Managing Your Home Heating Oil Delivery Needs

When you buy a home that relies on fuel oil for the heating system, that first winter can be a bit of a mystery in terms of knowing when to call for fuel oil deliveries and how much heating oil your furnace will go through. If you're hoping to schedule automatic fuel deliveries, there are some things that you can do to determine how long your fuel oil will last. Here's a look at what you need to know.

Start With A Full Heating Oil Tank

Have your heating oil tank filled at the beginning of the season. That way, you have a measurement point to average out your fuel oil consumption. When you start with a full tank, you can see how long that tank lasts you before you need to call for another delivery. You'll obviously want to adjust your next delivery's timing if the weather is colder or your furnace runs more, but this gives you a good general timeline that you can work from.

Measure Your Fuel Consumption

If you're hoping to get a more precise idea of your fuel consumption and delivery needs, you can calculate your fuel consumption by measuring the fuel level in your tank periodically. Your heating oil company can provide you with a chart that will detail the number of gallons of heating oil in your tank based on how many inches of heating oil you have.

You just have to put a yardstick or something similar in the tank and measure the oil mark so that you know how many inches of oil you have in the tank. From there, check the conversion chart to determine how much oil you have.

Then, you can measure the oil again in a week or two weeks to determine how much heating oil you have used in that time. Base your full-month heating oil consumption on the actual use that you've measured. Adjust for any colder weather that may be on the way.

Plan For Automatic Deliveries

If you don't want to worry about how much heating oil is in your tank, and you want to eliminate the risk of running out of oil, you can address the whole thing by planning for automatic delivery of heating oil. Many heating oil suppliers have an automatic delivery program where they can provide you with heating oil deliveries on a predetermined schedule.

If there's a sudden cold snap or you're concerned that your tank is low, you can always call to push your delivery time up. Otherwise, you won't have to give your heating oil a second thought.

Contact a company for more information on heating services.


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