Home Heating Oil

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

There ya go. I'll warn you, any money you'd save on heating in the winter time you'll turn around and spend in the summer on air conditioning. You quite literally risk your life if you live around here in the summer without it (newer houses don't have the high ceilings and the "dog trot" down the middle to stay cool like the old houses do).

I hate air conditioning. When I was in Florida and Vegas, you couldn't breath without having air conditioning. And Boston is just as bad on a humid day.

Surely, there must be some middle ground, idealic nirvanh of a place where it doesn't get too cold and it doesn't get too hot. San Diego?

Besides, my girlfriend loves homes with charm and character, which is why we live in a massive hundred year old English Tudor. I figure we'll spend ten grand to heat the place, unless we start taking drastic measures now.

I can't imagine how they must have lived in the old days in the English castles. There's a good opening for Ogg to fill us in on that info.

No wonder why the English didn't take baths back then. They'd freeze to death.

 

[cloudy]

I hate air conditioning. When I was in Florida and Vegas, you couldn't breath without having air conditioning. And Boston is just as bad on a humid day.

Surely, there must be some middle ground, idealic nirvanh of a place where it doesn't get too cold and it doesn't get too hot. San Diego?

Besides, my girlfriend loves homes with charm and character, which is why we live in a massive hundred year old English Tudor. I figure we'll spend ten grand to heat the place, unless we start taking drastic measures now.

I can't imagine how they must have lived in the old days in the English castles. There's a good opening for Ogg to fill us in on that info.

No wonder why the English didn't take baths back then. They'd freeze to death.

Santa Barbara, California - it's called the "American Riviera." You don't need air conditioning because of the breeze off the ocean (we could see the channel islands from our patio), and it rarely gets cold enough to need a heater in the house.

Just be prepared to spend an outrageous amount of money if you buy a house.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Santa Barbara, California - it's called the "American Riviera." You don't need air conditioning because of the breeze off the ocean (we could see the channel islands from our patio), and it rarely gets cold enough to need a heater in the house.

Just be prepared to spend an outrageous amount of money if you buy a house.

What I know about Santa Barbara is that Kevin Costner owns most of it (lol).

Yeah, that's too expensive for my blood. Besides, it takes a certain type to live in California, no disrespect intended.

I could never leave my beloved beantown. After leaving in Boston all my life with the cold, the rain, the snow, the sleet, the slush, the heat, the humidity, the gridlock traffic, the discourteous people, the crime...So, Santa Barbara, you think?

 

[TxRad]

Freddie, I'm not so sure that gas is less efficient in the new systems they have out. BTU's per gallon as compared to BTU's per thousand cubic feet.

That $6800 sounds awfully high or it might just be the difference from here to there.

Uh, why would you have to reline the chimneys?

 

[TxRad]

Oh and scratch Texas off your list unless you enjoy being pan fried, Slow broiled, or steamed. Central air and heat for 2800 square feet averages around $300 a month for the year round

 

[cloudy]

What I know about Santa Barbara is that Kevin Costner owns most of it (lol).

Yeah, that's too expensive for my blood. Besides, it takes a certain type to live in California, no disrespect intended.

I could never leave my beloved beantown. After leaving in Boston all my life with the cold, the rain, the snow, the sleet, the slush, the heat, the humidity, the gridlock traffic, the discourteous people, the crime...So, Santa Barbara, you think?

I love it, but that's home to me.

I'd move back in a heartbeat if I could convince the rest of my family that they'd love it as much as I do.

The beach is two blocks from the high school I went to, the mountains are thirty minutes away, tops, and it has the best weather the US has to offer.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Freddie, I'm not so sure that gas is less efficient in the new systems they have out. BTU's per gallon as compared to BTU's per thousand cubic feet.

That $6800 sounds awfully high or it might just be the difference from here to there.

Uh, why would you have to reline the chimneys?

$6,800 is the quote price at $4.29 a gallon to lock in the price for the heating season. Yet, I don't think we're going to do that.

