How many gallons of heating oil do you use?

[sacatosh]

This is our first winter with oil heat (new house) and I’m a little surprised at how much oil we’re going through.

On Dec 23, we had the tank filled. Today, they came back and added 160 gallons. That’s approximately 4 gallons a day. We have a brand new furnace and don’t live in a palace (avg 1100 sq ft 1950’s house with a 400 sq ft garage — everything is fully insulated and all double-pane glass, etc)

Does 4 gallons a day sound like a lot to anyone else? I’ve Googled my heart out but just can’t find an answer, so I come to the WSB.

What say you?

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[DBP]

When I still had an oil furnace, I would go through between 400 and 600 gallons a year.

Since the cool season here runs from October through April (approximately 200 days), that’d be an average of 2 to 3 gallons per day over the entire period. That was to heat a 1600-sq-foot, well insulated house to 68 degrees with a vintage heater.

We’ve had some cold snaps since the end of December, so it doesn’t surprise me to hear that you could’ve been using 4 gallons a day.

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[sacatosh]

Thank you — We do keep the house a bit warm at 68*. I guess it’s time to figure out the programming and lower the thermostat at certain times of the day, etc. I appreciate knowing we’re not way off what’s reasonable.

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[MB]

Thank you for this post! This is our first oil heat winter in our new house as well and I was surprised to see them back after only a few months to refill. I think it’s time for us to figure out how to program the furnace to be off more often when we aren’t home as well!

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[DBP]

Yeah, if you have a programmable thermostat that can be a huge oil/money saver right there.

I am now using an electric heat pump, and for those, you wanna keep the temperature within a narrow range, day and night; that’s the most efficient way. But with an OIL burner, which can heat the house very quickly, you can dial it way down when you’re at work (or tucked in under the blankies) and then set it to fire up again an hour before you return home (or wake up).

Try it . . .

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[jissy]

Don’t have oil heat any longer, but when I did, we used about 300 gallons/year… usually just 1 fill-up. We would turn the therm down to 60 at night and whenever we left the house in the colder months and pretty much off in the summer. We did also have a wood insert to supplement… it would heat the main living area and we just kept the bedrooms cooler which we preferred for sleeping.

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