Heating Oil is one of the most popular ways to heat your home in today’s age. It is not only reliable, but it’s incredibly efficient. Just one gallon of heating oil can effectively heat your home and provide consistent hot water! It is also known to be one of the safest ways to heat your home! It also produces more heat than propane and is often more readily available than propane, with thousands of dealers in the northeast alone!
So if you’re new to heating oil, or still aren’t sure what’s important to know, then don’t worry! In this article, I’m compiling everything that’s important and everything that you need to know! So feel free to bookmark this article and come back to it whenever you need to reference it! There’s going to be a lot in this article, so you might want to come back and reread it!
Where is it Stored?
If you’re using heating oil as your primary source of heating, then you’re going to have a heating oil tank installed somewhere on your property. These tanks are installed somewhere on the property but will usually be located either indoors or outdoors. Occasionally though, they can be found underground. Although, this is becoming far less common nowadays as they’re being removed to prevent environmental damage. If your tank is underground, then I highly suggest getting it removed ASAP. If you want more information as to why that is, check out my article on underground tanks where I go over why you should remove them here.
This is by far the best and safest way to store heating oil. Preferably indoors rather than outdoors. That way the tank itself isn’t exposed to the elements. Typically those tanks will often need to be more frequently replaced compared to those installed indoors. This is often due to not being exposed by to the elements such as snow, heat and direct sunlight.
How Does it Get Delivered?
Heating oil gets delivered by a truck. You’ll schedule a heating oil delivery with your provider or through the FuelSnap website. The dealer will then come out to your home with their Oil Truck to deliver heating oil. Unlike natural gas that’s pumped into the home, heating oil needs to be delivered.
After the driver’s arrived at your home, he will locate the fill and vent pipes. These pipes work in tandem with each other. The fill pipe allows the dealer to pump oil into the tank, while the vent pipe allows for airflow to leave the tank. These pipes are usually located on the side of the home on indoor tanks. While on outdoor tanks they stick up from the top of the tank. But on underground tanks, they stick up out of the ground.
Once the driver has connected the truck’s hose to the fill pipe, they will start filling the tank. As the driver fills the tank, they’ll listen for a loud whistling sound. That is the sound of oil being pushed through the tank’s whistle. This sound will keep going until the oil starts to cover the whistle. At this point, the driver will stop pumping oil into the tank to prevent overflow and leaking. If you’re curious on a more in-depth explanation of this process, check out my article on the topic here.
How to Order Oil
Now, this wouldn’t be a guide on heating oil if I didn’t go over how to order it! There are a few ways to order oil. However, there are three that tend to be more popular than others. They’re listed below:
Automatic Delivery: This is probably the most common way to order heating oil. By using this method, you are working directly with your dealer to determine how often and how much that they can deliver. This is determined based on your usage. But this also tends to be the more expensive option overall.
Call-by Delivery: Now this another common way to order oil. This tends to be more cost effective. The reasoning for this is because you’re able to order oil whenever you need to and get the best price possible by shopping around! You’re also in control of when they deliver. So no need to worry about your delivery showing up randomly!
Call-by Using a Smart Oil Gauge: This is the option that will give you the best of both worlds! You’ll have the convenience of automatic delivery while having the freedom of Call-by delivery. You can use our Smart Oil Gauge app to monitor your fuel level and control when you need to order!
What to Do if you Run Out of Oil?
If you run out of oil, then it’s important that you follow our guide on what to do. You can check it out here for a step by step process. But to briefly explain what to do, you’ll want to:
- Ensure that you’re definitely out of heating oil.
- If you’re out, ORDER OIL! It’s important that you do that so that you know when you’re next fill up is!
- Go to the Gas Station and get 5-10 gallons of Diesel. This will hold you over until your delivery arrives.
- Press your burner’s restart button to restart it.
Will the Dealer Deliver Oil If You’re Not Home?
In short, yes the dealer will deliver to your home if you’re not home. However, this is true only if you place an order with a credit or debit card. Most cash orders will require you to be present at the home during the time of the delivery. This ensures that the dealer is delivering to the right house and gets their payment.
Some dealers will also require a tank inspection for a fill up. This is usually the delivery driver and is usually free with the delivery. Not all dealers require this though, and it’s very simple to do. The driver will make sure the whistle is working and that there are no visible leaks coming from the tank.
Conclusion
This is a lot of important information. So feel free to bookmark this article, and come back to it when you’d like! This will help you get a better grasp on heating oil and what you need to know! It’s honestly the best fuel that you could have to heat your home!
Plus, with all of the different technology that we have, you can even do more research and be a bit more flexible when it comes to big decisions such as automatic delivery!
Happy Heating,
Hunter
