Heating oil prices ???

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Starting to get chilly/damp here at nites in my area. Called my oil man this morning to order heating oil -- $2.37 a gallon right now. Has been climbing here the last couple weeks he said -- which is to be expected. What are you other BITOG ers paying at the moment?
 
Just curious; how much more expensive is this than natural gas at say $5.61 a dekatherm?
 
Here in NW NJ I paid $2.45/gal on 9/6 and I see it's now $2.54/gal. I remember paying around $4.00/gal some years ago, that was painful
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. Where I live it's either oil or propane, which has been more expensive than oil for years. They are just beginning to install natural gas lines where I live.

Whimsey
 
Every year at this time the east coasters talk about heating oil. Us on the west coast stopped using oil decades ago.

It's interesting how old habits hang on in certain parts of the country.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Every year at this time the east coasters talk about heating oil. Us on the west coast stopped using oil decades ago.

It's interesting how old habits hang on in certain parts of the country.


My guess is that Pennsylvania crude was close by, heating oil was cheap back in the day and the densely populated Northeast makes installing gas lines in old neighborhoods very costly.
Oil furnaces are very reliable.
 
Originally Posted by dareo
Just curious; how much more expensive is this than natural gas at say $5.61 a dekatherm?


It's hard to compare just the price per 1000 BTU of each fuel. Gas can modulate the flame and oil cannot. Most people with oil heat have no access to natural gas. It's a choice of oil or propane.

Where I live people who have an oil furnace or oil boiler when it needs replacement go with propane.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Every year at this time the east coasters talk about heating oil. Us on the west coast stopped using oil decades ago.

It's interesting how old habits hang on in certain parts of the country.

If my furnace were to die, I'd switch. Unfortunately each of the houses I've bought were oil heated, and I never bothered to see how long it'd take to pay off converting. My current house had its furnace put in about 20 years ago; the other house had its oil furnace done in 1995. I suspect oil prices were much lower back then.
 
Originally Posted by skyactiv
Originally Posted by PimTac
Every year at this time the east coasters talk about heating oil. Us on the west coast stopped using oil decades ago.

It's interesting how old habits hang on in certain parts of the country.


My guess is that Pennsylvania crude was close by, heating oil was cheap back in the day and the densely populated Northeast makes installing gas lines in old neighborhoods very costly.
Oil furnaces are very reliable and do a great job heating a home.

Why run lines? Just have a delivery truck make some rounds.

I wonder if some people today don't like having the tank outside, it can be an eyesore. Me, I don't like the notion of having an oil tank in the basement (it's not a big deal, not until it springs a leak that is), but for some, they might prefer that over an external tank.
 
Originally Posted by dareo
Just curious; how much more expensive is this than natural gas at say $5.61 a dekatherm?


I worked in the marketing department of an oil company. We would multiply the natural gas price in dekatherm by 6 to get $/barrel equivalent and then divide by 42 to get gallon equivalent on a btu basis. This was based on btu/gallon of WTI crude. The btu's in WTI vs distillate are very close.


So $5.61 x 6 / 42 =$0.80 per gallon equivalent.
 
Originally Posted by Burt
Originally Posted by dareo
Just curious; how much more expensive is this than natural gas at say $5.61 a dekatherm?


I worked in the marketing department of an oil company. We would multiply the natural gas price in dekatherm by 6 to get $/barrel equivalent and then divide by 42 to get gallon equivalent on a btu basis. This was based on btu/gallon of WTI crude. The btu's in WTI vs distillate are very close.


So $5.61 x 6 / 42 =$0.80 per gallon equivalent.


So its roughly 3x more expensive if you have to run oil heat? My condolences those without natural gas infrastructures.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Every year at this time the east coasters talk about heating oil. Us on the west coast stopped using oil decades ago.

It's interesting how old habits hang on in certain parts of the country.


It's not a habit, it's how the infrastructure is in place. Liquid oil travels quite nicely where it's impractical to bury gas lines. Compressing tanks of natural gas or propane is more of a hassle and more expensive.
 
I heated my house with oil for 40 years. Towards the end of my oil burners time, our heating bills would go up every delivery. So our season's oil bill would run from between $1900- $2400 , depending on how cold the winter was and the price per gallon. 2 years ago the boiler gave it up and needed to be replaced. We shopped around for prices and there was a big difference between the 5 estimates we got. So we picked one and had a new Gas boiler installed. it cost less then 10k soup to nuts. Our heat bills dropped big time. We now keep the house thermostat set higher then we did with oil, and last seasons heating bill was $700. I would never go back to oil, or replace a broke oil furnace with another oil furnace.,,,
 
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Just paid 2.30/gallon this morning for 125 gallons to top off the tank before it rises. Diesel is about 3$ near me so I would expect a jump within the next few weeks. I also ran an anti gel additive since its an outdoor tank.
 
Oil is higher than natural gas mostly due to delivery method but also availability. Pipe is cheap after you get past installation costs.
 
Just topped up last weekend.........300 gallons @ $2.32/gal.
550 gallon In-Ground tank. Added a 1/2 gallon of Howe's Diesel Treatment and Anti gel.......I'm good to go till sometime in January.......
 
Originally Posted by BlueOvalFitter
Why don't you heating oil users switch to a central A/C/HEATING STRIP/HEAT PUMP HVAC type system?
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Oil heat is in my shop, that solution wont work in a 2200 sq ft building with 12 foot doors and 20 foot ceilings. I also rent, so not going to upgrade to waste oil unless the owner wants to subsidize about 75% of it.
 
Originally Posted by Whimsey
Where I live it's either oil or propane, which has been more expensive than oil for years.


Heating with oil is cheaper than propane? Must be some wildly expensive propane!

I heat my house with an electric heat pump, our temps here are not all that different from NJ. The winter months add about $100 to my electric bill each month. Our system was installed the year before last, probably the most cost efficient form of heat I've ever had. A lot of folks don't like them because the system outputs "warm" air, not hot air like most are used to.
 
Natural gas is cheapest but not available in my neighborhood. Propane and oil both expensive.

My first and last home with oil heat. Hassle all around and the burners require maintenance compared to gas.The biggest pro is your home will never blow up with oil.
 
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