C was introduced, is a water-based system. This type of heating system features a boiler which heats water in the basement. This hot water is then pumped through radiators that are placed throughout the house. The radiators slowly heat the surrounding air and warm the house up.

Benefits of water-based systems

  • These systems retain heat better, as the water in the radiators stays warm.
  • They can be used with under-floor heating (also known as radiant floor heat) for extremely comfortable warm floors.
radiators like these are usually indicative of a boiler system that pumps hot water throughout the house, or electric heat which is less common in the northeast
Look for radiators like these to determine if a house uses a boiler for heat instead of forced hot-air.

Hydronic Heating Systems (Hybrid Systems for Water and Air)

Our favorite type of home heating system for new construction is a hydronic system. This type of system uses a water heater to heat water for the house. This water can be used in two ways:

  1. The hot water can be used in the floor to provide radiant heating. There is nothing like walking on warm floors on a cold winter day.
  2. The hot water can be sent to a heat exchanger to heat air as well. In this case, forced hot air remains a back-up option to quickly heat the air in the home.

Benefits of a Hydronic System with Radiant Floor Heat:

  • The coziness of warm floors provided by radiant floor heat is second to none.
  • The floors help retain heat throughout the day.
  • The backup forced hot air can help heat the house quickly, or provide a backup heat source on a really cold day.
radiant floor heat makes for an extremely cozy living space in the winter months
Radiant floor heat is extremely cozy and should be considered before construction begins on the home, as it must be installed under the flooring.
Rheem offers a comprehensive hydronic system that combines hot water with forced hot air for the best of both worlds
The components of a hydronic heating system. The hot water that is sent throughout the house can also be sent to the hydronic air handler. In the air handler, air passes through a heat exchanger where it is heated before being blown throughout the house. This hybrid system provides the benefits of radiant heating, with the quick response of forced hot-air.

Summary: Forced Hot Air is a Must

If you’re considering building a new house, you should, at the very least, install a forced hot air system. This will allow you to very easily install a central A/C system as well. You can install the A/C system while building the house up front, or always add it later – just be sure to specify a furnace that has enough clearance to add coils for cold air.

If your budget will allow, then you should consider a hybrid system that incorporates hot water and hot air. This will provide the duct work for quickly heating the house but will also accommodate radiant floor heat. Radiant floor heat provides maximum coziness in the winter and tends to maintain the heat nicely throughout the day.

Since you’ll already have the duct work, this will allow you to have central A/C installed as well. Planning for this during construction will eliminate the need for any renovations down the road. As for a fuel type, we recommend natural gas if it’s available, and heating oil if it is not. Propane is unnecessarily expensive and will make it very difficult to switch providers or price shop if need be.

If you choose home heating oil as your primary fuel type, FuelSnap has the best New England oil prices around. Compare oil prices from various heating oil suppliers, find your perfect fit and enjoy the home heating oil delivery! Yes, it really is that simple.

Happy heating,

Steve

How Home Heating Works

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floor vent

In the northeast US, we see the full range of temperatures, and all types of weather throughout the year. And depending on the winter, we even see subzero temperatures at times. If you’re looking into buying a house in the northeast, you’ll want to understand how home heating works. In this post we’ll talk through the different fuel types, as well as the different types of heating systems you may find in a house, so read on below!

Steps in the Home Heating Process

There are three things that have to happen in order for a home to be heated. First, a fuel source must be delivered to the house. We’ll break down the pros and cons of the most common fuel types below. Second, the fuel source must be converted to heat. This is typically done in a boiler or furnace, but electric radiators can be used as well. Finally, the heat must be transferred throughout the house. This can be via warm air that is circulated through ducts, or via water or electricity that warms radiators along the walls throughout the house. We’ll dive further into these below as well.

Three things must take place for a home heating system. The fuel must be delivered to the house, converted to heat, then transferred throughout the house to warm the air.

Home Heating Fuel Types

There are a number of different fuel sources in the northeast, each with their pros and cons. While each of these must be delivered to the house, they are all delivered in different ways:

  • Heating Oil: One of the most popular fuel choices in the northeast, heating oil is delivered to a house by a home heating oil delivery truck. The heating oil is stored in an oil tank that is usually located in the home’s basement but can occasionally be found outside or underground. The nice thing about heating oil is it burns hotter than natural gas or propane, which makes it an extremely cost-effective choice, especially when prices are low like they are in 2020. As a homeowner, you are free to choose from any supplier you want. Just don’t forget to reorder, as you can easily run out if you forget! For more information read How to Fill a Home Heating Oil Tank.
  • Natural Gas: Natural gas is also a great choice for home heating – if it is available where you live. Natural gas is plumbed underground through pipelines and directly to a home from the street. Treated as a utility, the homeowner does not have to worry about having natural gas delivered – it simply comes automatically, and they have to pay the bill. The downside, however, is that you cannot choose from multiple suppliers.
  • Propane: Propane, like heating oil, is delivered to a house via delivery truck. It is stored in a tank – or tanks – outside the house. While propane tends to be more expensive than natural gas or heating oil, the nice thing is that it can also be used for a gas stove, fireplace, or generator. For more information read Heating Oil vs. Propane.
  • Electricity: Since virtually every house has electricity, this can sometimes be used for heating as well. Especially in places where winters do not get too cold, electric heat can be good to have on standby, but is generally too expensive to be considered in larger homes or places with very cold winters.
Heating oil and propane are two fuel types that must be delivered to the home. Natural gas is plumbed directly to the house from a pipeline beneath the street, while electricity is supplied from the power lines on the street as well.
Once the heating oil is delivered, it is stored in a fuel oil tank like the one shown. Typically located in the basement, these can also be found outside the house or underground.

