How Much Heating Oil Will My Home Use in the Winter?
The amount of heating oil your home will use in any given winter depends on several factors. So it is no surprise that this is one of the most frequently asked questions about home heating oil that we receive each year.
In the winter of 2020–2021, about 5.3 million households in the United States used heating oil as their primary space heating fuel, and about 82% of those households were in the U.S. Northeast Census Region.
Knowing how much heating oil your home uses in the winter helps you ensure you always have enough fuel in your heating oil tank to keep your home warm in chilly weather. It also helps you budget your potential heating oil costs while factoring in the current heating oil prices for the season.
To understand how much heating oil your home will use this winter, we need to look at several factors:
- The size and build of your home.
- The temperature you like to keep inside your home.
- The temperature outside.
- What you use heating oil for.
- The efficiency of your oil heating system.
The size and build of your home.
The size of your home will directly impact the amount of heating oil you use each day. In most cases, the larger the home, the more fuel oil you will burn. We see that on average, a typical 2,500-square-foot home in the Northeast will use around 800-900 gallons of heating oil per year.
This number can sway a bit depending on how many people live in your home and what their temperature preferences are. It can also sway a bit depending on the design and materials used in the construction of your home.
When more people are living in a home, daily fuel use will typically be higher than when compared to a household with just one or two people.
In addition, homes with good insulation will use less heating oil, while poorly insulated houses with drafty windows can expect to use quite a bit more heating oil. This is why it is so important to be proactive to ensure your home is properly insulated.
The temperature you like to keep inside your home.
Do you remember your parents lowering the heat at home and telling you to put an extra sweatshirt on if you were cold? Well, it turns out they had their reasons!
The higher the temperature setting you leave your thermostat on, the longer your furnace stays on, and the more heating oil you will use. People who like their homes set at 72 degrees will burn more heating oil per square foot than those who keep their homes at 65 degrees, for example.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the ideal temperature for homes during the winter is 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
If you want to feel cozy and comfortable but also not rack up a huge heating oil bill, a useful method is to turn the thermostat down at night or while you are out of the house for a long stretch of time. You can install a programmable thermostat to automatically adjust the inside temperatures based on certain times of the day to help you with additional costs and use savings. You can learn more about the best practices for setting your thermostat here.
Just be sure not to let the temperature drop too low – you can end up creating more work for your burner to get the temperatures back up again. But lowering a few degrees at night or while at work can help reduce your heating oil usage without much sacrifice in comfort.
The temperature outside.
Generally speaking, the warmer it is outside, the less heating oil you will burn to keep your home at a comfortable temperature. If it is 50 degrees outside, you will use substantially less heating oil in a day than when temperatures drop to 30 degrees. This will of course impact your heating oil usage throughout the winter. If it happens to be a warmer winter than normal, you will use less fuel oil than in prior years. If it happens to be a colder or longer winter than normal, you will burn more fuel.
What you use heating oil for.
Hot water heaters are usually powered by heating oil, propane, natural gas, or electricity. If your hot water heater is powered by heating oil, you will use more fuel oil throughout the winter. In fact, you will be using your heating oil throughout the whole year – even in the summer. Hot water for your sinks, showers, washing machines, and so on will burn more fuel.
The good news is, hot water heaters don’t burn anywhere near as much heating oil as your furnace or boiler will burn to heat your entire home. But producing hot water is still an energy drain, so the more hot water you consume, the more heating oil you will burn.
The efficiency of your heating oil system.
How old is your furnace or boiler? When was the last time you had it maintained?
Believe it or not, most heating oil servicing calls that start with, “Help! Our heat stopped working!” tie back to a lack of proper oil furnace maintenance. The more energy-efficient your oil heating system is, the less heating oil you will burn and the lower your cost will be.
Did you know that oil burners, furnaces, and nozzles that are over 20 years old could be adding up to 15-25% to your heating oil bill? Take note of your system and really think about investing in efficiency upgrades if you plan to be in your home for years to come. And who doesn’t want to be calling for heating oil delivery a little less frequently?
Managing your heating oil expenses and figuring out how much fuel oil you will use each winter is no easy feat. Luckily, Star Home Heat makes fueling your home simpler. We created a sophisticated yet easy-to-use marketplace using our own proprietary technology that empowers homeowners to search for discount heating oil prices in New York, in a matter of seconds.
Simply enter your zip code to see the lowest heating oil prices today. We are industry veterans with over 25 years of experience in the heating oil delivery business. (You can say we’ve “been around the block” a few times)!
We were fed up with how difficult it was for local homeowners to get quick access to heating oil prices in New York. The whole experience felt frustrating and out-of-date. So, we built this business to make it easier to fuel your home with a high-quality, reliable heating oil delivery service.
At Star Home Heat, you can place an order online 24/7/365 for your next heating oil delivery in Nassau, Queens, Brooklyn, and Suffolk counties in New York, and are expanding. Whether you live in Carle Place, Hicksville, Uniondale, Floral Park, or anywhere in between, consider us for your next heating oil delivery. Learn more about us here.
