Heating Oil Expenditures (Cincinnati: how much, big house, heat pump) - Ohio (OH) - City-Data Forum

MesserFit · 01-24-2011, 07:25 PM

Hey everyone,

For those of you who use fuel oil how many gal. have you been running through per week. My house is about 4000 sqf with 2 fire places and I keep my thermostat set at 58 degrees. With that info I'm burning through 18.75 gal. of fuel oil a week...that seems massively inefficient to me? Anybody have any thoughts?

kjbrill · 01-24-2011, 07:55 PM

This winter is difficult to evaluate. It has been some time since we have experienced the extended cold as so far this year. Is you info based just on this year?

MesserFit · 01-24-2011, 08:06 PM

Yes these are my current numbers, I moved into this house this summer so I don't know if this is normal or not? I've got rooms shut off and vents closed in all the rooms we don't frequent that often. Also the house is a two story.

Ohiogirl81 · 01-25-2011, 05:47 AM

That's a big house, so it seems to me like you're doing OK. How old is the furnace/boiler? If you have a boiler, does it also heat your water?

I have a much smaller house (1270 square feet), an ancient hot-air furnace, and a thermostat setting of 63 degrees at night, and 66-67 during the day. We use between 2 to 3 gallons a day, depending on the weather. This winter, it's been more like 3 to 4 gallons a day. Brrrrr.

I don't live in Cincinnati anymore, but the weather in Philadelphia isn't that much different.

Ohioan58 · 01-25-2011, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MesserFit

Hey everyone,

For those of you who use fuel oil how many gal. have you been running through per week. My house is about 4000 sqf with 2 fire places and I keep my thermostat set at 58 degrees. With that info I'm burning through 18.75 gal. of fuel oil a week...that seems massively inefficient to me? Anybody have any thoughts?

We have a 1200 SF house with one closed off fireplace and before installing our heat pump, with a modern oil furnace, we used about two+ 200 gallon tankfuls of oil per winter. I mean two complete fills of 150+ gallons and a third that will last until the following winter, on average. Now with a heat pump it's not quite 1 tankful per winter because the house runs entirely on the heat pump until the temps fall below about 28 degrees. The house is brick on block with a basement, and the attic is well insulated but the walls are basically stone.

What you quoted is a "burn rate" of a tankful every 11 weeks or so... which around here for the size of your house, and considering the severity of this winter, really is not too bad. In fact you are using oil in your 4000 SF house about as fast as we used oil in our older home before we installed a heat pump.

Have your oil furnace serviced every winter for top efficiency. Have the guy install a new fuel line filter, clean out the injector jet, etc. It makes some difference.

kjbrill · 01-25-2011, 03:05 PM

Just as a curiosity, do you have central air conditioning? If so, where do you keep it set and what was the average monthly cost this past summer?

Four years ago I threw out our old furnace and air conditioner. They were both still running, but I decided they would not continue very long. We are fortunate to have natural gas and installed a 95% efficiency furnance and a high efficiency 16 seer electric air conditioner.

We have a 2,400 sq. ft. 2-story, average construction house. The new system has a programmable thermostat but it has never been programmed. The setting is 72 degrees year round, just switched between heat and cool. Yes it costs us money, our high water mark with the new system is $315.00 for a summer month. I expect that to be exceeded this month ... brrr. But being retired and at our age, the wife and I are in the house basically 24/7 all week. If I can't be comfortable in my own house what am I living for? My attitude is in the summer I want to sleep under a sheet and in the winter I want to sleep under the same sheet and sweat. In the mean time I want to be able to sit in my skivies at the computer and be comfortable.

I am not familiar with what kind of advances have been made in oil furnaces. But as an engineer I do not see why they should be that different than gas fired. To me a fuel source is a fuel source.

There are basically two things I regret about the ownership of my house.
1) I should have replaced the cheap ass single pane windows I had at least 20 years earlier. The overall change in not only fuel costs but comfort was amazing.
2) Waited way too long to replace the Furnace/AC with a higher efficiency system. The immediate savings we saw were a 5-7 year payback.

You may choke at the fact I consider an under $300 utility bill acceptable. Of course we have a few months when it is considerably under $300. But that is bascially what we budget.

Ohioan58 · 01-25-2011, 05:36 PM

We have a 16 SEER heat pump. It produces useful heat down to about 25 degrees. Below that temperature the oil burner kicks on at increasingly short intervals.

There are still companies making oil furnaces and some of them are quite high-tech these days.

The main problem with oil as a heating source is that it's leveraged directly to how much the Arabs want to screw the Western man on the price of crude. Our fuel oil expenditure is up, and down, and up again. It's quite difficult to budget and plan for.

MesserFit · 01-25-2011, 07:07 PM

Wow! Thanks for all the replies! I'm glad to hear that we are running effectively! This is the first house that I have had a fuel oil furnace so I wanted to make sure It was squared away! My A/c bills during the summer was about 260ish and that was with me keeping the thermostat at 77. I do think we really need to look into insulating the attic more, and redoing the weather stripping on our entry doors. This heat pump idea is also interesting, ill have to look into this more to see what it entails! Thanks again for all the tips!

kjbrill · 01-28-2011, 08:20 AM

The Heat Pump is a good idea. I probably should have opted for one the last time around and let the gas furnace be the backup.

Depending on the construction, attic insulation can be a DIY proposition. Our house originally had loose poured insulation. When I first looked it had all piled up in one corner just from the wind through the end gable vents. I could see bare spots in the middle. After spreading out what was there, I went out and bought batt insulation rolls, non-backed. You do not want a film backing which is a vapor barrier. You do not want to trap moisture in your attic insulation. Since my roof is a truss design (modern cheap), I ran one course of the batting down between the trusts. Then I crossed another layer over the first across the trusses. For a dime-for-the-buck expenditure this may have been the best investment I ever made.

Jimedavidson · 06-05-2015, 09:22 PM

I am interested in purchasing a home with an oil furnace: I was quoted by one guy saying it could cost me about 900 dollars a month! For a bad winter. Is this accurate? It's a 1600 sq home. 3 inches of insulation in the attic. It has a basement and 3 fire places, one having a wood stove. I can't afford that kind of bill and it's an estate sale, so there is no one to ask. It's a 275 tank with 5 year old Williams furnace. Pretty new.