Converting the Fuel Source to Heat

The next part of the process of heating a home involves converting your fuel source to heat. For propane and natural gas, a burner is used to easily ignite the fuel as it is released from the incoming gas lines. The burner is either part of a boiler, which heats water that gets pumped throughout the house, or a furnace, which heats air that gets pumped throughout the house.

Heating oil is a bit different from propane and natural gas because it is actually not flammable at room temperature. In order for home heating oil to ignite in a burner, it must be first heated to 140° F and atomized through a nozzle. Only once heating oil has been heated and atomized can it be ignited in the burner.

Home heating oil is considered extremely safe because it is not flammable at room temperature. Heating oil must be heated to 140° F and atomized before it can be ignited. Shown here is a Beckett heating oil burner. On the left hand side is a filter that the oil travels through before arriving in the burner.

If your house has electric heat, then you will likely have electric radiators throughout the house, or a heat pump. A heat pump is a system that is mounted outside the house and heats your house by extracting heat from the outside air, and transferring it into the house. One of the benefits of a heat pump is that they can often work as an air conditioning system in the summer time by extracting the heat from the house and transferring it outside.

A heat pump is a popular choice for town homes and condominiums. Heat pumps are powered by electricity and work by transferring heat from outside the house to inside the house in the winter time, and in the opposite way to cool the house during the summer.

Transferring the Heat Throughout the House

Once the fuel source has been delivered to the home and converted to heat, that heat must then be transferred throughout the house.

One very common way that heat is transferred throughout the home is through a boiler. In a boiler system, water is heated and then pumped through radiators that are located all throughout the house. Occasionally, a boiler will also send the hot water to a heat exchanger where air will be heated and pumped out via a blower to heat other parts of the house.

Radiators, such as those shown below, can also be electric. When they are electric, they simply turn on and heat up when the thermostat calls for heat, then shut off once the room is warm. The benefit to electric radiators is that there is no need for a complex plumbing system to send hot water to the radiators. The downside is that it can get very expensive to heat a larger home with electricity. As such, electric heat is only recommended for small spaces or places with very mild winters.

Baseboard radiators such as the one shown are very common. They are often part of a boiler system which sends hot water behind these radiators to heat the room. They can also be electric, in which case a thermostat inside the room will be used to turn them on or off.

My personal favorite is radiant floor heat. This is where instead of the radiators being placed along the walls, the floor itself radiates heat. The plumbing is installed in the floor and the result is some warm floors throughout the house! The only downside to radiant floor heat is that it can take a while to heat the house up. This means it may not be a great choice for a weekend house where you arrive on a Friday and need to wait several hours for the house to get up to a comfortable temperature.

Finally, perhaps the most common means of heating a house today is through what’s known as ‘forced hot air’. This is where a furnace is used to heat air in the basement, then a blower is used to send that hot air through ducts in the house. Forced hot air is great for quickly changing the temperature inside the house. It is also preferred because the same ducts can often be used for central cooling in the summertime.

A home with forced hot air has a furnace in the basement that heats the air in a heat exchanger. A blower inside the furnace sends the hot air through ducts in the house, and out vents like those shown here.

Summary: How Home Heating Works

If you’re shopping for a home in the northeast, it is important to understand how home heating works. You’ll have to first identify the fuel source for that particular home. If the house has natural gas or electricity, you don’t have much of a choice when it comes to your supplier. For propane, you typically must select one supplier to provide all of your propane for the year, and they will often provide the tank as well. With heating oil, you have maximum flexibility and can use a site like FuelSnap to compare heating oil prices from multiple oil dealers in your area, saving hundreds of dollars a year over automatic home heating oil delivery (where one company provides all your oil for the year). Just remember to also install a Smart Oil Gauge so you don’t accidentally run out of heating oil in the middle of winter!

Next, you’ll want to understand what type of heating system the house has. If the house has forced hot air, it means that it will be very easy to add central cooling to the house in the future. For the best of both worlds, a house with radiant floor heat AND forced hot air will allow you to quickly change the temperature, while also maintaining some nice warm floors!

Happy heating,

Steve

How to Fill a Home Heating Oil Tank

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heating oil fill pipe

If you live in the northeast and have an oil-heated house, you may be wondering how your fuel oil tank gets filled. Since most oil tanks are located indoors, and the delivery driver cannot access the basement, the delivery must be made without the driver entering the home. To facilitate this, oil tanks are fitted with a fill pipe and a vent pipe to allow the oil tank to be filled from the outside.

In this post, we will introduce the various components of a fuel oil tank and walk you through what’s involved in the home heating oil delivery process!

What are the Components of a Heating Oil Tank?

Oil tanks come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and can be found inside the house or outside. Occasionally, oil tanks are buried in the ground, but the components below are consistent with most tanks.

The fill pipe extends from the top of the oil tank, through the exterior wall, and outside of the house. There is a cap that screws in place to keep the fill pipe closed. The vent pipe also extends up and out of the house, and allows air to escape as the oil tank is being filled. It also allows air into the tank as the oil is being used.

