With Christmas only being a few days away, it’s important to understand what your heating oil usage on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be like. These days tend to be busy not only for you, but your heating oil system. But why exactly is that? Well, your usage will be different depending on what you’re doing for the holidays and how many people you’re having over! I’ll be covering exactly how much oil you should expect to burn during the holiday season!
How your Holiday Events Effect Usage
It’s important to know that what you end up doing for the holidays will effect your overall usage. If you’re used to having quiet holidays with only your immediate family, then your usage will be like any other day during the winter. But if you are going to have family over, then your usage might actually be higher than usual!
Large family gatherings might increase your oil consumption. This is often due to more people in your home, which can cause you to possibly increase the temperature of the thermostat. Increasing the temperature on the thermostat can cause an increase in usage, especially if you’re having a large family gathering! This is due to your system having to work harder to reach the desired temperature.
However, if you have a quiet Christmas with only your immediate family or friends, then this will likley be like any other day during the winter. If you have an average sized home, then you might find yourself burning around five gallons of oil a day. The same can be said on Christmas if you aren’t having a lot of people over!
Staying Home Increases Oil Usage
During the holiday season, you might find yourself staying at home to prepare for your annual family gathering. Weather or not that be at your house, you will likley see an increase in consumption over all. This is because if you’re staying at home to prepare, then you’ll be using more heat to keep you warm while you prepare. This is often because if you’re home all day or for long stretches of time. During this time, you’ll burn more oil to keep you warm!
But, what does this mean if you have guests over? Well this often increases your usage as well. If you have a large family gathering, you might have to turn up the heat to accommodate for more people. This increase in heat requirement will cause your system to do more work to keep your home warm. If your family gathering is large, then this will significantly increase your usage. Large family gatherings often require more rooms in your home to be heated. While most of the time you might find yourself in the kitchen or living room, sometimes the younger kids might go into their cousins bedrooms or sometimes in the basement or downstairs areas of the home. All these rooms will now need to be heated to accommodate for all the extra people. Not to mention more people using the bathroom which will result in more hot water consumption.
How to Mitigate Heating Oil Use on Christmas?
Now it’s important to know that this is peak heating oil season. So it will be harder to not burn oil, especially if you want to keep warm! But that being said, there are a few different ways to keep yourself from burning a lot of oil during your Christmas parties. You can find some of them below:
- Good Insulation: Increasing your insulation is a great way to keep your home warm without ordering more oil. Insulation keeps the heat in your home, which will in-tern keep your system from burning a lot of oil, even with an increase of people at your home!
- Early Prep: Prepping for your Christmas Gathering in advance actually puts you at an advantage when it comes to burning oil. This is because if you do a majority of the prep throughout the week prior to Christmas, then you won’t have to burn as much oil on the day of!
- Wood Burning Stove or Fireplaces: Now, while these aren’t available to all homes, they are still very useful! If you have one, then definitely stock up on fire wood and start a fire. This will help keep several rooms in your home warm and reduce the amount of heating oil you burn! Plus, it’s also very festive!
- Space Heaters: Space Heaters are convenient and reliable! All you have to do is plug them into the wall and they’ll heat a surprisingly large area! They’re especially useful in sections of the home where heat isn’t always readily available! Just make sure to unplug them when you leave the house!
Heating Oil On Christmas
Burning heating oil on Christmas is something that everyone does. But it’s also something that can be easily managed. Just like our holiday celebrations, it’s something we’ll always be prepared for and if you know exactly what you’re doing for Christmas, then you’ll be able to prepare yourself. Weather it be having the family over, or going to one of your relatives, being prepared for the holiday celebrations by ordering heating oil is a must!
With Christmas in only a couple more days, there’s probably a lot of things that you have to take care of. But adding a delivery of heating oil to it will help you stay on top of the season and prevent running out! While you might get it right away, order it in advance so that you’re fully stocked up for Christmas!
But most importantly, enjoy your Christmas! No matter what you’re doing, it’s important to spend these days with your loved ones! No matter what you’re doing, be sure to enjoy it!
Merry Christmas!
Hunter
