Money Matters
kmurphy2131
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re-introduction, Oil Tank Question
Hi Everyone,
I have never been super active on here, but was intermittently posting for 1-2 years. The Nest did some upgrades and I got locked out of my account, and then we bought a house and I have been super busy and not on here much anyway, though I have done a little "lurking" before I could get my account fixed.
We just bought our first house in April and have oil heat. I know there are quiet a few other Boston area/New Englanders on here as well, and others in cooler climates so I am hoping someone can give some advice about oil heat contracts/plans. Neither of us have ever had oil heat, and neither have our families so it's totally new territory. I was inundated with marketing from every oil company under the sun, but ended up deciding to do a service contract with the company that previously dealt with the house. They have a great service contract and cleaning/tuning program that I signed up for, but am at a loss for oil delivery.
Here are our options:
1) Budget Plan without Price Protection - ($2.19/gallon right now) we pay monthly from September - May and they adjust the payment amount around February/March if we need to pay more/less.
2) Budget Plan with Downside Protection - ($2.14/gallon) we pay $225 right now, and then we have a guarantee that our oil will never cost more than $2.14. If the price drops below $2.14, we pay the lower price. This is also a monthly payment sept-may plan, with readjustment in feb/march if needed.
3) Pre-Pay Fixed Price - we pay $2.04/gallon for as much as we want to, but pay right now (minimum 400 gallons). I'm not sure how I feel about this,I don't know if thats a good price/if it will likely go down, and in addition I'm not sure if I want to shell out ~$900 or more since we have to pay to replace the exterior doors, get a snow blower, and a couple other small things before winter sets in.
4) Don't do any of these and just pay per fill all winter
A little background about the house: its a 2000sq/ft ranch (including the finished basement), we have one heating zone in the main part of the house, and another in the finished basement; all windows were replaced in 2011; we are replacing the exterior doors in September; the house has been kept pretty cool all summer because we don't have much sunlight; we both work full-time but don't have the same days off & my husband works evenings so we don't have as much time during the day to turn the temp down as typical 9-5 family. The oil company said that the previous owners used 900 gallons in the winter of 2014/2015 which was one of the worst/coldest/snowiest winters we have had, but I don't know what their habits were (did the freeze, over heat, always home, never home??).
Thanks for any thoughts
I have never been super active on here, but was intermittently posting for 1-2 years. The Nest did some upgrades and I got locked out of my account, and then we bought a house and I have been super busy and not on here much anyway, though I have done a little "lurking" before I could get my account fixed.
We just bought our first house in April and have oil heat. I know there are quiet a few other Boston area/New Englanders on here as well, and others in cooler climates so I am hoping someone can give some advice about oil heat contracts/plans. Neither of us have ever had oil heat, and neither have our families so it's totally new territory. I was inundated with marketing from every oil company under the sun, but ended up deciding to do a service contract with the company that previously dealt with the house. They have a great service contract and cleaning/tuning program that I signed up for, but am at a loss for oil delivery.
Here are our options:
1) Budget Plan without Price Protection - ($2.19/gallon right now) we pay monthly from September - May and they adjust the payment amount around February/March if we need to pay more/less.
2) Budget Plan with Downside Protection - ($2.14/gallon) we pay $225 right now, and then we have a guarantee that our oil will never cost more than $2.14. If the price drops below $2.14, we pay the lower price. This is also a monthly payment sept-may plan, with readjustment in feb/march if needed.
3) Pre-Pay Fixed Price - we pay $2.04/gallon for as much as we want to, but pay right now (minimum 400 gallons). I'm not sure how I feel about this,I don't know if thats a good price/if it will likely go down, and in addition I'm not sure if I want to shell out ~$900 or more since we have to pay to replace the exterior doors, get a snow blower, and a couple other small things before winter sets in.