The whistle (also known as a ‘vent alarm’) is the most critical component when it comes to filling an oil tank from outside. The whistle is located at the bottom of the vent pipe and hangs approximately 6” down from the top of the oil tank. As air is forced out of the tank by the incoming oil, it blows by the whistle, creating a sound that the driver hears outside. Once the oil level rises to the level of the whistle, the sound is muffled, and the driver knows to stop pumping, as the tank is full.

Home heating oil tanks are typically found in basements, but can also be found outside a house, in a garage, or buried in the ground. A fuel oil tank always has a fill pipe and a vent pipe, and often features a vent alarm / whistle to alert the driver when the tank is full.

How to Set the Amount for your Home Heating Oil Delivery

Before the driver begins the home heating oil delivery, he or she needs to determine whether to ‘fill’ the oil tank (keep pumping until the whistle stops), or just deliver a predetermined amount. Since many customers prefer to know exactly what they’re spending, many will order 100 gallons or 150 gallons at a time. In this case, the driver will set the pump to stop once that amount has been delivered. They will still listen for the whistle to ensure that the oil tank is not over-filled.

If you’re wondering how much heating oil to order for your fuel oil tank, consider installing a Smart Oil Gauge. This will tell you not only how much oil is in the tank at any given time, but also how much home heating oil can be delivered.

Connecting the Hose to the Fill Pipe

Once they have determined how much heating oil to deliver, they must find the fill pipe. Since this can be located anywhere at the house, remember to give instructions when placing your heating so they know where to find it!

Once they locate the fill pipe, they will pull the hose from a reel on the back of the truck. If you have a small driveway, the driver may opt to park in the road and pull the hose all the way to the fill pipe. If you have a larger driveway or your house is too far from the road for the hose to reach, expect the driver to pull in to get close to the fill pipe. Once they’re at the fill pipe, they will remove the cap, and screw the end of the hose in place to secure the hose to the house.

A home heating oil delivery driver preparing to bring the hose to the fill pipe of a heating oil tank. The pump features a meter that records how many gallons of fuel oil are delivered during the stop. The driver can set the pump to stop at a predetermined amount based on what the customer ordered.

Pumping Heating Oil into the Fuel Oil Tank

Once the hose has been attached to the fill pipe, the driver is ready to start pumping the heating oil into the tank. There is a lever on the nozzle that allows the driver to start the flow of heating oil into the tank. They will typically begin pumping slowly by only partially opening the nozzle. This will allow them to listen for the vent alarm and ensure the oil tank is not full before pumping too much oil into the tank. Since these trucks pump at a rate as high as one gallon per second, an oil tank can be overfilled very quickly if the driver is not careful!

After the driver hears the whistle, they’re able to turn up the flow on the pump and fill the tank. If the customer ordered a specific number of gallons, the pump will shut off automatically once that amount has been pumped.

If the customer has ordered a ‘fill’, then the driver will continue pumping until he hears the whistle sound stop. At this point, he will shut the pump off.

Printing the Home Heating Oil Delivery Ticket

Once the pump as stopped, the driver removes the nozzle from the fill pipe and reinstalls the cap. They retract the pump back to the truck, and prepare the delivery ticket.

A delivery ticket will be printed to include the heating oil company information, as well as a starting volume (0.00 gallons), and an ending volume that shows how much oil was delivered. There will also usually be additional information such as the price paid per gallon, delivery date, etc.

In-Ground Oil Tanks

In-ground oil tanks are less and less common these days but are still out there. They also often do not have a vent alarm / whistle to alert the driver when the oil tank is full. If this is the case, the driver will typically use a stick to measure the amount of oil in the tank before making the delivery. With this knowledge, and knowing the size of the heating oil tank, they will know how much oil can safely be delivered.

If the driver and homeowner do not know what size oil tank is buried, then the driver will take a measurement of the oil level, pump a certain amount of oil (e.g. 100 gallons), then take another measurement. They will then compare the two levels on a tank chart to determine what size oil tank it is.

Some drivers also carry a specially-designed vent/fill pipe that can be inserted into the fill pipe. It features a vented pipe that extends just past the fill pipe into the top of the buried oil tank. The truck’s nozzle is able to thread onto this, and pump oil by the vent section. A whistle sound will be created until the oil tank is full, at which point the driver knows to stop pumping oil.

Summary: Filling a Home Heating Oil Tank

Since most home heating oil delivery drivers cannot see the oil tank while making a delivery, they must rely on the vent alarm / whistle to know the fuel oil tank is safely being filled. As long as they hear that whistle making noise, they know that air is escaping from the vent pipe, and the oil tank is not full.

If you’d like to see a heating oil tank get filled in-person, go on outside next time your heating oil truck arrives! Most of the drivers I’ve met are super friendly and always willing to explain how everything works.

Happy heating,

Steve

How to Conserve Heating Oil in an Old Home

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If you live in an older home, you probably dread the heating bills that come every winter. Since older homes tend to have older windows and less insulation than newer homes, then tend to require more heating oil to maintain a comfortable temperature inside. As someone with firsthand experience living in an older home, I will share some tricks and tips on how to conserve heating oil in an old home and track your oil usage while doing so.

