When I was heating with oil I had a 275 gallon tank. It could cost a bushel of cash to fill that puppy and blow the monthly budget. I was in that house for five years, the heating oil fired the furnace and the hot water tank. The first year (I moved in in Aug) I got lucky with the previous tennant leaving me an almost full tank and that lasted almost to Christmas, mostly using just the hot water heater and not so much the furnace until November. Then it got cold.
I had the tank refilled, with a little sticker shock and hoped it would be later than sooner before I had to have it filled again. Wrong. The house was built in 1836 and was about as well insulated as a picnic pavilion. No wonder the rent was low, $275/mo. The house was in very good shape for its age but the plaster and lath walls were hollow, the newer windows helped a bit. Electric was cheap, not a factor really at about $30/mo. so my rent and utilities were roughly $300/mo for half of the year. For the other half of the year that figure was triple, hence the low rent.
The price of heating oil in the winter months can make you wince, almost double what it is in summer so I wised up quick. After that first winter I went down to the heating oil company and had a chat with the nice lady there in the front office. She showed me the monthly price fluctuations over the past five years, always bottoming out in late July. I asked if I could buy ahead of time, "sure, no problem". Bingo. I sold some toys, a boat and a snowmobile to pony up some cash and went back when the price bottomed and pre paid $3000 when it was $2.15/gal and made myself budget for the next year so it wasn't so bad and I didn't have to sell things just to keep the heat on. Roughly the cost to rent the place averaged out to about $600/mo. That next march I had to buy more oil at almost $5/gal to get me through the rest of the winter. I gambled and got half a tank for just over $600. It got me through till the weather began to warm up but not quite really, April was still cold but not as brutal as Dec-Mar so I didn't have to worry about the pipes freezing and being single then I just put up with it. I bought my oil in advance each sumer for the next four years. After remarrying my wife & I got another 100+ year old New York farmhouse but this one has been heavily remodeled and upgraded and heats with natural gas
. I'm thinking about adding a pellet stove to the kitchen.
I will never
never heat with oil again.