At our old house, we still use an ancient oil-burning furnace. We've got a big 250-gallon storage tank standing beside the house, and a giant oil truck comes & fills it up once a month or so.
We had an oil delivery earlier this week (yes, about 3 days before the temperature hit 99 degrees in Salem! D'oh.), and I almost had a heart attack when I saw how much it cost. But first... some history courtesy of my “Heating Oil” receipt file:
Our first oil delivery was January 16, 2006. That was 3 days after we moved in on a Friday, turned on the furnace, and promptly ran out of oil, leaving us chattering in our new house until Monday. That day, we paid $2.28 per gallon of oil. It seemed a little expensive, but what are you gonna do? Fuel ain't cheap these days.
The next month, the price went down, all the way to $2.08. Well that's a pleasant turn of events. Maybe this heating-oil thing isn't so bad?
But what's this? Our next delivery, a couple of months later, the price spiked to $2.75. Yikes, that hurts.
When we started getting deliveries the following winter- January 2007- the price actually went back down to $2.17. That was a relief. Phew!
But, much like automobile gas, the prices started soaring; last fall we were routinely paying above $3 per gallon. It steadily rose until last month it hit $3.75 per gallon. And I about had a heart attack because it was so expensive.
But that seems downright reasonable compared with this month's oil price: $4.11 per gallon. Per gallon! Ahhh!
We usually get at least 100 gallons of oil per delivery, so that means we are now paying more than $200 per delivery than we were in Feburary 2006. And in the winter, we go through a lot of heating oil. Hey, we like to be warm (and our house leaks like a sieve)! Though this winter, we had the thermostat turned down noticeably cooler, and we used a lot of warm hats & quilts. But we still paid out the nose for what oil we did consume.
Egh. And that's the love story of my big, oil-eating house, and the industry that gouges us.
I'm glad it's summer and we can now start paying the power company to run our A/C, which does a great job of cooling down the house. Until the moment it shuts off, and al the cool air promptly escapes.
It was 85 degrees upstairs last night- with the A/C on! Sigh. Oh well, I love Oregon, and I love my house, so we deal. :-)