Maintaining Your Home Heating Oil System
Like your car or truck, your home heating system requires regular maintenance to function its best. Keeping your furnace (forced air system) or boiler (water or steam systems) in good working order will save you money, reduce pollution, and increase your comfort. Fortunately, home heating systems are more like cars from the 1960s or [...]
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Back to School and Going Green: Environmentally-Friendly Options for the Kids
Children may complain that summer never lasts long enough, but back-to-school time is here. And that usually means shopping for essentials such as notebooks, pens, backpacks, and, of course, the ingredients for those PBJ’s.
All of that purchasing usually involves driving around, spending time and money to find your oldest daughter the perfect purple purse. [...]
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How Heating Degree Days can Help the Home Heating Oil Consumer
by Kristy Kershaw
Do any amount of research into heating oil and energy costs and you’re bound to come across the concept of “Heating Degree Day.” And while it’s ultimately a pretty straightforward concept, there is lots of confusing and technical information surrounding any Google search into degree days.
To break it down [...]
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Living Green and Saving Money: Gray Water Recycling
Like many consumers, you probably included “save money” and “make my home environmentally friendly” on your 2009 Resolutions List. We’ve passed the mid-year mark for 2009. And that means it’s time to review and renew those resolutions!
One way to achieve both goals is gray water recycling. It sounds sort of, well, dismal, doesn’t [...]
Saving Money on Heating Oil and Energy Bills with a Home Energy Audit
by Joanne Eglash
Establishing a goal to make your home more energy-efficient is a win-win proposition. First, you’ll reduce your bills, resulting in extra money in lean times. You may even earn tax credits. Second, you’ll help the environment by making your home eco-friendly, contributing to the nation-wide effort to “go green.” What’s not to [...]
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If Your Oil Heat System Stops Working, Try This
If your heating system is not running at peak performance, you might not always need a professional repair. Some problems can be remedied by simply changing an air filter or cleaning a thermostat. We’ve compiled a list of common heating system problems and some suggestions on how to solve them. Learning how to troubleshoot [...]
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Your Options for Buying Heating Oil
Whether you’re a new homeowner looking for your first oil company or a dissatisfied customer looking to switch, finding oil companies/vendors can be challenging—as well as understanding delivery choices, pricing, service contracts and other details involved with buying heating oil. In an effort to provide you with as much information as possible—plus save you [...]
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Caring For and Replacing Your Heating Oil Tank
On average, a home heating oil tank lasts 15–30 years. However, the consequences of a leak you don’t catch are serious; therefore, once a tank hits 15 years, you should make sure to get it inspected regularly—and consider replacement if any problems crop up, during inspection or otherwise.
Oil Tank Facts
There are two kinds of [...]
Heating Oil Usage in the US: How Much is “Average”?
by Jennifer Schwartz
Heating Oil Use in the US
In the United States, approximately 8.1 million households out of 107 million use heating oil as their source of heat. Back in 1997, of the approximately 102 million households in the U.S. then, roughly 1 in 10 homes used fuel oil. In those 10 million homes, during [...]
White Roofs Save Money and Cut Greenhouse Emissions
by Greg Burt
Hot town, summer in the city. They even wrote a song about it. On a typical summer day, densely developed urban areas are at least 5 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside and often much more. Recent studies have shown that by far the largest factor in this discrepancy is the absorption [...]
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Living Green in the Kitchen
by Joanne Eglash
Eating your green veggies benefits your health – and eco-friendly, “go-green” cooking benefits the body, budget, and planet. Now that’s mighty tasty!
Finding a green vegetable that your entire family enjoys, however, probably wasn’t an easy task. George H.W. Bush infamously disliked broccoli, for example. The average child isn’t an instant fan of [...]
DIY Home Energy Conservation Projects that Will Save You Big Bucks
by Carol Sonenklar
No matter what the temperature, making sure your home is energy efficient will save you money all year round. If you live in a warm climate, you’ll be turning on your air conditioner soon. Improvements in your house’s infrastructure will help now with electricity bills and later, with heating oil bills. Taking [...]
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