Oil use

Money goes in, heat leaks out
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

Outside thermometer says 4F.

Bedroom is 55-56 degrees.

I don't have a thermometer in the great room but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 80. Or at least upper 70s. Have the box fan in the doorway on full blast trying to get the warm air out of the room and into the rest of the house. Also have the ceiling fan on to get the warm air down from the ceiling to circulate. Heat still hasn't been on since early this morning.

FWIW, I am going through my wood pretty fast. I have probably consumed a solid 1/4 of what I had when I split wood earlier in the fall.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

They filled at 7:45 this morning.

Took only 262 gallons. I guess there is more reserve than I thought. I guess I'm GM gas gauge trained. The real question is, what if I didn't run the wood stove so hard? Maybe we would have still had enough.

Price was $2.50 which is steep. Supposed to be $2.47 at this volume according to website. I'll call (though the savings is less than $8...).

Oil use from 10/17/17 to 12/29/17: 262 gallons or 3.59 gallons per day. I'll update the price stuff when I know what I am really paying.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

Made it a little over a month to 2/6. Perhaps ironically, the tank ran down almost exactly as far. I ordered it at 1/4 tank (on 1/31) and it ran down to about the same amount as it did when I was freaking out and running the wood stove a bunch. This time, however, I think I just assumed it wouldn't run down as far so I didn't check it.

Took 260.9 gallons @ $2.67. Price should have been $2.47 again so I assume I will get charged the right amount as always.

This usage equates to 6.69 gallons per day. I don't think I ran the stove nearly as much so that does make a difference.

I did some interesting math. At 6.69 gallons per day, that equates to 0.279 GPH. I believe I have a 1.25 nozzle on my furnace burner. So that equates to an average 22.3% duty cycle for the month, average day, or whatever. So for an average day of 24 hours, my furnace was running for 5.35 hours. That is an average so colder days would be more and warmer days would be less. Would be handy if I could look up a degree day chart for my area.

This is interesting as it may suggest that my nozzle size is larger than it needs to be. Running more nozzle essentially decreases the efficiency of the furnace because more heat goes up the chimney, as less of it (as a percentage of total heat created by the flame) can be transferred to the air.

My nozzle is 3 years old so I may really dig into this, figure out what nozzle type/pressure/angle it is supposed to take and consider downsizing and then adjusting the air damper to the right setting.

I also need to pull the flue stack off the furnace and check for soot buildup. I believe my furnace runs quite cleanly but I haven't checked this area yet.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

Based on checking some past credit card statements, I don't think they are charging the proper amount despite my phone calls and their assurance that the discount rate will apply because the driver just had the non-discount rate when he wrote the invoice.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

Alright I pulled degree days from here: http://www.degreedays.net/

Gives you a CSV based on your selection of local weather station. When you look at the graph you have to select a base temperature column. The base temperature is the temp outside where you need neither heating nor cooling to maintain your desired interior temp. I used 59 degrees. With a desired temp of, say, 65 degrees, 59 outside is reasonable considering you get a solar gain (roof and through the windows mainly but technically also the walls).

Anyway I took my average daily duty cycle and scaled it on each piece of degree day data to get an idea how cooler or warmer days would swing that average daily duty cycle (and try to compute a better estimated daily duty cycle). I don't want to see a max daily anywhere near 100%. Probably more like 50% to be conservative.

What I ended up with was a maximum of 38.4% on 1/7 and a min of 2.2% on 1/12. This still suggests my nozzle is oversized. If I confirm my 1.25, I would probably have no issue going down to a 1.00, which would have put my max daily duty cycle at 48% on 1/7.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

kevm14 wrote:Based on checking some past credit card statements, I don't think they are charging the proper amount despite my phone calls and their assurance that the discount rate will apply because the driver just had the non-discount rate when he wrote the invoice.
I looked at the past 5 bills. It looks like only the last two were billed incorrectly.

I will call them. I don't have the time to be checking my credit card statements against what they say the charge should have been and I will make sure they know that.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

Apparently the last one was billed correctly even though I have a perception that it should have been 20 cents cheaper/gal. It seems that the prices can fluctuate pretty significantly in a short period of time. She said I can order online and that would ensure I get the exact price I am looking at when I make the phone call, as opposed to several days later when it is actually delivered. What is annoying is, prices went up, and then back down, and my fill on 2/6 fell perfectly on this spike. Great.

They do owe me a small credit for the 12/29 fill, for a whole $8.

I guess I will order online next time, as that is where much of the confusion is coming from. But that is still not a perfect solution as I actually order a certain amount of oil for a certain price. I always get topped off so I guess I will just order 300 gallons when the tank gets that low and they refund the difference.

I could do auto-fill but the issue there is they may top off much more frequently and the prices are higher when you buy less oil at a time.

Conclusion: I hate oil. Everything about it is terrible. More maintenance on the equipment and the tank must be filled up periodically - the challenges of both have been documented right here in this thread. Not that I'd switch to propane....wish I could get natural gas here.
bill25
Posts: 2583
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:20 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by bill25 »

Oil is not great, but honestly, it isn't a big deal to get refills at 1/4 or 1/8 of a tank. Most places deliver in a couple days and even at the 1/4 point you will get the cheaper price. Untill very recently, it hasn't had a crazy fluctuation in price as current. You have options. You can burn wood and offset the amont of oil you burn, making the price of oil less significant. You can also just suck it up and assume a couple hundred extra over a whole year, and not really even pay attention to the price since you can't control that, aside from burning more wood. It is getting close to the point where I might start caring, but over about the last 3 years the price hasn't been insane like when I first got here with oil.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by kevm14 »

Auto fill seems like my best option if I can convince myself that I am not leaving money on the table by not leaving my options open, even though I've only ever ordered from Exeter Fuel...
bill25
Posts: 2583
Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:20 pm

Re: Oil use

Post by bill25 »

Only problem with auto fill is if you don't pay attention, and it is either warmer than usual or you burn more wood, and when they come, you don't need enough to get the discount. That is what happened to us with the propane.
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