Three Areas to Focus on to Conserve Heating Oil

My house in Connecticut was built in 1865 and is virtually all original. While this can be extremely charming, it comes with its downsides! For instance, the windows are from 1865. As you can imagine, they are not sealed very well. When I first moved in, the wind would literally blow papers off the kitchen table. As cold air would blow in, the warm air would blow out, and my heating oil bills were outrageous.

Over the years I worked out several ways on how to conserve heating oil, and I spend significantly less now on heating oil. The three areas to focus on for conserving heating oil are:

  1. Heat loss – identifying where heat is escaping
  2. Heat generation – keeping your burner in good condition
  3. Heat setting – adjusting your thermostat and monitoring your oil consumption
This 1865 Victorian has taught me how to best conserve heating oil. By sealing up drafty windows, I have been able to keep heat in, and cold air out. I use a Smart Oil Gauge to track my oil consumption by the hour, and have programmed my thermostat for optimal heating oil conservation.

Heat Loss: Identifying Where Heat is Escaping

If it sounds like your furnace or boiler is working overtime, you probably have a lot of heat escaping your house. As warm air escapes, cool air comes in and replaces it, lowering the temperature inside. The main sources for heat loss in a home are:

  • Windows
  • Walls
  • Doors
  • Duct work

Windows

Single pane windows create much of the charm of older houses. However, they do very little to keep the heat in. Modern windows have two panes, with an air pocket in between. This air pocket acts as insulation to keep the heat in your home. If your home has single pane windows, you should consider applying plastic film to seal them. This film is easy to come by, and not too difficult to install. Just cut the film to size and use double-sided tape to adhere it. Once secure, use a hairdryer to shrink it in place. If done properly, you will not even notice it! But it will undoubtedly feel more comfortable in the house once done.

Sealing off drafty windows is a great way to keep heat from escaping your house. This will reduce your heating oil consumption in the wintertime.

Walls

Walls are also a major source of heat loss. As such, if you are embarking on any major renovations to your house, you should consider adding insulation to help you conserve oil. Blown in insulation tends to be quite cost-effective and can often be subsidized through an energy audit that your state offers. Once the insulation has been added, you should see a decline in heating oil usage immediately.

Doors

Since doors are constantly being opened and closed throughout the day, it is unlikely that they are perfectly sealed when shut. As a result, you likely have drafts at your exterior doors, especially at the bottom. On a cold day, place your hand near the base of your doors to feel for cold air. If it feels cold, you should consider a ‘door sweep’ or ‘draft blocker’. There are various types of these, with varying degrees of installation difficulty and effectiveness. The simplest ones can be slid right under the door without any screws and will do a good job of keeping the cold out.

Duct Work

This one came as a major surprise to me when I had my energy audit done. My house has what’s known as ‘forced hot air’ as its heating type. With this setup, I have a furnace in the basement that heats air in a heat exchanger. Once the air is hot, the furnace blows this hot air through ducts into the rooms of the house. At the same time, it sucks in air through ‘return’ vents in the house. Since these return ducts are bringing in the room-temperature air from the house, the furnace does not have to heat cold air from the outside.

With my house, however, I have a VERY cold, unheated basement. As a result, the air in the basement is constantly cooling the ducts. This makes the furnace work extra hard, as it is inadvertently heating the basement. Wrapping these ducts in insulation helps keep this heat headed to its final destination and keeps the return air from being unnecessarily cooled as it returns to the furnace. Also, the insulation helps seal any leaks on the ducts, keeping the hot air inside.

Heat Generation: Keeping Your Burner in Good Condition

Your boiler or furnace is the ‘engine’ that creates the heat in your home. Just like it’s important to change the oil in your car on a regular basis, servicing your burner should be a regular event. A furnace tune-up should be done at least every other year. Best case, you should have your furnace tuned up annually. An annual cleaning and tune-up will help allow the technicians to spot any potential issues before they occur. Staying ahead of problems with your system will ensure the heat stays on all winter and save you money in the longrun.

A furnace tune-up should be done at least every other year.

There are also catastrophic issues that the technicians can spot, such as a crack in the heat exchanger. This can lead to harmful exhaust gases entering the home. When this happens, it is definitely time to replace your furnace.

An oil-fired furnace or boiler is usually built to last 20-30 years. If your system is much more than 20 years old, you should consider replacing it. Newer systems are much more efficient, quieter, and can generally output more heat. My system was 28 years old when I replaced it in 2018. Prior to replacing it, I had gathered lots of data on my oil consumption through my Smart Oil Gauge. This allowed me to see exactly how much oil the new system was saving me each winter.

Replacing this 1990 Oneida Royal hot air furnace with a 2018 Thermopride unit saves me approximately 470 gallons of heating oil per year, keeping the thermostat setting unchanged.

Heat Setting: Adjusting the Thermostat and Monitoring Oil Consumption

The best thing I did since moving into this house was install a Smart Oil Gauge to track my heating oil usage and consumption. Since the Smart Oil Gauge shows me my hourly burn rate throughout the day, I was able to determine what to do with my programmable thermostat. Since I have forced hot air, I lower the temperature while I’m not home during the day. Reheating the house does not take very long, and only causes a short spike in oil consumption.

For homes with boilers and radiators, it takes much longer to reheat the home. What our data from Smart Oil Gauges shows is that it is best to leave the temperature the same all day, or only lower it slightly in homes with boilers.

