Friday, February 4, 2000

Web-Posted 2:53 p.m. TOP NEWS

Heating Oil Shortage Heats Up:

Whats your worst winter nightmare?

How about running out of heating oil during a cold snap?

What could make it even worst?

How about paying $500 to fill your homes tank?

At least a few Connecticut homeowners have found themselves with empty oil tanks and cold homes this week in the midst of a heating oil shortage that has pushed prices near $2 a gallon.

Skittish oil dealers today hoped new supplies would arrive at the states terminals to ease rationing that began this week.

Link:

http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/staticpage.dll?spage=CG/articles/news3.htm&ck=&ver=hb1.2.20

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 04, 2000

Answers

How long would the average full tank last a household, normally? did everyone back east just let their supplies run out at the end of last winter? I live in the Desert Southwest, so all of this is foreign to me.... I know winter was very mild back east for a good portion of December and January, but wouldn't it be wise to go ahead and fill up your tanks in October or November to get prepapred for winter? If that was the case, I don't think this shortage would have gotten so dire....

-- Rob (celtic64@inficad.com), February 04, 2000.

Rob- I live in Pennsylvania; we heat with oil; our tank is 270 gallons which I think is fairly average for a suburban home ( ours is 2000 sq feet.) Our modern oil company has everybody computerized; they have a database that tells them how much oil you used in the past, what kind of heater you have ( i.e. how new and efficient, or an old gas guzzler, etc), the temperatures, etc. and they can tell you pretty accurately on any given day how much oil is in your tank, and they chart fill ups accordingly. Depending on the temps, we can get a refill in two or three weeks when it's down near zero at night...usually I think they schedule us every month, although when it's mild we could probably go a few more weeks. At any rate, the doomers I know all got wood stoves and several cords of wood, or kerosene heaters and kero....only one I know got a propane heater and rented a tank of propane. Two rich folks we know of did get big extra diesel tanks on their expansive properties, but most of prepped in the real economic world, as opposed to millionaire fantasyland. But to answer your question, anybody that read R.C's and company's posts did get alternate heat, but not home heating fuel.

-- carolyn (carolyn@luvmyhub.com), February 04, 2000.

Link.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), February 04, 2000.

We use about 300 gals a month (2400 sq/ft house). The water in our house is also heated by oil.

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), February 04, 2000.

So, if prices have doubled, the "normal" $250-$300 a month spent on oil is now $500-$600/month? How do you guys afford it? I complain if our natural gas AND electric bill get over $150/mo. Are we totally spoiled in California?

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), February 04, 2000.

I had two woodburning stoves going almost 24 hours a day and it has been close to 0 degrees for over 3 weeks....our delivery on Jan 17 was 1.14/gal heating oil...on Feb 2 was $1.72!!!!! Even with the stove, those 170 gallons were a big ouch...without the stoves and wood we would either have worn a lot more sweaters or used a lot more...

But how can we afford it? Well, as long as it is temporary, it is not unlike having a sudden $1000 repair job on your car.

So you Californians have it easy on energy costs....but you have to pay over $200,000 for a dinky house on 1/8 acre...just the trade offs in life.

Thom

-- thom gilligan (thomgill@eznet.net), February 04, 2000.

I normally fill up the oil tank in August, to take advantage of the cheap prices, and then again in Jan after it gets below half full. This year, I arranged for a fillup the 3rd week of December. Paid 1.22 a gal, which was high (paid $.86gal in Aug).

I am damn glad I did fill it up then, and am not running low now. Of course, the wood stove is getting a real workout now, that both oil and propane are getting to insane price levels.

I will definitely be using the solar cooker this year to save on propane costs.

-- Bill (billclo@blazenet.net), February 04, 2000.

I think carolyn did a great job of painting the picture of your average NE'er. At my house, we'd like to shut the furnace down altogether, but when we did that during the first cold nights, the pipes in the cellar all froze. Lucky for us, no burst pipes!

Thought about putting a kero heater down there to keep the pipes warm, but don't like the thought of the fumes wandering up through the floor boards. Instant headache, if nothing worse.

I'm sure it's better for the folks who have newer, more energy efficient homes; we followed our hearts and bought a 200 year old stone dinosaur. It does have new anderson windows, but the cold still leaks in around the foundation...

