Anyone here have oil heat?

[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.