The best part about having the Smart Oil Gauge though, was analyzing the savings from my new furnace. By exporting the data from a one-month period with the old furnace, and overlaying average temperature in my town, I was able to calculate the K-factor for my old system. The K-factor determines how long your heating oil lasts you. The higher the K-factor, the longer a gallon of heating oil lasts. To understand the math below, there is one more variable to be aware of: degree days. The degree days figure is used to determine how much heat is required to warm a house on a given day. Using 65° F as a baseline, degree days can be calculated by subtracting the average temperature on a given day from 65.

For example, if the average temperature is 30 one day, then that day is considered to have had 35 degree days (65 – 30 = 35). In Connecticut, we see approximately 5,930 degree days over the course of a year.

Calculating the Savings From My New Furnace

With the exported data from my Smart Oil Gauge, I determined that my K-Factor from the old furnace was approximately 3.37. With 5,930 degree days per year, that put my annual usage at around 1,760 gallons in a typical winter. This is about right, looking at my Smart Oil Gauge consumption.

With my new furnace, the K-Factor was increased to 4.59. This means that in the same winter, my house will now use only 1290 gallons. This is a savings of 470 gallons of heating oil per year – which adds up fast!!

My New Furnace Saves Me 470 Gallons of Heating Oil Per Year

Smart Oil Gauge records heating oil usage by the hour. In this case, we used the exported data from the winter of 2017/2018 with the old furnace, and compared it to the data from the new furnace in 2018/2019. The new K-Factor leads to an annual savings of over 470 gallons of heating oil in Connecticut!

Summary: Conserving Heating Oil in an Older Home

The first question you should ask yourself is where you can get the biggest savings without spending much money. Obviously, a new furnace would be nice to have, but this can cost thousands of dollars and may not be necessary right away. As such, start with containing the heat by eliminating drafts. Seal your windows with thin plastic film. Then, go around and install door sweeps under the exterior doors. If you have any French doors, or sliding glass doors that you do not use in the winter, consider wrapping those in plastic as well.

Finally, get a handle on your oil usage by installing a Smart Oil Gauge. This will show you exactly when you’re using your heating oil. You can optimize the settings on your programmable thermostat and begin saving oil immediately. When you’re ready to add insulation to your house, or install a new furnace or boiler, look for any local subsidies that may be available in your state.

Once you’ve taken care of the areas where your heat is escaping, be sure to visit FuelSnap’s heating oil price comparison tool. FuelSnap finds local home heating oil dealers and allows you to compare prices (saving you money!). New England oil prices fluctuate but with FuelSnap you’ll always find the best rate.

Happy heating,

Steve

How Long Will 5 Gallons of Heating Oil Last?

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staying warm with hot chocolate

If you live in the northeast, you are probably aware that heating oil is one of the most common sources for fuel to heat our homes. Heating oil is used not only for heat, but also for hot water in many homes. Unlike natural gas or electricity, heating oil must be delivered occasionally to a tank at the house.

One of the nice things about home heating oil is that if you run out, you can always go and grab 5 or 10 gallons of diesel from your local gas station to keep the heat on until you can get a delivery. If you’ve never been in this position, just simply pour some diesel fuel into the fill pipe outside the house, restart the burner, and you should be good to go! The question many people ask though, is “how long will 5 gallons of heating oil last?”

The answer depends on a variety of factors, but on a typical winter day, in an average-sized house, you can expect 5 gallons to last up to a day. On an extremely cold day, your house may go through 10 or more gallons, so it’s important to make sure you don’t run out of home heating oil. To determine how long 5 gallons of heating oil will last in your house, take the following considerations into account:

  • Is your home heating oil used for heat, hot water, or both?
  • How big is your house?
  • How well-insulated is your house?
  • How drafty are your windows?
  • What temperature do you keep the inside of your house?
  • What is the outside temperature?
  • Is your burner/furnace/boiler in good condition?

Heating Oil for Hot Water Heaters

Hot water heaters generally run on heating oil, propane, natural gas, or electricity. If yours runs on heating oil, then you’ll want to make sure to check your heating oil tank periodically throughout the summer to prevent a runout. Fortunately, hot water heaters do not use nearly as much heating oil as your furnace or boiler will when heating the entire house.

Expect an average daily usage of 0.5 to 1.0 gallons of heating oil to keep the water hot. If you have a larger house, or an instant hot water recirculating pump that constantly moves the hot water throughout the house, expect your consumption to be on the higher end of the range.

Heating Oil For Heating Your House

When heating your house with heating oil, you can obviously expect to use more heating fuel oil in the coldest months of the year. This is because the cold outside air is constantly removing the heat from your house through the windows, walls, and roof. As this heat transfer occurs, the furnace or boiler has to work overtime to keep the inside of the house warm.

Daily heating fuel oil consumption can range from 1-2 gallons on a warm winter day in a smaller house, to 10-20 gallons on a really cold day in a large house! Below is an approximate look at how many gallons of heating fuel oil will be used to heat a house of a given size depending on the outside temperature.

How The Temperature Outside Affects Home Fuel Oil Usage

In Connecticut, where the average temperature in December is around 30° F, a typical 2500 square foot home will use approximately 4-6 gallons of heating fuel oil per day. Looking at the table below, if the lows are around 20 and the highs are around 40, then 5 gallons may last you up to a day while you are waiting for a home heating oil delivery. If you are trying to conserve heating oil, make sure to turn the thermostat down a few degrees until the truck comes. This will reduce your consumption while you are waiting for your oil tank to be filled.