As far as affording it? My brother down near Albany, NY, may not be able to get another delivery until he can scrounge up $750 for the oil man. Bro is living in Grandma's old homestead... very sentimental but drafty as a bird cage! The same oil company has been delivering oil there since 1946, so maybe they'll cut him some slack, or maybe not. The area of the county he's in is one of the poorest in the state, so probably oil company is extending a lot of credit these days... But, it's an old Mom & Pop type operation, sons & grandsons carrying on, etc. I doubt that they can afford this pinch anymore than anybody else. We don't have too much cash to send, but we have a warm (so far) house for them to come to, and all the food they can eat. Told them to get in the car before the price of gas gets out of reach, now just waiting for his pride to take a backseat to practicality. I'm the baby sister, so it's hard for Big Bro to accept help...

-- Arewyn (artemis31@msn.com), February 05, 2000.

Ouch. The above stories are almost too painful to read.

In answer to the question (how much does it take to heat your house) let me offer a different answer, much happier. I am NOT gloating, just letting you know what an efficient house in the cold Northeast U.S. (mountains of southcentral Pennsylvania) can achieve:

We live in a modern log house (we built it late 1996). By modern I mean it is the type that has tightly fitting logs, no "caulking" between them. One floor= 1900 sq ft, plus full basement. Primary heating is by oil-fired boiler, serving an in-floor radiant water system (hot water tubes run through a thin layer of concrete beneath the finished floor). We have two linked 275 gallon oil tanks in the basement, so total storage of diesel/heating oil is 550 U.S. gallons.

Now, get this: we average maybe 2 gallons, sometimes less, per day, in the cold season. We also run an indirect hot water heater off the boiler, for domestic (potable) hot water; so we run the boiler in summer, too, using an average of less than one gallon of oil per day.

Before you ask, no we do not keep the house cold to save fuel; right now the thermometer is running in the low 70s F, with outside temp = 19 deg F and not quite 2 feet of snow on the ground here.

Obviously, this is TREMENDOUSLY more fuel efficient than other people have indicated in this thread. As suggested above, yes more modern homes do make a major difference. Let me list the reasons my house is using perhaps one tenth or better the fuel of some others:

Radiant in-floor heating is very efficient.

Our boiler is efficient: top of the line model, 87% efficiency measured this past autumn when the installer came by for an annual cleaning/maint.

We supplement the oil burner with a massive masonry heater for the "common room" of the house, which accounts for 550 sq ft with a 15 foot cathedral ceiling. The masonry heater is a two-ton heat sink that burns wood and soaks up most of the energy (much more efficient and less polluting than any Ben Franklin stove, much less a wasteful traditional fireplace). We live on 10 acres of oak woods, with an 85,000 acre State Forest literally next door. We run the masonry heater all through the cool season--one hot fast burn each evening results in a gentle heat coming off the surface for 24 hours+. Fuel for this is in essence free (who needs a gym when you can cut and split your own wood! I use hand tools for the bulging muscles effect...and great stress relief after a bad day at work, come home and split logs while imagining something else was beneath the splitting maul...)

Roof is highly insulated, R 49.

Windows are double-glazed, gas filled.

House is facing due south, with roof overhang calculated to allow winter sun in but keep summer sun out. We really notice the passive solar gain: on a sunny winter day, we get 3 to 4 deg F extra indoor temp from the sun.

Windows are mostly on south side of house; few located on north side, to reduce heat loss.

Main doors have small "foyers" or entry areas, kind of airlocks, to help keep cold outside air from entering living spaces when main doors are in use.

Trees all around us reduce wind. 70 foot hill behind house (north side) also helps.

I could go on, but you get the picture. We went to great lengths to make this house more efficient, and spent considerable money in construction on things that are "hidden" and don't help much with re-sale value (efficient boiler, passive solar position, etc etc). But that's OK because we do not plan on leaving, ever.

Why? At the time we built this house, my wife and I suspected the fuel situation would deteriorate over our lifetimes. We did not even learn of Y2K until construction was nearing completion, or else would have made the house even MORE efficient. Retrofitting stuff is hard if not impossible.

I am not going to get into the stuff we did after becoming Y2K "Get It"s...

I wish you all the best of luck. It is easy to imagine this fuel situation is not going to get much better in future years!

--Andre in southcentral Pennsylvania

-- Andre Weltman (72320.1066@compuserve.com), February 05, 2000.

Andre,

Where in the mountains of SC PA are you? I'm over in Hanover, near the MD border. I'm always looking for people local to associate with.

I have been learning the hard way about the difficulty of retrofitting an older house (1974 constr.) to become more energy efficient. I doubt that I will ever be able to get it as good as a new one, but I will give it a good try.

And it doesn't help that there is little interest in energy efficient appliances or saving energy around here...

-- Bill (billclo@blazenet.net), February 06, 2000.