You could say that the timing of when one orders their home heating oil is somewhat of a science. I know what you are thinking: why would anyone waste time on such a mundane but necessary task? They say that time is money, but in this case, time is money in your pocket. With some practice and special attention to heating oil prices, global market trends, weather, and the past trends and future projection of your own home heating oil usage, one can end up saving a lot of money by the time spring sprouts its first bud.

Knowledge is the best weapon when it comes to most things in life, and when you have real numbers from real data, they can help you make educated decisions and save you money in the long run.

Pay Attention to Home Heating Oil Prices and Global Market Trends

Home heating oil companies in a given area often offer varying prices but, for the most part, are always within a few cents of each other. While this may happen for various reasons it is important to remember that the core price for home heating oil depends on supply and demand and other oil market trends such as China’s economy, OPEC’s next move, geopolitical flashpoints and America’s own oil output. You can read more about the top five factors affecting oil prices in 2015 in oilprice.com’s article.

Keeping an eye on all of these factors and looking out for other potential factors gives you inside information about whether or not oil prices could spike in coming months. Set up Google alerts to stay on top of breaking news, or make a point to research these once a week.

Additionally, many websites follow oil price trends and helpfully chart these to give you a better look at past trends compared to recent prices. Check out this heating oil price trend website.

Consider Weather Trends and Future Projections

Weather affects heating oil prices on many levels. While the prediction of an unusually harsh and cold winter can certainly affect prices due to the high demand for heating oil, a hot summer can just as easily affect future oil prices. Hot summers can trigger a large fluctuation in the commodities market, causing heating oil prices to rise above average.  An excellent example of this occurred in 2012 when the Midwest experienced above average temperatures. As the temperatures went up, so did the future price of corn. You can see the full example of this by clicking, here.

Your home heating oil delivery and usage trends

The home heating oil industry is competitive and many times homeowners and renters have many options to choose from for their heating oil delivery. With so many home heating oil companies to choose from, it might make sense to shop around each month in search for the lowest price. However, in the long run, this could cost you more, both in price and time. When sticking with a dedicated home heating oil company that provides their customers with a profile to monitor usage and delivery dates, you can easily identify past oil order trends. Keep in mind, there are many things to consider when reviewing your past trends. Always consider the factors outlined in this article, as well as any energy improvement additions you have recently made to your home (updated windows, new insulation, etc.)

Furthermore, businesses like to reward their loyal customers now and then by offering exclusive discounts, deals and providing industry projections to clients.

Putting it all together

Most people do not order their oil until they absolutely need to, and thus they are restricted by current prices. By having an understanding of these factors and making sense of past data, current trends, and future predictions, you can often determine whether filling up your tank early while prices are lower is best option.

 

Well it’s officially summer, and although we focus mainly on heating oil & heating systems, we don’t want to ignore the fact that you have cooling needs too!  So just to keep in touch over the summer months, we wanted to give you some tidbits on staying cool this summer in the most efficient way possible.  If you haven’t yet, it might be time to tune up your AC!

July and August are two of the hottest months of the year, typically speaking. And in New Jersey humidity, air conditioning tune-ups and DIY air conditioning preventative maintenance is a must!  You should definitely consider having a professional come out and tune up your air conditioner.  While we don’t recommend a full DIY air conditioner tune-up, there are things that you can do yourself to make your air conditioner run more efficiently.

Air Conditioning Preventative Maintenance:

1) Changing the filter. Over the next couple of months, you should do this monthly.  Your AC is getting heavy use.  During the off months, you can do it less frequently.  This is something you can do yourself.  You don’t need a technician to come out every time you need to swap out your filter.  Every AC is different.  If your filter is in the air intake area, here is a helpful video for you.  Research your air conditioner model online and purchase compatible filters for a very affordable price.  This is an easy DIY air conditioning preventative maintenance step.

2) Seal your heating & cooling ducts. Your duct work is the “piping” the moves the cold air around your house, to and from the central air conditioner.  Sealing and insulating the ducts can improve the efficiency of your system by as much as 20%!  Here is a great brochure from Energy Star that talks about the specifics of how to seal your ducts.  It’s best to seal up the worst ducts first – this usually means starting in uncooled areas like the garage, attic, crawlspace, basement, etc. You need to use duct sealing tape around the connection pieces and along the seams.  You should also wrap the ducts in insulation.  Sealing your ducts is another easy DIY air conditioning preventative maintenance step.

3) Follow our 10 step plan to efficiency!  Apply the same techniques you use in the winter to keep the heat IN. Remember 6 months ago when we wrote to you a bunch of ideas on how to keep the heat IN your home this winter?  The same principles apply for keeping the heat OUT and the cold in your home over the summer.  Re-read our post here on 10 ways to keep your heating costs down.  Some of these things are easy, low cost DIY ideas – like sealing the threshold of your front door or keeping the sunshine out with light blocking blinds.  Others are simply habit changing ideas, like closing your closet doors!  But everything in this article from the winter can be equally valuable in the summer!

4) Get an AC Tune Up.  If you haven’t had your actual AC unit tuned up by a professional, you’re behind – but it’s not too late.   Most of the time we’d recommend getting this done by June.  But we just finished 4th of July barbecues, and the hottest months are yet to come.  Get that AC running smoothly!  Any time anyone offers to tune up your AC, make sure you’re getting a fair price, and that they are doing the appropriate things that need to be done.  An AC tune-up should cost you less than $100, assuming you’re in the market for a good deal. (Typically paying full price would be more than this.)  Most companies will run some sort of special, where their normal full scope $129 air conditioning tune-up will be on sale for $89 or $99 with a coupon.  Be wary of anything costing less than $70 (on average).  It’s likely that the company is not performing all of the services that you really want done.  Here is an article from Angie’s List giving some basic guidelines for what to look for in an AC tune up.  They also give the recommendation that you should look for a good deal between $70-$100.  Always make sure that the tune up includes inspection checks on the coils, capacitors, compressor, and refrigerant levels.  As we’ve mentioned before – we have a full service sister company that takes care of HVAC service needs – Medford Heating & Air Conditioning.  That is one company we can recommend with full confidence.  Give them a call at 609-654-2188 to schedule your AC tune up today.  This is an important part of air conditioning preventative maintenance, and not very expensive when you consider that you likely save the cost of the tune up in electric bills, let alone the bonus that you’re taking care of your unit and making sure it lasts without expensive service calls on 100 degree summer afternoons.

5) Consider an upgrade if your unit is REALLY outdated.  Realistically, most of us operate from the standpoint of “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.”  We’re always trying to milk one more year out of that old beater car, or that bull of a air conditioner or heater.  From a logical standpoint on most things, that makes sense.  You get more for your money by prolonging the life of something – usually.  But in the case of anything that uses energy – we’ve seen such dramatic improvement in efficiency over the past 20 years, that that is sometimes NOT the case.  You could save hundreds of dollars per year in electricity bills, simply by upgrading your unit.  If this is a repair you know that you’re going to have to do over the next few years, its best to just get it done – especially since the upgrade will pay for itself over time, and you can almost always get rebates from the government to help pay for the upgrade cost.  We won’t go into too much detail here, but do the math.  Talk to your HVAC specialist, or give Medford Heating a call, just to price estimate what it would cost to upgrade, what rebates you could qualify for, etc.  It doesn’t hurt to research!

Heating season will be around the corner – so start looking for more posts from us here at MHOexpress!  Feel free to comment or leave questions below!  Thanks!