Converting from oil to gas is around $4,000, I'm told. I was also told that the chimney had to be lined. I think we have a liner in there now for the fireplace, anyway, but I'm not sure.

Nonetheless, of course, like everyone else, we're expecting the worse and trying to save some money.

My girlfriend flies out to Houston on business a few times a year. Her company has an office there. She hates it, but she loves the big malls that they have (lol).

Houses are reasonably priced. My brother lives in Missouri and bought a 4,000 sf house for 200K. A house that size, depending on the house, would cost at least a million in the greater Boston area.

 

[oggbashan]

...
I can't imagine how they must have lived in the old days in the English castles. There's a good opening for Ogg to fill us in on that info.

No wonder why the English didn't take baths back then. They'd freeze to death.

Castles? Heating? They didn't mix. There were no windows only wooden shutters. When King Henry VIII went travelling around his country he took his glass windows with him. In some castles where he felt less secure he was walled into his room at night. The wall had to be demolished in the morning.

The main hall of the castle would have had a central fire. The important people were close to the fire. The less important were further away and colder.

There would have been some heat from the animals. People kept warm with thick clothing. Medieval dress was mainly woollen and in many layers. In winter more layers were added. In summer one or two layers might be removed. In all seasons most people slept in their daytime clothes.

The keep of Dover Castle now seems flawed in Winter. It has glass in the arrowslits and is heated. Instead of being cold and damp with the walls glistening with condensation it is warm and dry. No real castle was ever like that.

When I was young I attended an English boarding school. We lived in ex-military Nissen huts - corrugated iron shelters on a brick base. Each hut had two square electric heaters that only heated the air immediately above them. The condensation from our breathing froze on the inside of the corrugated iron. Every morning we had to run to the shower block about 200 yards away. In winter there was warm (never hot) water for the first 20 or so boys to arrive. Everyone else had a cold shower (considered good for growing boys).

Our clothing was layered and thick. At night we had several blankets and usually our overcoats on top of the bed.

My parents generation used to have body wrappers - thick felt tubes wound around the chest and worn under all other clothing. Poorer people used brown paper, the sort used for wrapping parcels, instead of body wrappers. Ordinary people's clothing before World War II was made of much heavier material than is now fashionable. A gent's suit would weigh about three times as much as a modern one. Up to about 1920 ladies' skirts were heavy and lined over several thick petticoats. Even in the 1920s the shorter skirts were worn over woollen stockings.

In the UK until the 1960s and even later it was unusual to have more than one heated room. Bedrooms were unheated except by rising heat from the heated living room, unless you were an invalid when a paraffin heater might be used for a couple of hours. Hotwater bottles were commonplace to take the chill off the sheets.

My first car didn't have a heater. No model of that car ever had a heater. The foot pedals came through the floor and so did blasts of cold air. Drivers used to wear bicycle clips to stop the cold air going up the legs inside their trousers. Passengers used to wrap themselves in car rugs or stuff their legs inside large leg muffs. Driving a car in a UK winter you had to wear as many clothes as you would walking down a street and perhaps more because you were sitting still instead of walking.

I remember my second car as a revelation. It had a heater with demisting ducts. I didn't have to open the windscreen, as I had to do on my first car, to clear any misting.

Og

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

Castles? Heating? They didn't mix. There were no windows only wooden shutters. When King Henry VIII went travelling around his country he took his glass windows with him. In some castles where he felt less secure he was walled into his room at night. The wall had to be demolished in the morning.

The main hall of the castle would have had a central fire. The important people were close to the fire. The less important were further away and colder.

There would have been some heat from the animals. People kept warm with thick clothing. Medieval dress was mainly woollen and in many layers. In winter more layers were added. In summer one or two layers might be removed. In all seasons most people slept in their daytime clothes.

The keep of Dover Castle now seems flawed in Winter. It has glass in the arrowslits and is heated. Instead of being cold and damp with the walls glistening with condensation it is warm and dry. No real castle was ever like that.

