Maine, fuel oil prices.

[deeker]

I have a sister in Bangor maine that tells me she is paying $600 per mo in heating oil.      A bit high???  Any thoughts?? 


Kevin Davis
Ruff Cutts

[bull]

how big is her oil tank, how big of a house is she heating,how old and how is it insulated.

[ely]

who really cares, thats a lot of money no matter how much you are heating

[deeker]

I believe it to be small.  And probably poorly insulated.  I am suspecting she spends more on adult beverages to keep herself warm.  Not trying to be mean.  But I do know her.  It sounds like a lot to me too, I don't use fuel oil to heat anything.  Here we use natural gas, and woodstoves. 

Kevin Davis
Ruff Cutts

[beenthere]

At the price of fuel oil, doesn't surprise me.
Do you know what price per gallon she is having to pay?

Propane is around $2 now, I hear. Going to call for some contracted at $1.60 and need about 300 gallon to fill the tank.

[ely]

we heard propane was 2.80 the other day, but when they delivered it the boss paid 2.24 so i guess that was a good thing?

[Ron Wenrich]

Turn the thermostat down.  I have mine at about 63° and that keeps my consumption pretty low.  Wear sweaters.   

[submarinesailor]

To put the price of oil in to some perspective, you need to convert it to some type of heat unit.  At work we use a Decatherm (DTH) or 1,000,000 BTU’s.  It takes about 7.4 gallons of #2 fuel oil to make a DTH.  According to what little real pricing I can find for that area, the commodity price for oil is about (a low side estimate) $3.65/gal – I’m at home so I didn’t have all the tools I would like.  So that equates to about $27.05 per DTH.  The latest DOE monthly report has the average residential price of natural gas for the state of Maine at about $18.00 per DTH. 

BUT, the price of natural gas on the east coast is following the price of oil.  Currently April’s price on the NYMEX exchange is over $10.25 per DTH.  And that’s down at the market trading point, down need Lafayette, Louisiana.

BURN MORE WOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bruce

[isawlogs]

  That was sclear ....     Then again ... colder it gets , da more wood gets thrown in the furnace , I guess thats whats you was tellin' me .... right   

[StorminN]

It's been years since I lived in Old Town (near Bangor, ME), but I don't recall there being any natural gas north of Portland... it's all fuel oil or wood heat. I do, however remember experiencing -40F in the winter and 102F in the summer. If memory serves me right, one winter (1993?) we had 23 days in January that were -20F or colder, and three or four that were -40F or colder. And yeah... lots of the houses there are old and poorly insulated.

Can I say how glad I am to now live somewhere that never gets below 20F? We average in the 60's, and people whine like hell if the temperature goes more than 25 degrees either side of that...

-Norm.

[submarinesailor]

Norm,

The natural gas in that part of Maine, north of Portland is relatively new.   The only reason I now about it is because I handle the natural gas for NSA Brunswick.  And if memory serves me correctly, there are 3 natural gas companies in Maine now.

Bruce

[RSteiner]

$600.00 a month sounds a bit high but a lot depends on the size of the house and how tight the house is and the amount of insulation it has.  With fuel oil prices in New Hampshire over $3.00 a gallon $600.00 gets you 200 gallons.  A few years back I installed a new burner in my neighbors furnace and if I remember right the nozzle it had used 1/2 gallon an hour when running. 

Could be the windows and doors are letting warmed air out faster than they could and maybe the insulation in the attic is not enough.  There are programs to help people tigthen up their homes to help control energy use, maybe she would qualify for some assistance.

Randy

[thecfarm]

I live here in Maine and I have no idea how much fuel oil is,$3.40????Maybe????Is she using kerosene?that might be up to almost $4.I use only wood.

[Dave Shepard]

submarinesailor, thank you for bringing up the Decatherm. I often think that the people selling energy don't want people to be able to compare apples to apples, if they did, there would be more coal furnaces around.  I have many long conversations about energy with a friend of mine. We both run into people that are falsely comparing various energy costs. One even tried to tell me that electricity was cheapest. Wood and coal are both a good bang for the buck at the moment.


Dave

[Mooseherder]

I talked with my brother in Northern Maine tonight.
Fuel oil 200 miles north of Bangor is 3.63 today. 

[Dave Shepard]

That got me to thinking Mooseherder, I can't go 200 miles in my state. And still be in my state.


Dave

[Mooseherder]

That got me to thinking Mooseherder, I can't go 200 miles in my state. And still be in my state.
Dave

That can be a good thing.

[treenail]

$600 a month wouldn't suprise me one bit. I went out and bought deisel fuel for my tractor tonight and it was now $4.00 a gallon. Fuel oil isn't far behind around here. Anyone that cuts his own cordwood to heat his home is going to be feeling pretty darned wealthy before too long.

[Warbird]

I just paid $3.54 per gallon for heating oil here.  We consumed 85 gallons in just over 5 weeks and we typically use ~100 gallons per month.

[lobsta1]

Here in eastern Ma. my parent's fuel bill in Jan was over $1000. This is in a
1954 built ranch with some insulation added since. My neighbor just told me her bill was over  $1000 in Feb. This was in a early 1900's two story house that has been rebuilt & insulated.
Al