Recently moved to a new home with heating oil central heating.

[Shane309]

I have recently just moved house and my new home has heating oil powered central heating.

I have been calling suppliers today and was getting some pricey quotes.

Can anyone recommend any places I could check out, my friend recommended a buying group but no idea which one to go for.

[bjl584]

No one will be able to recommend anyone unless we know where you live.

You can't buy heating oil from a long distance supplier. You will have to buy from someone fairly local to you. You're probably looking at $3.50 a gallon or so for fuel oil.

[Bob B.]

Home heating oil and diesel fuel are the same thing. The only difference in price is state/federal taxes.

You can determine a price for home heating oil by driving by a gas station that sells diesel, and subtract off the taxes.

[greenskeeper]

Home heating oil and diesel fuel are the same thing. The only difference in price is state/federal taxes.

You can determine a price for home heating oil by driving by a gas station that sells diesel, and subtract off the taxes.

Depending on where the OP is, HHO could still be low sulphur and not ULS like highway diesel. Each state has different change over dates, but I believe all highway diesel has to be ULSD by now in the USA.

[Wino]

I'm waiting for the single-post OP to return with his own recommendation for a heating oil supplier, complete with link and glorious accolades for the service he got on the first delivery.

[ua_guy]

I'm waiting for the single-post OP to return with his own recommendation for a heating oil supplier, complete with link and glorious accolades for the service he got on the first delivery.

This. lol

Or...

Has the OP thought about using another heat source? Propane with a high-efficiency LP gas central air furnace?
What about wood heat, if someone is going to be home most of, or all day?
Electric conversion?

We're on propane and wood heat; the cost/work alone is making me think about going with an electric heat pump and having the wood stove as a backup for when the power fails (and it does, out here).

We'd like to go geothermal, but that's probably too expensive at this point.

[Wino]

This. lol

Call me a cynic...

[JBinKC]

All you can do is call local suppliers and compare prices. Assuming you live in the Northeast long term heating with fuel oil is the ticket that will definitely lead you to the poor house. For many its 3-5K annually down the drain.

I would first look into converting to natural gas (if available) then consider wood heat if you have the space available to store the wood and then attempt to heat as much as you can with wood with the oil backup.

With these newer EPA stoves you really need to plan and hoarde 3 years of wood because they require DRY not seasoned wood defined by the sellers to operate efficiently and no one sells dry wood. If you decide to choose the latter and with no one home to tend the stove I would grossly oversize a catalytic stove to the area heated. If someone is home in 6-8 hour intervals then I would then consider a noncatalytic stove.

[msnln]

We have oil heat too and it does get pricey. During winters, our family all sleep in the master bedroom together. When kids were younger, we all used to sleep there so we have two queen size beds. On each bed, we use electric blankets to get bed toasty warm before we go on. If needed, we also have oil filled heaters we use temporarily before going to sleep. Our thermostat is set at between 50-55 degrees (50 during the day while we are away at work/school and 55 in the evenings). By doing these things, we keep our usage to around 400 gallons/winter. Prior to doing this, when kids were much younger, our usage was in excess of 750 gallons each winter.

[HappySaver]

55 degrees is far too low for comfort. Hopefully you have done everything you can in terms of insulation and sealing off windows and doors.

We also have oil heat (in New England) and last year spent $3400 (annual cost including year-round hot water, not only winter heating).
We keep it around 60-62 while at work/sleeping and 66-68 while home.

And that's with a well insulated newer home, except there are some drafts around the doors and windows. Builder quality isn't what it used to be, and last year was our first winter in the house so we didn't address those issues yet.