High heating oil usage can be a little irritating, especially in the winter. During this time, you might find yourself burning more during the day and finding yourself having to constantly order oil. So you might be asking yourself, “Why is My Oil Usage So High?”. Well, there are a lot of factors that can cause your oil usage to be so high. In this article, I’ll be covering exactly those factors.
Before reading on, if you’ve run out of oil or are afraid that you’ll run out of oil, then you should really stop down at your local gas station and buy about 5-10 gallons of diesel. This will help keep your system running if you’re running low or if you’ve run out! During the cold winter days, you should be good for about a day or two. But it’s also important to order oil as soon as you find out you’re out. You can order through our FuelSnap website.
What are the Causes of High Consumption?
There are many factors to what causes high heating oil consumption. These can range in a large variety, but the most popular reasons tend to be the ones below:
- Exterior Temperature: On the daily your heating oil system is constantly working. This is to ensure that your home is nice and warm at all times of the day. But, the colder the temperature is outside, the harder your system works. If it’s cold outside your system will work a lot harder to heat the home.
- Interior Temperature: While it might not seem like it, your home’s internal temperature can have a major effect on how much oil you’re consuming. You’ll provide your home with the most comfortable temperature around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. But, if you set the temperature higher than this, you’ll often find yourself burning more oil as your furnace will start to work harder to get your home to the desired temperature.
- How Big Your House Is: The size of your house determines how much oil your system will burn. This is because the larger your home is, the harder your furnace has to work to keep the house warm. Ranch style homes for example, are a little bit harder to heat compared to an average two-story home. Ranches will typically have a larger exterior surface area, which gives the heat more places to escape from. This makes it harder for the house to maintain the heat.
- How Well Your Home is Insulated: Homes with good insulation will often have an easier time keeping heat in the home. Unlike homes that have poor insulation such as drafty windows or doors. In a home that’s older, drafty windows and doors are very common, which will give the heat a chance to escape resulting in higher usage.
- How Old Your Heating System Is: Older heating oil systems will tend to have a weaker efficiency compared to newer heating oil systems. This typically means that over time, your system will consume the same amount of heating oil, but produce less heat per gallon. Usually equipment that is on the higher end will tend to last you around 30ish years. However, once that 30 years has gone by the system might not be as efficient as you think it would be!
- How You’re Using Your Heating Oil: This is another consideration that will likley affect your heating oil use. Say that you’re using heating oil for both heat and hot water. You’re actually going to be using more oil to get hot water and heat in the home. Compared to using one or the other where you’ll end up using less oil overall.
The Impact of Home Size and Temperature
There are two important factors when it comes to heating oil consumption. I mentioned a few above, but the two biggest contributors are home size and temperature. If you look at the below graph, you’ll notice there is a large impact on what causes a high or low usage. The home’s insulation also plays a part and based on it’s insulation, your home will retain more heat. But, if your home is old and doesn’t have proper insulation, this can cause high usage as well.
On your average winter day, you should see yourself burning about 5-7 gallons of heating oil. This is the average of how many gallons are burned per day. Understand that this is just the average. Depending on the size of your home this could be more or less.
The outside temperature also plays an important roll in how much oil your system will consume. During the summer for example, outside temperatures will usually get to around 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit. So during this time of the year, your usage will be very low! This is because you’re only using heating oil for hot water and not for heat. Sometimes, you might not even be using it at all! While in the winter where temperatures are constantly below freezing, your usage will be higher because you’re using oil for heat and hot water.
Yearly Usage
A majority of heating oil users will only use heating oil in the winter. Some users also have electric heat for water so they’ll only need to pay attention to their usage during the winter months. Now your yearly usage will be different depending on house size, what you’re using it for and outside temperature.
But winter months will often have you burning more oil than during the summer. This will be a major difference in your year heating usage than with others. This is because, each home in the northeast is a different size and heat system is different. However, there is still an average or basis that you can compare your usage too. The below graph displays the average usage throughout the year for homes in Connecticut. You can reference it below:
Keeping Track of Your Heating Oil Usage
Ensuring that you keep track of your heating consumption is very important. This is because your consumption will determine how much oil you’re burning and what your usage is. The best way to monitor your usage and what your oil level is is with a Smart Oil Gauge. The gauge operates off of an ultra sonic sensor meaning that there’s no worry for the gauge to become inaccurate with oil or sludge on the end of it!
Additionally, you can also set a custom tank size if your tank is not of the normal size. You will just have to contact our support line with the orientation and dimensions of the tank. The Smart Oil Gauge connects to an app on your phone where you’ll be able to view your usage data and level readings! You’ll be able to see this information in day, week, month and year! If you want to export your data, you can do that by logging into the website and you can export it to Microsoft Excel!
Your Oil Usage
How much oil you’re burning is caused by many different factors. It’s caused by your insulation, the size of your house and much more! Having a high usage can be caused by a multitude of different things. The size of your home and the age of your system can contribute immensely as well as what the outside temperature is! But getting a Smart Oil Gauge can help turn the tides and put you in control of your usage! Just make sure that you follow our steps of how to replace your tank gauge! Using the above methods can help you stay on top of your usage and prevent run out!
Happy Heating,
Hunter
