Anyone here have oil heat?

[GLC1968]

If so, can I ask a few questions?

How big is the heated square footage of your home?
How much oil do you use (typical winter or a typical winter month)?
Where do you live (for temperature comparisions)?
What temp is your thermostat set for?

I know how much the previous owners of our home used last winter, but they were old, they didn't use the wood stove even once (because their house was on the market) and I think they kept the place abnormally warm (we were sweating when we first saw the place last spring). We have used hardly ANY oil since October when we first fired up the furnace, so I don't know what is 'normal', you know? Based on how much we've used and how big our tank is, we now have enough oil to last us for the next 8 winters!? That can't be right.

[DebW]

I have oil heat in the Boston area. We get a tankful every 3-4 weeks, maybe more often. The house is a 5-bedroom cape. Last winter when oil prices were sky-high, we were paying over $1000/month to heat our home with the thermostat abound 69. This year with oil prices thankfully more reasonable, our oil bills have been $350-500/month, though the thermostat is now about 67. I'd have to look up the size of the tank and gallons used. Your oil usage sound very odd, unless you are mostly heating with wood.

[GLC1968]

I should mention that we have our thermostat set to 55F just to keep the place from freezing on the overnight. We light the woodstove when we get home from work and use that to keep us reasonably comfortable until bed time. And we wear lots of layers & use the dogs and cat to keep our toes warm.

I was convinced that we were going to run out of oil before we had the money to fill the tank, so we learned to conserve out of necessity. Every time I heard the furnace go on at night, I was sure it was going to finish off the last of the oil! Now that our tank is full, the thermostat is set to 60F and it feels like shorts weather!

It just blows my mind that the previous owners burned more than 450 gallons the previous winter and it's reasonably mild here. I'm just trying to get a feel for what is 'normal' since I haven't had oil heat in a home since I was a kid.

[derailed]

In our previous home, we had 1000 square feet, zone 6 climate,(garden reference) and used about 2 tanks a year. The tank was a 550 underground.
We kept the house cool, but had bad windows and no insulation. We did a lot with wall hangings.

[SheFly]

I have a second home in Maine. It is small - approx. 700 sq feet, and very well insulated. Not sure on the gallons in our tank (eta - 300 gallon tank). We keep the thermostat set at about 52 all winter when we are not here, and increase the heat only on the weekends we come up for some winter fun - a couple of times a month.

We've been here on the coldest weekends this year, with temps dipping to -28 F. We also have a woodstove, but rarely use it - it heats us out of the house!

In a typical year, we go through about 1.5 tanks of oil. I think you are in a warmer climate, so you might not have your furnace coming on quite as often as what we do in the winter.

SheFly

[Becky]

Our square footage is about 1200. We're in the Mid-Atlantic (zone 6, I think), and the thermostat is set to 66 when we're home and 60 when we're away/asleep. I don't track our oil usage real closely, but it seems like we're getting a 100-150 gallon delivery every other month during the winter. I should note that we have a summer/winter boiler- that is, it supplies our hot water as well as our heat. So a monthly usage of 50-75 gallons includes hot water heating. Once the heat goes off in the spring, we might take a load every 4 months or so.

[greycoral]

We live in Portland OR, and have a 275 gallon tank to heat a 1000 square foot house. We usually keep the thermostat at 64° when no one is home, and I put it at 66° or 68° in the evening. Once the weather gets nice, May or June, it pretty much never comes on until September or October.

We filled up last year in January and again in September, but I know it wasn't empty yet. Since September, we're already down to only 1/4 tank left, so 5 months it took? Well, I guess that's about right, we fill up twice a year. This next fill up tomorrow will last us another 8 or 9 months.

We spent around $500 each fill up, so around $80 a month. We just put it aside with our mortage every month so when it comes time to do it, the money is already there.

I do run a space heater sometimes in our back room, but only because the floor is tiled and our dog door is there, so it's a little drafty. Other than that, the house stays pretty cozy when we need it to be. At night, we prefer to be a little cold, our two dogs snuggle up in bed with us, they're our little heaters!

[tulip]

We had oil heat when I was growing up; our house was about 1200 square feet, an 1878 farmhouse (i.e. no insulation!). But it's in North Carolina so it wasn't so cold for long stetches. As I recall, we had to get a fill-up once a year. Often, after a fillup, the heat would stop working because in filling up, all the sludge at the bottom of the tank would be stirred up and then clog things up.

I'm delighted with my efficient electric heatpump. I keep my house at 62F at night and 64 or 66 during the day (I work from home so the heat's on alot) and this winter my electric bill for everything has run about $100/month, and it's been cold. Next winter I'll have my wood/coal stove working so I expect that to fall significantly.

[sundial]

GLC, I'm surprised you're not doing the pellet stove or solar energy heat source.

[greycoral]

Just filled up today with 170 gallons. So we used 105 gallons in 5 months. It was $335.

[Crankin]

I have gas heat now, but in my last house, which was 2300 sq. ft., we had to fill up every month in the winter, with a 250 gallon tank. But, it's much colder here. We keep our heat at 68 and 58 when sleeping. Back then, it was at 58 for most of the day, until I came home from work, when it was programmed to go up to 68.
We also had a "balanced budget" payment, where we paid the same amount each month, agreed to in September. Of course, if the price of oil went down, you were screwed.

[sfa]

The part of our house that is heated by oil is a little over 1000 sf and in the most recent month, which was also the most consistently cold month in a long time, we used 151 gallons of oil. Our house is old and drafty. We keep the thermostat at 66 - 67 degrees. I don't have any of the delivery notices from previous months so I'm not sure what our general usage is.

Sarah

[GLC1968]

Thanks for all the input guys!

I guess having good insulation, a small house and a mild winter all work together to allow us to burn so little. We have a 1700 ft home and we have burned 30 gallons since October. Not bad, huh? We've used about a cord of wood, so that's about $200. $260 total when you count the oil.

Sundial - we can't really do solar heat since the sun doesn't shine enough in the winter here! And we opted against a pellet stove since without the logging industry, it's not self-suffient. We do plan on putting in a newer wood stove (more effecient one) once we have the cash, but for now, the one we have works pretty well.

[sundial]

Pellet stoves here are burning corn! It's too bad you can't harness solar energy. I didn't think about you not having enough sunshine.

We could harness wind and solar energy at our little hacienda. Just have to start researching it to find the best design. Hope we don't end up with those creepy 3 prong wind turbines that could sail away in a tornado.

[tulip]

If you live near corn-producing areas, then that might make sustainable sense, although I question burning a food source. But corn is renewable compared to trees an coal, as long as you don't cut down forests to grow the corn. The town next to my old town had a corn silo for all the people who had corn stoves. This was right outside of Washington, DC, not out in Iowa! Smelled like popcorn in the winter.

I have a stove that burns coal and wood. Next winter I will burn both if I can find a source for high-quality anthracite coal. Such coal comes from Pennsylvania, as I understand it. While not right down the street, it does get delivered by train. Anthracite burns very slowly and very hot, and you don't need much in a small stove. Renewable it is not, however.