A home typically burns 4 to 6 gallons of home heating oil per day in the winter months in New England.
The average house will use 4-6 gallons of heating oil on a typical winter day with an average temperature around 30° F.

With this in mind, you may be wondering “how much heating oil will I use in a year?” Based on a typical 12 months in Connecticut, we’ve put together the following estimates for heating oil usage in CT. If your home is very well-insulated, or you have an auxiliary heat source (such as a wood burning stove), you may be at or below the low end of these estimates. That said, if you have a poorly insulated house, or you keep the inside of the house particularly warm all winter, you may be off the chart to the right. The average size home in CT can expect to burn approximately 880 gallons of heating oil per year.

The average house in CT uses 600 to 1200 gallons of home heating oil per year. Heating oil in CT is a very popular fuel source.
A typical 2500 square foot home in the northeast will use around 880 gallons of heating oil per year. Houses with great insulation will use less fuel oil, while poorly insulated houses with drafty windows can expect to use more heating oil.

Heating Fuel Oil for Heat and Hot Water

If you use heating fuel oil for both heating and hot water, you will want to increase those estimates in the table above by 0.5 to 1.0 gallon per day. The more people in the house having hot showers, the more heating oil you can expect to use to heat the water.

Proper Insulation Can Help Conserve Home Heating Oil

It goes without saying, but a better-insulated home will do a better job of keeping the warm air in, and the cold air out of your house. If you have an older house with no insulation, you should consider performing an energy audit to see where you can most improve your home’s ability to retain heat. Blown-in insulation is a great option that can help keep the heat in.

Blown-in insulation can help reduce heating oil consumption by helping the warm air stay inside your house during the cold winter months.

Drafty Windows Can Increase Heating Oil Consumption

Another major factor for heat loss is the quality and type of windows in your home. Older, single-pane windows will result in much more heat loss than newer double-pane windows. With double-pane windows, the air trapped between the two windowpanes will act as insulation and do a much better job of keeping the warm air in.

Since replacement windows can be rather costly, an interim method for conserving heating oil is to locate drafty windows and seal them the best you can. There are thin plastic sheets that can be adhered to the window frame using double-stick tape. Applying a hairdryer to the sheet once it has been cut to size and installed will cause any wrinkles in the sheet to disappear, making the sheet nearly invisible. The result is that there is no longer any air flowing through the window, and there is now a nice air pocket to act as insulation between the cold outside air and the warm inside air.

Sealing drafty windows with a thin film as shown above can help keep cold air out, and warm air in. This can help conserve heating fuel oil throughout the course of a winter, and also make your home much more comfortable. The plastic shown above has been attached with double-sided tape around the perimeter, then shrunk into place using a hair dryer.

Program Your Thermostat to Conserve Heating Oil

In the winter months, keeping the thermostat at a comfortable setting leads to endless debates among family members. If your parents never told you to put on an extra layer as a kid, then you were one of the lucky ones! Keeping the thermostat between 65 and 70 is usually sufficient for most homes to be comfortable. If the heat is not very consistent throughout your home, you may find yourself adjusting the thermostat up or down accordingly until the family room is a comfortable temperature.

You may be wondering, “should I turn the heat down when I leave the house during the day?” This can have a considerable impact on your heating fuel oil consumption, so it is important to think about. The answer though, is that it depends on how your house is heated. If your house has a boiler, with radiators throughout the house, then it can take quite a while to raise the temperature a few degrees. As a result, you may actually burn more oil re-heating the house at the end of the day if you opt to do this. That said, if your house has forced hot air (air ducts are placed throughout the house to allow warm air from the furnace to circulate throughout the house), then your house will heat very quickly. As a result, it’s often okay to turn the heat down 5-10 degrees each morning when you leave. This allows the furnace to burn less fuel throughout the day while nobody is home. You can program your thermostat to turn the temperature back up about an hour before you arrive, and the home will usually be up to temperature by the time you arrive. If you have a Smart Oil Gauge, you will be able to monitor your hourly usage throughout the day to determine the best approach for your house leaving you with more heating fuel oil in your oil tank.

Keep Your Burner/Furnace/Boiler in Top Condition

Regardless of how good a job you do insulating your walls and sealing up drafty windows, an old inefficient furnace will still be an old inefficient furnace at the end of the day. Make sure you have your system tuned up at least every two years, and best case, every year. This will insure it is in good condition and working as efficiently as possible. While oil burners can often last as long as 30 years or more, it is important to check for cracks in the heat exchanger to make sure you do not end up with exhaust gases entering the house. As these systems age, their efficiency can go down too, and you end up using more heating oil than in years past. A new system can pay dividends in reducing the amount of oil needed to heat your home.  

Summary: How Long Will 5 Gallons of Heating Oil Last?

While everything above should serve as a good guideline for how long 5 gallons of heating oil will last, the best way to determine how long it will last in your house is to actually measure it! The best way to measure your heating oil usage is with a Smart Oil Gauge. The Smart Oil Gauge uses an ultrasonic sensor to measure the level in the oil tank all throughout the day. With this type of data, you no longer have to ask, “How much heating oil is in my tank”, and you can look at a whole year’s worth of data to determine your burn rate throughout the year. In the image below, taken from the Smart Oil Gauge app, you can see the ‘Gallons Per Day’ for a house in CT. You’ll see that in the summer months, this house does not use any oil (heating oil is used for heat only in this house).

