in the last 3 1/2 months i had spent $988 on heating oil and my tank is on ( E ) again.
man i cant take this no more, its freezing over here now and for the last 3 months i have had the heat on no higher then 66-68 in the day and 60-62 in the night with an occasional steady 60 sometimes when no one is home..

is there something wrong or is this just normal.?

i cant afford this kind of heat. its been no higher then 60' f in my house and i been running 2 very strong electric heaters.

if this makes a difference ( my house inside is about 1900 square feet, 3 floors )


and another question is would electric heaters installed instead of oild heat be cheaper and still warm.? thanks

i would say that the company may have raised their rates but i doubt it. you would be told of it. is your house properly insulated? that can be the main reason why.

Especially older houses with old windows.... I'm living in a duplex built in the late 70'* and the windows leak pretty bad. My brother and I put this plastic film that you tape to the edges of the glass and then use a blowdryer to stretch it flat. Works pretty well to insulate. On other windows we've push-pinned folded over sheets to keep the heat from going out the windows.

Something else to look into is how the attic is insulated. A lot of times, theres not enough insulation to keep the heat in the house... heat rises and it'll go right out the top of the house.

I dont know how heating oil compares to propane in price or efficiency, but right now propane is up over 2 dollars a gallon, something like 2.15 I think. An average person with a propane furnace, and especially with a stove, dryer etc, can easily use 2-300 gallons of propane in a couple weeks time, especially if its cold. Thats 600 bucks right there just to heat your home, and cook, and do laundry.

3 stories doesnt help anything either, and as was said your insulation could be a problem.


If you mean converting to electric heat it would probably be considerably cheaper in the long run, but the short term expense might be harsh.

The only complaint I have about my experiences with electric heat is it seems to run far more often than other forms of heat. Some furnaces also stop the heat cycle and blower, then kick on just the blower to aid cooling the furnace off...so your heat kicks on, stops, then immediately kicks on again, its kind of annoying, but thats just the setup we have.

For now we use a Hardy outdoor wood burning furnace that also heats our water, it runs off the blower from our old electric furnace....there really is no substitute for wood heat, its hard to describe with words, but if youve had it, you know what im talking about.

Another thought: Replace old-school thermostats with programmable electronic ones. Its easy to do, and if you program it to stay cool while you're at work or during the night it helps with costs.

Has your furnace been tuned up lately. You need to replace the oil filter and nozzle every year. You could go down one nozzle size to reduce the oil flow or switch to a Beckett high efficiency burner system.

One trick that works pretty good on older homes with single pane windows is covering the inside of the windows, leaving a couple of inches of air gap between the glass and the plastic, for better insulation.

You should also have the furnace serviced once a year to clean it and change the filter and ignitor. That will affect its efficiency.

I used to have an oil furnace but converted to Gas and I'll never go back

you also have to remember, $1000 in heating oil is only 250 gals. yes, that is alot for me. I get through a winter on 500 gals usually. but it has been colder and I know alot of people who regularly go through a tank a month. I heat so cheaply, I could never get my money back by switching to gas, so I just stay with oil.

but get a tuneup, atleast filter and nozzle, and adj ign probes

Keep the doors closed, open the blinds/curtains when it'* sunny, insulate the crap out of the attic(there is such a thing as too much though), and it doesn't hurt to insulate the walls if they aren't already. Gonna spend some money to do that though. Also, make sure the windows panes are sealed. If needed, apply a bead of silicon caulk around the edges of the glass(even though they are covered with plastic). If you have a basement, make sure that all of the windows are sealed. Go around the entire house feeling for drafts from the outside. If you find one, find a way to stop it.

Is it possible that someone is stealing your oil?