4) Don't do any of these and just pay per fill all winter
A little background about the house: its a 2000sq/ft ranch (including the finished basement), we have one heating zone in the main part of the house, and another in the finished basement; all windows were replaced in 2011; we are replacing the exterior doors in September; the house has been kept pretty cool all summer because we don't have much sunlight; we both work full-time but don't have the same days off & my husband works evenings so we don't have as much time during the day to turn the temp down as typical 9-5 family. The oil company said that the previous owners used 900 gallons in the winter of 2014/2015 which was one of the worst/coldest/snowiest winters we have had, but I don't know what their habits were (did the freeze, over heat, always home, never home??).
Thanks for any thoughts
Re: Re-introduction, Oil Tank Question
Not sure I can help on the oil thing except to say you may just have to pick one for this year and see if you can switch to something else once you know what your usage would be. I'd probably go 2 or 3 in the meantime.
I'll be honest I was adamant about gas heat to avoid this very headache. Make sure that you have programmable thermostats to conserve and I think you'll be fine. And pray for a mild winter!
Welcome back and congrats on the house! We live in CT and just bought our first house a year ago, so last winter was our first test with oil heating but I must say the winter was pretty short and milder than usual. First I'll just say we have a fireplace but we haven't gotten it cleaned or inspected yet so we didn't use it last year...we probably wont be using it this winter either...I feel regular fire places are basically only for show and don't give off enough heat to warm up a room, but we want an stove insert down the road to try to save on the oil bill...we have a ranch as well but it's 1100 sq feet with one heat control for upstairs and one down. We don't really keep the downstairs warm in the winter unless it's freezing.
Anyway, we use a company that doesn't use contacts so we never started up with one but my husband gets $.03-$0.05 off per gallon with his EMT cert so that helps. We haven't filled our tank since April but we are now between 3/4 and half so will probably need to fill by the end of Sept. We never let it go below half because we don't like dishing out that big payment at once....A half tank cost us around $170-$215 every time we filled up and that's around 115-120 gallons I believe but gas was really cheap this year (between $1.50-$1.80). Our company is at $1.85 right now. When it was really cold we probably had to fill the tank every 1-1.5 months...we keep the upstairs at 68-70 morning-night (we have a dog and I don't like to be cold) and 64 at night.
The guy that we bought the house from said he used to do contracts with other companies but felt like he always got screwed so just went with the market prices so that's another reason we didn't sign up. Seems to be working well so far so we are just going to keep it up like this...
Hope this helps some.
We are going to invest in programmable thermostats though for sure! I hope for a mild winter but farmers almanac is looking more like the winter of '14-'15 sadly...
My concern about the fixed price is that oil will be low in the winter.I would hate to pay 2.04 for 400 gallons and then it's 1.50! The protection price one seems great but it's $225 to get the protection so I'm not sure if it's worth it. Of course if the prices go up to 3/gallon or more I will be kicking myself. It feels like a gamble!
We are on autorefill right now based on the prior owners use, but I check it regularly since we have no idea if it will actually line up. We had a fill in early May and are at 3/4 and 1/2 right now too. Thats a good idea about not letting it go below half. maybe that is how I can set up my own "budget" (meaning not giant payments at once) plan.
edit: the other thing with this company is we get .20cents off/gallon for 18months,regardless of how we pay.
I'm glad you finally got a house! Our market was hot when we bought 3 years ago, but even my friends now are telling me their stories and it's even worse than we had! They've put in 8 offers - all over asking - and no house yet. One of those offers was even $60k over asking! It's insane.
also....I can't handle another winter like that either. We are going to buy a snowblower and I am hoping that I regret spending money on something I don't need....but that's dreaming big for this area (north of boston)
Congrats on the new house! Especially after your non-winning, multiple bids struggles.
I've always lived in warm climates, so never had an oil tank. But I like Option 2 or 3, at least for your first year. If you're trying to save on expenses now, Option 2 seems the best. Yes, it isn't as low per gallon as Option 3, but then you have the potential of lower prices (still with a cap of 2.14) all winter.
Unfortunately, it is just going to be hard to guess your usage for the first year. It should be an easier decision for next year's contract.
I am in a family of "heaty hogs", myself included. My mom affectionately calls my H and I "hot house flowers". Our dog and cat even sleep next to each other in the winter, even though there is usually "wariness" between them, lol.