Heating Oil Price Advice

[JPhillips]

My heating oil supplier gave me two options for a yearly contract.

1 - 2.699/gal

2 - 2.799/gal cap, but could be lower based on market price + 125.00 fee

I use @1000 gal in a year.

Option one looks good, but I saved a lot this year having an option 2 contract (although the price was capped at 3.699/gal). Which option would you choose?

[stevew]

Holy crap

[PackerFanatic]

I'd choose a gas furnace :)

[corbes]

Seems unlikely to me that we'd be looking at a second consecutive winter of falling prices.

[Alan T]

My heating company has something similar (I think the difference between our two plans might be 15 cents though, I do not recall off the top of my head).

I decided for budget reasons to just go with the first option and then record prices through the year for a few years to see how things went.

There have been a few years where the price ended up dropping over the winter, but never enough to make up the difference in cost between the prices though. The only winter I actually would have saved money with the second plan would have been last year.

Overall though I've been better than breaking even just sticking with the first plan the last few years combined.

[Castlerock]

When I lived in Massachusetts, I joined Mass Energy.
http://www.massenergy.org/
You might look to see if you have a consumers alliance in your state. I am fairly certain that I saved money with them vs any deal I would have gotten on my own but there is no 'cap' option. You just pay slightly below market rates.

[stevew]

Paying 3000/year for heating oil would drive me bonkers. I get pissed when my gas bills are like around 8-900 for the season.

Obviously option A looks good, and the other question I would have is that can you buy fuel at a market rate from another provider if there is a huge price drop?

[JPhillips]

Paying 3000/year for heating oil would drive me bonkers. I get pissed when my gas bills are like around 8-900 for the season.

Obviously option A looks good, and the other question I would have is that can you buy fuel at a market rate from another provider if there is a huge price drop?

I have a fairly big house and problems with Raynaud's Syndrome, so I don't go much below 68. We're also slowly tackling energy efficiency problems, but I don't have the cash to do that all at once.

I wouldn't be able to buy from another dealer without a $399 penalty.

[flere-imsaho]

Seems unlikely to me that we'd be looking at a second consecutive winter of falling prices.

This.

[JPhillips]

I went with option one.

[Balldog]

Similar situation for us... I always do option 2, I like the possible gain if it's lower. You are only out $0.10 / gal if it goes up.

2 yrs ago I did neither...paid $850 3 months in a row. ... Still bitter

[lungs]

Been pondering what I'll do with my new house. Previous one had a combination of outdoor wood stove/LP. The wood stove was nice once the wood was cut and made. But I absolutely hate cutting/splitting wood. Yeah, it saves money on LP but nobody considers the cost of a chainsaw, splitter, and more importantly the time it takes.

Right now, geothermal is probably the way I'm going to go. More expensive up front but it's looking like it'll pay for itself.

Nevertheless, we'll always be contracting LP as our properties that house my employees are all run on LP.

[stevew]

I'd love to have one of those outdoor ones that you can fill with wood and leave for a day or so.

[corbes]

geothemal ftw if you can afford the initial outlay

[stevew]

Do you guys just not have natural gas as an option?

[Castlerock]

Do you guys just not have natural gas as an option?Many places in the northeast do not have natural gas infrastructure. There are no gas lines to tie into. Some use heating oil because, throughout most of my lifetime, oil has been cheaper than gas so homes were built with oil heat. The cost to convert is significant.

[flere-imsaho]

Most of Portland, Maine has natural gas infrastructure, but sadly not in the part in which we live. Most of the state, however, doesn't have the infrastructure. Given that it's a pretty rural state, I'd be surprised if they fully pipe it for natural gas before a day when people switch completely to solar or something else. Heck, many folks in rural Maine use wood stoves as their sole source of heating in the winter.

[Desnudo]

Do you guys just not have natural gas as an option?

You can't get theyah from heeyah

[lungs]

geothemal ftw if you can afford the initial outlay

Just got the estimates for a geothermal system. It's only going to add about $5000 to the cost of my house. That made it a pretty easy call that we will go with it.