When I was young I attended an English boarding school. We lived in ex-military Nissen huts - corrugated iron shelters on a brick base. Each hut had two square electric heaters that only heated the air immediately above them. The condensation from our breathing froze on the inside of the corrugated iron. Every morning we had to run to the shower block about 200 yards away. In winter there was warm (never hot) water for the first 20 or so boys to arrive. Everyone else had a cold shower (considered good for growing boys).

Our clothing was layered and thick. At night we had several blankets and usually our overcoats on top of the bed.

My parents generation used to have body wrappers - thick felt tubes wound around the chest and worn under all other clothing. Poorer people used brown paper, the sort used for wrapping parcels, instead of body wrappers. Ordinary people's clothing before World War II was made of much heavier material than is now fashionable. A gent's suit would weigh about three times as much as a modern one. Up to about 1920 ladies' skirts were heavy and lined over several thick petticoats. Even in the 1920s the shorter skirts were worn over woollen stockings.

In the UK until the 1960s and even later it was unusual to have more than one heated room. Bedrooms were unheated except by rising heat from the heated living room, unless you were an invalid when a paraffin heater might be used for a couple of hours. Hotwater bottles were commonplace to take the chill off the sheets.

My first car didn't have a heater. No model of that car ever had a heater. The foot pedals came through the floor and so did blasts of cold air. Drivers used to wear bicycle clips to stop the cold air going up the legs inside their trousers. Passengers used to wrap themselves in car rugs or stuff their legs inside large leg muffs. Driving a car in a UK winter you had to wear as many clothes as you would walking down a street and perhaps more because you were sitting still instead of walking.

I remember my second car as a revelation. It had a heater with demisting ducts. I didn't have to open the windscreen, as I had to do on my first car, to clear any misting.

Og

Thanks so much for the info. I found it interesting.

My girlfriend is Irish and Scottish. She's never been to the UK and we both want to go...after we're done renovating the house.

I want a drawbridge and moat, but the historic society won't approve that. We're not allowed to change the front of the house, other than paint color.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Oil is dropping in price. Its about $117 a barrel today, and expected to drop to 100. One hundred dollars is about $2.75 a gallon.

The financial sites say that America's slowdown is reducing demand for oil everywhere.

Personally, I'd risk waiting to see where things are going, you may save $2000.

BeanTownFictionWriter,
I've spent a lifetime watching markets (both professionally and personally). If there's one thing I've learned it's that NOBODY (and I mean NOBODY) can accurately and consistently predict the short-run course of interest rates, the stock market, earnings or petroleum prices. I stopped doing it many, many, many years ago and I laugh at people who (A) attempt it or (B) believe the forecasts of the fools/carnival barkers who engage in the practice.

There are simply too many variables that can affect energy prices in the short run— not the least of which are:
hurricanes,
wars (think what prices could do if the Gulf of Hormuz was ever shut), and
weather (mild winter v. cold winter).

"Hedging" (which is what you'd be doing if you accept your dealers fixed price contract) is a form of insurance. In the long run, both hedging and insurance end up costing money. That's just the nature of the beast; people don't provide the service for free.

I'd like to give you "THE ANSWER" to your question but there isn't one. If you enter into the fixed price contract and New England has a mild winter, you will have paid a higher price than you would have if you hadn't entered into the contract. On the other hand, if you enter into the fixed price contract and Israel drops a nuke on Iran...

I'll just add that when amateurs start speculating on commodities it's usually the sign of a top. I know, you're just trying to be a prudent buyer, not really speculate, but it's something to consider.

 

[BOSTONFICTIONWRITER]

I'll just add that when amateurs start speculating on commodities it's usually the sign of a top. I know, you're just trying to be a prudent buyer, not really speculate, but it's something to consider.

Thanks for your comment.

It's an uncomfortable reality that the energy crisis has put the average consumer in just to heat their homes. Much like holding a gun to our heads, I hate relinquishing control to yet another big business stealing dollars from the middle class to add to their billion dollar profits. Yet, what can we do other than to buckle up and go along for the ride.