rikibeth

thanks! That's a helpful ballpark figure. My tank is 275 gallons and currently 3/4 full.

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What is home heating oil? Do you have to buy it, or is it piped to your home?

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I have to buy it. I have not had a heating oil furnace since I moved out of my parents' house in 1991. And, obviously, I didn't deal with the bills or the delivery for that! I have always had natural gas powered heat since then, which is piped to the house and you can't do jack about the prices.

With heating oil, you can pre-purchase and lock in a price, or sign up for an automatic delivery plan, or a budget plan, or... it's very confusing, really, and i am trying to get the best price possible.

The tank is in the basement, holds 275 gallons, and was 3/4 full when we moved in. So I am trying to figure out approximately how much we'll use over the winter.

Our furnace also heats our hot water. Direct intertie, not a tank, in this case. So we'll use a little over the summer months, but not much, it appears.

Luckily, with the tank 3/4 full, I won't have to PANIC about it for a while, but summer lock-in prices are said to be better.

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Wow. That sounds complicated. Could you use recycled vegetable oil from restaurants? They let you take that stuff away for free sometimes.

All the houses I've lived in have been run on natural gas. It's easy, but also very expensive with all the price hiking they did last year.

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The natural gas bill was one of the reasons I desperately needed to sell my house. I think I paid over $3000 to heat the behemoth.

If I had a diesel car I could run THAT on recycled vegetable oil from restaurants, plus some Red Devil lye to turn it into biodiesel, but I don't think home heating oil and diesel are exactly the same thing. A waste oil furnace would be made of awesome, though.

I just hope I won't have to pay an arm and a leg.

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I don't even want to contemplate what I paid for heating last year. I had to keep the house at 95 after my surgery. Shall go back to the layers and sweaters method this year.

A waste oil furnace really needs to get developed. Either that or one that runs on used paper. Think of all the newspapers, magazines, and TPS reports that hit the landfills every year.

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kitwench.livejournal.com

"Either that or one that runs on used paper. Think of all the newspapers, magazines, and TPS reports that hit the landfills every year."

Rofl- I've had one of those .. we call it a 'wood stove'.
You can roll the waste paper up very tightly by hand, or use a paper log roller :
http://www.americanchimneysweeps.com/paper_log_roller.htm

Sometimes the best new tech ... is the old tech :)

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OOO! A woodstove would be an awesome addition to the house. I'd planned on running space heaters this year and setting the climate control to 60 or 65.

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deguspice.livejournal.com

"but I don't think home heating oil and diesel are exactly the same thing."

They're pretty much the same thing. Home heating oil has a dye added to it, so the Feds could see if you're using it in your truck without paying road taxes.

If you pre-pay or lock in a rate, make sure you find out what happens if the price of oil drops. Last winter, I looked into the plan but decided against it, and as it turned out the normal price of stayed below the fixed price. Who knows what will happen next year.

If this will be your first winter in this house, you should keep an eye on the oil tank and so you don't accidentally run out, especially if it also provides heat for your hot water.

Do you know when your furnace was last serviced? (there should be a tag on it). If it wasn't within the last year, you should ask your landlord if you can get it done (and take it off the rent).

Call around for a good price on oil. In Massachusetts, the average is around $2.50, but my local company (they're not part of a large chain) is charging $2.28 per gallon at the moment. I used to get my oil from a large chain that offered automatic filling (they'll keep track of the weather and your estimated consumption and automatically deliver oil), but I stopped when I figured out it was cheaper to get oil from someone else, and risk running out (and paying a fee for an emergency delivery at 11pm).

Some oil companies will charge less if you pay when they deliver the oil (COD). I usually leave a signed check without an amount in a plastic bag on the fill pipe (under the welcome mat is another common location). They'll also might charge less if you get at least half a tank.

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bryttan.livejournal.com

& then we could come over to the house & it would always smell like freedom fries!!!! :)

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LOL! I hadn't thought of that part.

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tubin.livejournal.com

On the tupperware thing: It's been my impression that brand-name Tupperware is so expensive that you could probably replace the entire unit (lid plus container) with another brand for the same price as tupperware would charge you for the lid...

Or in my case - I realized that the price of one tupperware container was equal to the price of a similar volume of hot-n-sour soup from my favorite delivery place - and that comes delivered in a nice, sturdy container which appears to be microwavable, dishwashable, and freezable. Since I'm rather fond of hot-n-sour soup, I have maintained my collection that way!

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The thing is, I dearly love the Modular Mates for moth-proof pantry storage of legumes and grains, and I'm cooking vegetarian these days, and the Modular Mates have straight sides and fit much more nicely into the pantry than using re-used deli containers for the same purpose.

So I think it's going to be worth it to replace the lids. These name-brand Tupperwares have lasted over 15 years, and I want to keep using them.

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kitwench.livejournal.com

Are your lids missing or just old, splitting and not good ?
If you have them, in any condition at a ll, Tupperware still has a lifetime guarantee and you can go to :

http://order.tupperware.com/coe/app/tup_party.consultant_finder

and get your local rep to replace them for free.
Ditto, they can sell you new ones if you tossed the old ones out.
I did this last year for my modular mates- the lids have it seems a 12-15 yr life span.

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Missing. I am not sure what happened to them. The Pour-And-Store lids that I DO have are still in fine shape. Thanks for the link!

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Yes, of course I do. I'll e-mail you her name and contact info.

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Thank you!

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BTW, the modular mates lids are now available in a very nice red. I replaced all my lids when the color came out last year.

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Red? Oh goody! It looked fuchsia on the websites!

I am doing my new kitchen as red as possible so I am all for red.

Did you throw OUT the blue lids, or trade them in? Because if they are just hanging around, I remember YOU called dibs on blue and I had to get peachy pink back when we were both ordering in 1991, and I'll take blue if they're THERE.

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Yeah, it's a good red, with maybe a bit of cherry tone to it, but red nonetheless. I believe I either traded in the blue ones or had already replaced most of them with the dark green due to wear-and-tear. About the only blue lids I have left are the spice container lids. But I'll check around.

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Funny, my peachy-pinks are still going strong!

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One word: dogs.

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