You’ll also see that the peak usage was around 12 gallons per day in late January, 2020. If you recall, the beginning of January, 2020 was one of the warmest on records, and we can see this in the usage data below! The Smart Oil Gauge also gives a summary of total gallons used (1,391), and an average annual usage of 3.8 gallons per day.

The Smart Oil Gauge offers the best way to determine how quickly your home will go through 5 gallons of heating oil. By reporting gallons used by hour, day, month, or year, you can get a good understanding of what to expect depending on the time of the year. As seen above, this particular house maxed out at around 12 gallons per day in the colder months, and doesn’t use any heating oil in the summer months.

A Smart Oil Gauge can be one of the best investments to make to determine how long 5 or 10 gallons of heating oil will last. You can also utilize the data from the Smart Oil Gauge to see how improvements to your windows, insulation, or furnace/boiler impact your overall oil usage.

Happy heating,

Steve

What’s the Difference Between Home Heating Oil and Kerosene?

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Kerosene vs. heating oil

Today, many of the materials we use to power our everyday lives are petroleum-based fossil fuels. We rely on these products to keep our cars, boats, and trucks moving, to power our water heaters and stoves, and to heat our homes. These fossil fuels all come from the same source: crude oil.

Below, we’re discussing the differences between two common fuels that derive from crude oil – home heating oil and kerosene. Let’s take a look!

Heating Oil Vs. Kerosene: Key Differences

Heating oil is a type of diesel fuel that many choose to heat their homes, primarily due to its safety attributes. Specifically, this fuel source doesn’t get hot enough to catch fire because its “flashpoint,” the temperature at which ignition occurs, is 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This means that it won’t burn in liquid form, allowing you to use it to heat your home with no risk of fires or explosions.

Kerosene, on the other hand, is a light fuel that is made by distilling crude oil. It is primarily used to power jets and other aircraft but does have some uses in the home, including cooking, heating, and lighting certain lamps. It can also be used as an industry-grade chemical lubricant or a petroleum solvent. Kerosene burns much hotter than home heating oil, which means it can only be used in a furnace that is equipped to handle high temperatures. Additionally, kerosene should only be used with outdoor oil tanks, as it can produce carbon monoxide.

Cost of Home Heating Oil vs. Kerosene Heating

Local oil prices fluctuate significantly from season to season. This is because crude oil, which accounts for a large portion of home heating fuel prices, is a globally traded commodity. Therefore, the market drives the cost higher or lower. However, there are a variety of other factors that affect heating oil prices for consumers. For example, cold winters can lead to higher oil prices in CT, just as mild winters often mean lower heating bills.

Competition can also drive costs – the more local oil companies in your area, the lower prices will be, as companies will attempt to win over customers with competitive rates. Finally, political factors can also influence the cost of heating oil. If local laws and regulations encourage alternative fuel use, the cost of home heating oil in that area will likely be higher. All of these variables figure into New England oil prices at any given time and can make it challenging to find the right company for discount oil in CT. On average, homeowners can expect to pay anywhere from $2 to $4 per gallon.

Like home heating oil, the cost of kerosene varies based on a variety of factors, including the cost of crude oil. Kerosene tends to be slightly more expensive than heating oil, and can also be harder to find, as not all fuel providers offer kerosene.

FuelSnap: Helping Residents Find the Best New England Oil Prices

When you need to purchase heating oil, sifting through all of the local oil companies in your area can be a daunting task. This is especially true when you are looking for the best rates to fit your budget. At FuelSnap, we simplify the process and take on the heavy lifting for you. Our easy-to-use platform compiles all of the current prices from all of the home heating oil companies in your area, so you can select one that fits your needs. You can even read customer reviews and order heating oil online, all in one convenient place.

At FuelSnap, our goal is to help customers get the best possible oil prices in New England. So, if you’re searching for a fuel supplier to keep your family warm and safe throughout the winter, we are your go-to resource. For more information about the FuelSnap platform, reach out to us at (203) 456-1015 or via our online contact form. We’re happy to answer your questions and help you get started finding affordable heating oil suppliers in your area!

What To Do If You Run Out Of Heating Oil

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out of heating oil

If you’ve found yourself in the middle of the summer with no hot water, or worse, in the middle of winter with no heat, you may have run out of home heating oil. Don’t panic – there are a few steps to take, and you will have heat or hot water again before you know it.

Below is our step-by-step guide for what to do if you run out of home heating oil:

Step 1: Check to see that you are actually out of home heating oil.
Step 2: Order oil! Order heating oil online right away. Call to confirm that the oil is on its way.
Step 3: Add 5 or 10 gallons of diesel fuel to your tank to hold you over until heating oil is delivered.
Step 4: Restart your fuel oil burner by hitting the reset button.

Step 1 – Confirm That You Are Actually Out of Heating Oil

Because there are a number of components that can fail in a home’s heating system, running out of heating fuel is not always the culprit when there’s no heat or hot water. If you suspect you are out of home heating oil, the first thing you should do is go down to the fuel oil tank and confirm there’s no oil in it.

