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Heating & Air Conditioning

Automatic Oil Delivery

16 years ago

We chose not to go on our oil suppliers equal payment plan.Having said that we really dislike the auto-fill plan as well because they seem to wait till the tank needs 1000 litres before filling it which brings with it a $1200 bill.We are staying on the auto-fill plan because the benefit is $125 for annual service for our old boiler and sonic testing for our oil tank. The price right now is $1.20 per litre (bio-fuel). To get around this beastly bill, we now burn 4 cords of wood per year (which heats the bottom 2 levels) and 160 gallons of propane for the insert (which heats the upper 2 levels). Formerly we only burned 80 gallons of propane per season. And now the most oil we burn in a season is 500 litres. Anyone else out there looked at alternatives like we have done just because they hate that huge oil bill? Changing our heating system is "out", because we would have to upgrade our wiring from 100 amp to 200 amp. Anyway, we have found the combination of wood and propane a whole lot cheaper than tank fulls of oil. @yes both fireplaces are modern and efficient.

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Comments (4)

baymee
16 years ago
I am a proponent of wood heat myself, even though I work in the oil industry. Been doing it for over 30 years now.
markjames
16 years ago
Many of our fuel customers have pellet stoves, gas fireplaces or wood stoves although most are used for backup heat or supplemental heat rather than dedicated space heating. Many newer homes have a couple gas fireplaces.

We burn wood at our camps and vacation home although dedicated space heating and water heating is handled by oil fired boilers paired with indirect water heaters. I have a few hundred acres of wooded land, but I buy my wood cut, split and delivered from one of our fuel customers. We burn wood more for the atmosphere than anything else.
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bus_driver
16 years ago
There are several advantages to the "keep-filled" oil delivery program. One is that customer does not run out of oil. Another is that the tank is refilled while a reasonable amount of oil still is in the tank, avoiding stirring up all the sediment while refilling the tank. Driving the delivery truck to the site costs the same for 10 gallons or for 500. Larger deliveries reduce delivery expenses. My recommendation is to budget for the oil and accumulate the cash to pay for it when delivered. It must be paid one way or another.
markjames
16 years ago
Our largest source of run-out calls, pump-bleeding, emergency deliveries, condensation and sludge stirring issues comes from customers that buy fuel from COD companies with low minimum deliveries. The customers often have the money to buy more fuel, they just hate parting with their money all at once. More of a psychological issue. They're like the people that drive 10 miles to put 10 bucks of gas in their gas guzzlers.

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