I just got a letter from my heating oil company, and my oil price is going up to $2 a gallon! That’s going to be around $400-500 a month in the winter. We usually pay around $250-300 a month in the winter. This is much, much worse than paying $2 a gallon at the gas pump (which we are), believe me. I can’t even imagine what people are going to do when they can’t pay their heating bills (we’ll squeak by, fortunately). It must be time to call my congressman, because people aren’t going to survive this if there isn’t some emergency aid.
Has anyone found out about the long range forcast for the winter . . . if there is a long range forcast prediction? I don’t have a talent for spotting a thick coat on a woollybear catapiller . . . I don’t know if it’s going to be a cold winter or a mild one.
I’m sorry to hear about the price increase in home heating oil. Do you have a wood burning fireplace/stove that might help to heat the house and conserve oil? That’s what my dad does . . . and his house uses oil(mine is natural gas). In fact, he’s in an odd situation. He pulled out his oil tank in the spring and was going to put a new oil tank above ground in the new edition on his house. Bad news. He wasn’t able to get the work started because of the township. No oil tank, just the reserves from the spring. I have no idea what he’s going to do. I imagine he’s going to be using the fireplace a lot. I’ll have to ask the next time I talk to him.
Here’s hoping for a mild winter.
We bought oil last month. Paid 1.69 gal. with the 5cent discount for paying within 7 days of delivery. Our heating oil usually cost around $1200 for the winter. It will be more than double that this year.
Our biggest problem is this house was built when insulation was not part of the picture. Next spring we plan to begin major restoration work and will attack that problem(and ditch the oil furnace) but it’s gonna be a $$$$winter.
The worst part is that the folks who can’t afford these prices are gonna be the ones that pay the most in suffering.
Our house is funny, it was built turn of the century when central heating, plumbing, and electricity were all the new rage. Therefore, no fireplace, because in those days, having a fireplace was a drudgery, and something to be dispensed with if possible. However, we also don’t have wall insulation, as far as I know. We have a plumbing ghost that makes a sound like a soda bottle upturned, a couple times a day, and the last electrician that came in suggested that we have all of our electrical outlets rewired (!). Getting the attic insulated should help the heat situation (I hope), and I went around the exterior this summer and caulked all of the gaps in our foundation, as recommended by the home energy audit guy.
I’m not sure how the winter is supposed to pan out. Last I heard, it was supposed to be wildly swinging between unseasonably warm and unseasonably cold. Sounds like snow to me. I wonder if it will top our record snow season of a few years ago, when I couldn’t see out of our driveway for the mountains made by the snowblowe. That may have been the year I took up whistle… The grass grew well that next summer, though. Ahh, New England.
I think the wooly bears forecast by the ratio of brown to black on their coats. I don’t remember how it works, but a friend of mine is into it, and forecasts a tough winter. Anyways, the dead one that I ran over in the garage looks to be about equally brown and black.
It’s going to be an interesting ride. Time to invest in wool sweaters and socks!
That’s horrible. I heard natural gas is supposed to go through the ceiling this winter too. At least it doesn’t get so cold here…we can get by…but people in colder climates are going to be hurting.
Astronomically rising prices and more and more jobs going overseas…and they say we aren’t in a depression? Could have fooled me!
I think the balance of the decade will make the oil prices of first half look like a bargain.
Times have changed.
Energy saving upgrades–a new furnace, insulation, wood-burning stoves just got a WHOLE lot more economically attractive, IMO.
China is industrializing and increasing demand faster than the world can find new sources of fuel, and they’re not gonna stop. You’d be a fool to bank on toughing out one winter of high prices. The prices aren’t coming down far, if at all.
Didn’t trust Oil Companys before they moved. How can you have a shortage every year when the fact is that we are all still here year after year? Why is China industrializing so much? It’s because we are their biggest customer - Our politicians (both sides) have sold this country short by open this permanent free trade with China.
The big question is, which energy form will be cheaper to heat with this year? For me question is Gas or Electricity. A couple of years ago, when the gas prices skyrocketed, I calculated that gas and elecricity rates to heat my house have almost reached a dead-heat (hmm, pun wasn’t intended). Electricity might actually be cheaper this time.
Buy lots of really thick socks, that’s all I can tell you.
My house, too was built with little insulation, and our heat consists of a couple gas heaters and an electric heater upstairs. Thankfully, I spend most of winter at school, but christmas break is going to be chilly. >.<
Thankfully, I live in the south, so it still warms up a bit during the day.
