Dear Friends,
We hope you had a fun and relaxing summer. While our team had some downtime to recharge and spend more time with family, they were still hard at work for the most part. That’s because we always use the summer months to get ourselves ready for the next busy heating season.
For starters, we connect with our suppliers to make sure we have plenty of fuel secured for the winter. We won’t run out, so you won’t run out either.
We also added new trucks to our fleet and performed maintenance on all our vehicles to ensure that we are ready to roll no matter what Mother Nature throws our way.
Preventative maintenance is important for our customers too. We try to schedule as many appointments as we can over the summer. The benefits of annual preventative maintenance don’t wear off, and you can rest easy knowing that your heating system will run at peak efficiency during the heating season.
Finally, we’ve also hired and trained some great new people in all departments, including drivers, technicians and customer service representatives.
We hope you had a relaxing summer. Now, we’re ready to keep you relaxed as we move through fall and into winter.
Warmly,
Ed Cardarelli
General Manager
Like to shop? Here’s your chance to win some bonus bucks!
Read this newsletter and answer the questions on our contest page. All entries received by 1/18/19 with the correct answers will be entered into a drawing for a $500 gift card. Three winners will be selected!
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Service, quality and value, guaranteed! Here are just five ways we deliver on that promise.
This is the time of year when you want to make wise choices to stay comfortable while you keep your energy costs under control. Here are some tips to help you.
In just the past few years, we have seen significant improvements in oil heat’s efficiency and cleanliness, thanks in large part to vast reductions in the sulfur content of heating oil.
Moving forward, heating oil will burn even more cleanly, and with lower emissions, than natural gas. You will also experience better heating efficiency and easier maintenance since today’s high quality heating oil creates fewer deposits inside your boiler or furnace.
Heating oil also includes biofuel — a blend of clean-burning heating oil and renewable materials, like vegetable oils. Because it integrates seamlessly with all heating oil systems, no changes to your heating system are necessary!
Research continues on developing oil heat equipment and biofuel blends. The mission: To transition to even higher levels of biofuel that can be matched to highly efficient, groundbreaking equipment. Don’t miss out!
Do you get automatic deliveries? When you’re on our automatic delivery schedule, we’ll know when you need fuel and we can adjust your schedule with the weather forecast. If you call in your order, you run the risk of running out, especially during super-cold temperatures, when you burn through much more fuel than usual, and everyone is calling in at once.
To get the most out of your oil heat system, check out these tips on how to keep it running safely and efficiently.
A smart thermostat is a great addition for an oil-heated home. A Wi-Fi enabled thermostat allows you to view and change temperature settings, check local weather conditions and more, all from your smartphone, computer or tablet.
Once the smart thermostat gets installed, you register it online. This enables access from any location. If you’re away from home, you can use your phone or tablet to adjust the temperature setting so your home is at the perfect temperature when you return.
Some thermostat models even allow you to adjust temperatures to your comfort and over the next few days your thermostat will “remember” the temperatures you like and build a schedule based on your patterns. This is a smart way to save on energy costs year round.
You probably already know that oil heat poses a very low risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. If an oil burner malfunctions (most often due to a lack of maintenance), the safety devices in the unit will typically shut the furnace or boiler off.
Plus, you will usually see smoke coming from your boiler or furnace to indicate that something is wrong. A gas heating system, on the other hand, usually does not issue a visual warning sign if there is a carbon monoxide problem.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that oil heat consumers shouldn’t have working carbon monoxide detectors inside their homes, especially near all bedrooms. There are many sources for carbon monoxide leaks, including the following:
Here are some smart moves you can make to help avoid breakdowns, improve efficiency and save money this winter:
Zach Fontes joined us in the spring after completing service technician classes at MTTI, in Seekonk, Mass.
“I prefer to work with my hands,” says Zach of his career choice. “I also enjoy problem solving and interacting with our customers.”
Zach says it gives him a sense of pride and accomplishment at the end of the workday when he has successfully diagnosed an equipment problem and found a solution.
“When I leave the home and the customer is smiling, I know I’ve done my job,” he says.
Away from work, Zach enjoys spending time with his family and watching professional sports, with a particular passion for football and baseball. The New York Yankees are his favorite team. (Well, nobody’s perfect.)
We’re happy to have such a hardworking young man on our team!
Zach Fontes
Service Technician
We think it’s important to offer real value — which means smart, convenient services that simplify your life and take away some worries.
You can now download our app (available for IOS and Android) to have 24-hour access to your account, so you can pay bills, look up information and schedule service when it’s convenient for you. Just search for Vaughn Oil in the App store or Google Play Store to get started.