Heating Oil Prices - 2008?

My buddy I work with, just had his oil furnance/hot water serviced, it was blowing the PRV valve, lost the bladder pressure on the expansion tank, no big deal.

He asked how much a gallon for fuel - Currently $4.04/gal for home heating oil !!! WOW.

Let's see, a 250 Gallon Tank (On average) x $4.04 = $1010 to fill it! Winter time, probably fill it every 45-60 days! OUCH!! I think I spent that much for the entire heating season! (5-6 Ton)

I will bet you wood and coal stove sales will be skyrocketing this year!!

I'm told that this years prebuy in Bangor Maine prebuy is $3.90.

Scarey isn't it? I don't know what people on fixed income are going to do. Oil is $3.94 a gallon in southern Maine and I just heard that you probably will be able to lock in at $4 a gallon this summer. The last year that I used oil was quite a while ago and we were averaging 3 gallons a day. At $4 a gallon, I can heat my house for 2 years with coal. Let's see, now why don't I go back to oil???

I work in accounting now dealing with local oil distributors. One fairly large local distributor buys futures contracts for delivery. He was telling me his cost for next winter is currently in the neighborhood of 4.00 a gallon if he commits now. That's before transportation costs, pipeline charges and his profit margin are added.

My wife and I both work, not rich but not poor either, struggled last year. How the he!! are people on a fixed income or making 10.00 an hour going to get through next winter?

My 78 YO mother lives by herself in an apartment. We offered her on several occassions to move in with us. She likes her independence but I have a feeling next year's utility and rent increases might just change her mind.

That's the scary thing, you know the price of rent is going to skyrocket. My cousin lives in a one bedroom place, heat is included. It's $650 a month now, I'll bet a healthy increase drives her back to living with.........oh no... ME!!!

Even the program the state has to help low income people is so far off base now. 5 yrs ago if you qualified, it would pay about 3/4 of your fuel bill. It has increased a tiny amount, but now only pays about 10% of the average oil bill. What are these low income people going to do?

I think last winter was just a taste of what's coming next winter for heating oil & natural gas. I'm gonna buy as much Blashak as I can find at my local Aubuchan hardware stores over the weekend.

Devil5052 wrote:I think last winter was just a taste of what's coming next winter for heating oil & natural gas.

Absolutely, I'm kicking my old butt into high gear so I can get my new system set up, the coal bin built and filled by July. I'm not taking any chances. If I have to build a camp fire in my living room I refuse to heat with oil this winter.

Just brought in the last of ours. We now have next winters coal all stored in the basement, as well as part of the following winters. I will keep buying it as long as it is available, with the goal to go into this coming winter with two years worth.

i'm poor Ohio boy. I get HEAP help for my oil from the state. they sent a check to my oil supplier for $173.00 for the winter back in Dec. well in 3 or 4 years at that rate I should be able to get the min. of delivery of 150 gals.

Devil5052 wrote:I think last winter was just a taste of what's coming next winter for heating oil & natural gas. I'm gonna buy as much Blashak as I can find at my local Aubuchan hardware stores over the weekend.

HOW IS THE COAL AT AUBUCHAN I HAVE A LOCAL ONE IN MIDDLEBORO,MA

nuthead wrote:

Devil5052 wrote:I think last winter was just a taste of what's coming next winter for heating oil & natural gas. I'm gonna buy as much Blashak as I can find at my local Aubuchan hardware stores over the weekend.

HOW IS THE COAL AT AUBUCHAN I HAVE A LOCAL ONE IN MIDDLEBORO,MA

Great stuff! They sell Blaschak in 40 lb bags & I have been burning it for years.
(I tried Brockton Ice & Coal this year & had nothing but trouble. They sell Reading Coal which jammed my stove every few weeks! Stick with Blaschak from Aubuchan)

ken wrote:i'm poor Ohio boy. I get HEAP help for my oil from the state. they sent a check to my oil supplier for $173.00 for the winter back in Dec. well in 3 or 4 years at that rate I should be able to get the min. of delivery of 150 gals.

I used to do LIHEAP, if you're getting it delivered see if your delivery guy has an account. Not sure what the status for a store selling bags would be. I don't know about in your area but here in Pennsylvania you have to be registered in the county where the customer lives. If you're purchasing it yourself they may even send the check right to you. The paper work is fairly minimal for the dealer, you only have to fill the form out once.

One thing to be aware of is you need to spend it becuase if you have a balance they may not send another one, I know I got inquiries about it and had to tell them how I worked it with coal. I'd run into problems because the check would get there in the fall and usually by that time they would already have their coal delivered and it would be paid for. I'd apply it to the next bill 6 or 7 months later in the summer. That money can be used for balances or partial payment on delivery with the customer picking up the remainder.

Well, I'm paying $1.30 per litre Canadian here for diesel. You do the math to figure out dollars/gallon with US and CA dollar at par now. offroad diesel (dyed red) is a penny less or so. (you get a monster fine if caught running it on the road!!) I can just imagine furnace oil will be between 1.25 - 1.50 per litre here next winter.

Do most Canadians heat with oil? Just curious. Certainly in Maine that's how it is. Other states have piped in natural gas. I think that ends up a bit cheaper than oil.

No surprise, oil oil prices are what got me going with my coal stove. I'm going to burn wood in it too, and have started collecting and I don't even have it installed yet! Last year my pre-paid oil was used up by January, and I bought another minimum purchase every month. Toward the end of the month I'd get real low and buy 25 gallons of diesel or so to hold me over. Now I'm using the tax return money (AND my work bonus, AND my "economic incentive") I used to use to buy my pre-pay oil to pay off the other bills I neglected over the winter!

I don't know how other folks are doing it either.