Just for info, here in the southern UK we’re paying around £0.80 a litre at the pump for petrol/diesel, which roughly equates to £3.60 a gallon, or $6.50 USD! Can’t tell you how much heating oil is right now, as I’ve recently moved to a house with gas heating. But the cost of gas and electricity keeps on going up.
Still, at least I’ve now got the whistling to keep me warm…and the dog of course.
In Germany, petron/diesel is about 1€ to 1,20 €, the heating oil is 0,54 € at the moment (all per liters). A US gallon is roughly x 4 so it would be for a gallong heating oil 2€ which equals about 2,50$ at the moment. It sounds like the US prices regarding fuel are coming closer to European prices. Germany has much cheaper prices in this regard than the UK and we do not even have our own big oil fields like both (US/UK) have. Now who makes the profits on these price differences…
The difference though, as I have heard it, is that you pay higher taxes on gasoline and fuel oil in Europe, which is why your prices are so high relative to ours. Our tax rates aren’t changing…only the per gallon price we pay, which makes no sense at all.
You are right, the taxes on car fuel are really high, the difference you can see from 1 € diesel to 54 cents heating oil, which is the same stuff just a different colour, but heating oil gets differently taxed. From the first message though the heating oil in the US is nearly as expensive than in Germany. If the taxes are lower in the US per liter/gallon, then there is even more profit for the oil companies in it, if my maths are right. From what I heard on the news here, the oil prices per barrel have risen by 70 something % over the course of the last year. I read a few months ago, regarding copper and copper alloys and their high prices at the moment. The paper stated that it is not all “China’s fault” with their growing economies and growing demand that the prices are through the roof. The paper blamed the US for it as well ,as there seems to be a lot copper or copper alloys being involved in building pipelines and other oil boring facilities as well as that the US oil/fuel consumption is constantly increasing. In 2003 about 25,1% of the world oil consumption was in the USA, China had a about 7,6%, Japan 6,8%, Germany 3,5%, France 2,6% etc… 26 barrels per head in the US, 11 barrels per head in Germany, 1,7 barrels per head in China. If China really catches up fast with the rest of the world, then I presume we will have a problem soon.
Have to be careful here though, not that we drift off into a political thread again.
40 cents of one US Gallon of Gasoline goes to various type of taxes, federal tax, state tax, fuel tax who knows maybe even carpet tacks.
The government never seems to offer any relief on the rising of gas prices. In fact, some of the taxes are based on percent of price - so they make more money.
Great googly-moogly. When my wife and I bought a house, we considered at first building a passive Solar home,
but decided to put it off in the intereset of building equity while the interest rates were low.
May have to look back into that before long. Glad we live in the south!
I live out in the country where we must use oil heat…the house I live in has radiator heat…where the oil is used, but electricity pushes the water through the radiator…oh…I don’t know…all I know is that it’s about $1,000 for the winter…and about $100 per month for the electricity. It’s crap!! I can’t change anything because it’s not my house..but then I wouldn’t have the money to do it anyway!
It’s a bummer for sure. I hope and pray we have a short winter..but it is not looking good. We still had 25" of snow on the ground on April 15th and we have had an early frost this September.
I hope everyone has enough heat to keep them warm!
Reminds me of the year Enron messed with the prices in California…I paid a $600 heating/electricity bill (for just one month!) that December! The other winter months were around $400 (average is about $200). Insane!
Things aren’t going to get any better either in the long term. It is rumored that China is interested into investing into Canada’s Oil Tar Sands Project in Alberta, with a estimate of over a trillion barrels of recoverable oil. Japan has already, as has the Americans. These oil reserves are seen to be in a friendly stable country.
So the competition for natural resources is heating up world wide and Canada is a target for very rich Asian countries.
A Chinese state company is reported ready to spend 7 billion dollars for a Canadian mining company - Noranda, and are looking into buying soft wood lumber companies and makers of plywood.
Canada is the second largest exporter of oil to the United States after Saudi Arabia and the Canadian dollar is climbing to record highs.
Competition is going to make life interesting for us North Americans!
Hi Spittin’–does your oil company give you the opportunity to lock in a price for the heating season? I noticed that mine didn’t offer the option this year. I suppose they figure the price is too unstable for them to offer the fixed price option.
Without checking Quicken, I’d say that I spent about $1200 to heat my house last year, and my hot water is heated by electricity. I turn down the thermostat to 55 during the day when no one is home and then “crank it” (said tongue in cheek) to the mid 60’s at night. My Scots ancestry seems to enjoy the cooler temps, anyway.
$2 a gallon is the locked in price. I can rest assured it won’t go any higher! They originally gave me a lock of 1.599 through Oct. 31, with the supposition that oil prices would have fallen by then…