Most fuel oil tanks are equipped with a float-style gauge. This type of gauge gives a general indication of how full the fuel oil tank is. Look at the red disk inside the plastic vial to determine the level. If the disc is above the 1/8 mark, you may still have oil in the tank. To check, unscrew the plastic vial by hand. Press the red disc down gently with your finger. If there is still oil in the tank, you will see the disc slowly rise back up. This indicates that the float is rising up on the oil inside the tank. If this is the case, you may have another issue with your system. If you find that you have oil in the tank, then skip to step 4. Learn how to read a heating oil tank gauge if you run into any issues.

If you think you are out of heating oil, go down to the float gauge on the fuel oil tank. Remove the plastic vial and press down on the level indicator disc to see if the float is actually floating in oil. If it does not move freely, then the gauge is stuck or the heating oil tank is likely empty.
To see if there’s heating oil in your tank, you’ll want to make sure the float gauge is not stuck. Go down to the fuel oil tank, and unscrew this plastic cover by hand. The yellow or red disc that indicates the level is attached to the floating arm inside the tank. Gently press this disc down and see if it slowly comes back up when you let go. This will indicate that the float is floating on heating oil inside the tank and the tank is not empty.

Step 2 – Order Heating Oil Online

Once you’ve determined that there is actually no oil in the tank, it’s time to order home heating oil. We recommend ordering heating oil online for this purpose. Local oil companies on FuelSnap have predetermined delivery routes so you can see exactly who will be in your town on which days. Searching for heating oil dealers near me will likely yield dozens of options. Check FuelSnap to avoid emergency service fees or outrageous same day premiums that many local full-service heating oil companies will charge if you inform them that you are out of home heating oil.

Once you’ve ordered your oil through a site like FuelSnap, you will receive an order confirmation email with the ‘deliver by’ date. Feel free to call right away to confirm when the truck will be coming or call FuelSnap ahead of time and they will confirm for you.

Step 3 – Add 5 or 10 Gallons of Diesel to Your Fuel Oil Tank

One of the great benefits of having heating oil is that when you run out, you can always go to the gas station and add some diesel fuel to the oil tank. Since diesel fuel and heating oil are nearly identical (except primarily for some dye that is added to the heating oil), your system will burn diesel fuel just as well as it burns heating oil.

Ideally, we would recommend buying a yellow can from the gas station to fill with diesel fuel. This way you do not accidentally use the same can for regular gas in the future. If they do not have the yellow cans available, then any gas can will suffice. 5 gallons will usually get you through the night (depending on the size of your house and how cold it is), but you will probably sleep better with 10 gallons in the tank.  

Running out of heating oil. You can always go to the gas station and add diesel to your tank to get through the night.
Running out of home heating oil is never a great experience. Fortunately, you can easily go to the gas station and buy 5 or 10 gallons of diesel, so you have heat until your heating oil is delivered.

When adding the diesel fuel to your heating oil tank, you do not need to go into the basement. Instead, open the fill cap on the outside of the house where the oil truck hooks up. This cap will have a hex on top of it and should not be too difficult to remove. Just pour the diesel into the fill pipe and it will make its way into the oil tank.

Step 4 – Restart Your Oil Burner

Check that your red oil burner emergency on/off switches are in the on position, and that the thermostat is set to the desired temperature. This means that the system should be telling the burner to turn on. Since the system was starved of fuel oil, you will need to press the reset button. This tells the burner to try to start burning fuel again. The reset button can be found on the oil burner and is usually a big red button. Sometimes they are harder to spot, like on this late-model Becket burner shown below. Once you press the reset button, you will hear the system start up. After about 15 seconds, it will either stay on (a good sign) or shut back down. If it shuts back down, it may mean you have to bleed some air out the lines. Press the reset button once more and see if that does the trick. Do not press the reset button more than 2 or 3 times. If the system does not start at this point, you may have other issues and need to contact an HVAC technician.

If you have run out of home heating oil, you will need to reset your burner once you've added heating oil or diesel fuel to the tank. This is the reset button on a late-model Beckett oil burner. Most systems have an easier-to-spot red reset button.
If you ran out of heating oil, you may need to add 5 or 10 gallons of diesel fuel to the oil tank to get you through the night. Once you’ve done this, you’ll need to hit the reset button on your fuel oil burner. Usually the reset button is a big red button that is easy to spot. On this late-model Beckett oil burner, however, it is more difficult to see.

Conclusion – What To Do If You Run Out of Heating Oil

At the end of the day, running out of heating oil is not a pleasant experience. In the best-case scenario, you can simply have heating oil delivered the same day through a site like FuelSnap. Pressing the reset button on the burner may get you up and running again in no time.

If you are less fortunate though, your heating system may have sucked in some sludge from the bottom of the oil tank, clogging the oil filter or the fuel oil lines. In this case, you may need an expensive emergency service call to get your heating system up and running again.

To prevent all this, the best investment you can make is in a Smart Oil Gauge. The Smart Oil Gauge will alert you before your tank gets too low. You’ll be able to track gallons used per day, and days to 1/4 or 1/8 tank. And even if you forget to check the app periodically, it will send you text and email alerts when the oil tank is low. You can choose from local oil companies and reputable dealers on a site like FuelSnap, and order heating oil online before you ever even come close to running out of fuel oil.

Happy heating,

Steve

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