How Much Heating Oil Will I Use This Winter?

Planning ahead is a good thing during winter in New England, and one of the most important considerations when it comes to keeping your family warm and comfortable is to have a sense of how much heating oil you’re going to need for the season.

Factor In Heating Oil Use

The problem is that with so many variables in the equation, estimating your heating oil use in Rhode Island is quite difficult. How much oil your heating system burns depends on such varied factors as:

• How energy efficient your home is;
• How cold temperatures get;
• How well maintained your heating equipment is; and
• How warm you like your home.

Of course one of the most important factors when attempting to estimate heating oil use for the season ahead is the efficiency of your heating equipment itself: a new, high-efficiency furnace or boiler will burn less oil per hour – sometimes much less – than an old one (one big reason why you should strongly consider a heating system upgrade if your furnace or boiler is more than 15 years old, even if it’s running reasonably well).

Still, if you want to get at least some idea of how much heating oil you’re likely to use during the course of a heating season, here’s a rule of thumb: for a 2,500 to 3,000 square-foot home in our Rhode Island service area, you should expect to burn anywhere from five to eight gallons or more of heating oil per day. If you have a 275-gallon tank –which, if you remember from past blogs on this site, typically holds about 230 gallons of fuel (the rest is needed for air) – a full tank should last about five to six weeks.
Just remember: that figure is an estimate! Every home is different and uses different amounts of heating oil every day during the cold months. If you would like to get a better sense of your usage, give us a call – we can give you a sense of how much fuel you’re likely to use, especially if you’ve been a Vaughn Oil customer for a year or more.

Other Fuel Usage Estimating Tips

For another way to estimate your oil usage, try this:

• The next time you get a heating oil delivery, look at your heating oil tank gauge and note how many gallons of oil are delivered (check your delivery ticket for confirmation).
• Keep track of the day-to-day temperatures between that day and the day of your next heating oil delivery.
• Keep track of how many days it took to return to your original tank gauge reading, then divide the number of gallons delivered by that number of days. For example, if you had 200 gallons of oil delivered and it took 40 days to reach the same level on your tank gauge, you used about five gallons per day.
• Compare your fuel consumption to the temperatures you recorded to get a sense of how much temperature affected your oil use.

Stay warm and safe this winter with reliable home heating oil deliveries from Vaughn Oil. Contact us today to schedule heating system maintenance for your oil-fired furnace or boiler, or to top off your heating oil supply for the cold months ahead!