HeatingOil.com Profiles: Energy Audits by Atlas Glen-Mor
In business, “diversification” is an oft-repeated buzzword, but one that certainly deserves its buzz. By offering a wider range of products and/or services, businesses can expand their customer base, increase revenue, and protect themselves from any sudden changes to their industries. This is as true in the heating oil industry as any other—by expanding into other aspects of home energy services, heating oil dealers around the country are securing their market shares and growing their businesses. Atlas Glen-Mor of Chelsea, Massachusetts is one such dealer. In response to customer demand for home energy audits, Atlas technicians were trained and certified as home energy auditors by the Building Performance Institute, and have been busy providing audits ever since. By helping their customers conserve energy and save money on their heating oil and electricity bills, Atlas provides a valuable service and establishes itself as a “one stop shop” for all energy needs. Comprehensive energy services, a rich history, vast resources, and a courteous and professional staff have made Atlas Glen-Mor a leading heating oil provider (and more) in the greater Boston area and the rest of Eastern Massachusetts.
Check out the video profile of Atlas Glen-Mor and see what a professional energy audit looks like. Watch the video below or on the HeatingOil.com YouTube channel.
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HeatingOil.com Dealer Profiles: Petro Heating and Air Conditioning
(image: Nicholas Whitaker for HeatingOil.com)
Petro is one of the largest heating oil dealers in the country, serving the entire Northeast. Its blue trucks and blue and gold logo are recognizable to millions to Northeastern residents. As one of the largest and, according to Vice president of Sales and Marketing Joe McDonald, one of the oldest heating oil companies around, Petro has a lot of resources to work with. Petro’s huge fleet of trucks, offices and subsidiaries across the region, and numerous supply lines ensure the company always has ample supplies of heating oil to serve its customers’ needs as well as plenty of employees to field service calls and other customer concerns. Petro customers receive the benefits of those vast resources, but at the same time each Petro office and Petro-owned company operates like a “small, local company,” bringing customers “the best of both worlds.” Like most heating oil dealers, Petro understands that the industry is based on solid and reliable customer service, and keeps its existing customers happy while also winning new ones by delivering the quality service that heating oil users expect. A rich history, substantial resources, experienced staff, and a dedication to customer satisfaction have made Petro the pillar of the heating oil industry that it is today.
Watch the HeatingOil.com video profile of Petro below or on our YouTube channel
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The Heating Oil System Cleaning and Tune Up: What it is and Why it’s Important
Tom Piano of Hilltop Fuel performs a boiler inspection as part of an annual cleaning and tune-up. (image: Nicholas Whitaker for HeatingOil.com)
If you’ve visited HeatingOil.com before, there’s a good chance that you’ve read about annual cleanings and tune-ups of oil-fired heating systems. Once-a-year cleanings and tune-ups are the single most important ways to keep heating systems running at maximum efficiency, which means burning less heating oil in cold weather and lower heating oil bills. They also help catch problems (like tank leaks and clogged filters) before they turn into BIG problems (like an expensive cleanup of spilled oil or a broken burner). Heating systems are pretty complex, which means a lot of different parts can wear out or have small animals living inside them (see the video for details on that). Cleanings and tune-ups find and replace worn-out parts and clear out anything in your system that’s not supposed to be there.
So what exactly goes into a cleaning and tune-up? What is the technician in your basement doing that improves the quality of your heating system and reduces wear-and-tear? Instead of writing out the answers to those questions, we decided to show them. HeatingOil.com video producer Nicholas Whitaker recently joined Tom Piano of Hilltop Fuel in New Jersey on a cleaning and tune-up call and documented the process. At Hilltop, the annual cleaning and tune-up of a heating system is called Preventative Maintenance Service, or PMS.
Whatever you call it, servicing your heating system with an annual cleaning and tune-up is the best way to keep your system in top condition and running at maximum efficiency. Even if you don’t have a service contract or if your contract doesn’t include an annual cleaning and tune-up, they are well worth the investment—the long-term savings that come from heating oil conservation, less frequent service calls, and reduced risk of system breakdown are too big to ignore.
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Origins of Bioheat: NYC Biodiesel Producer Tri-State Biodiesel
A Tri-State Biodiesel waste oil collection truck on the job in Manhattan. (image: Nicholas Whitaker for HeatingOil.com)
It is impossible to work in the heating oil industry today and not know about biodiesel heating oil, known more commonly by its brand name, Bioheat. This blend of renewable fuel and traditional, petroleum-based no. 2 heating oil has been hailed as the future of the industry. Its high energy content, low emissions, and system-cleaning solvent properties have made it an attractive fuel to heating oil dealers and consumers alike. And because much of America’s biodiesel is produced domestically, increased use of biodiesel heating oil helps reduce our country’s dependence on crude oil and petroleum products from overseas.
So where do biodiesel and Bioheat come from? HeatingOil.com visited Tri-State Biodiesel in the Bronx, NYC to find out. Tri-State Biodiesel uses used cooking oil as its source (known as feedstock) of biodiesel, which the company collects from restaurants around New York. While most biodiesel producers use soybean oil as their main feedstock, Tri-State’s reliance on used cooking oil helps reduce waste and does not affect domestic supplies of food crops.
The HeatingOil.com video team documented operations at Tri-State’s processing facility and sat down with the company’s CEO, Brent Baker. Baker shared some of his experiences as a biodiesel producer and retailer of biodiesel heating oil, and addressed the concerns that make some dealers and consumers wary of the product.
We hope that Baker’s insights and a glimpse into the biodiesel production process help to demystify biodiesel heating oil and show how and why it figures prominently in the future of the heating oil industry.
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Kevin Costner’s Oil-Separating Centrifuges at Work
Three centrifuges are aboard this barge and being used to clean up the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico. (image: BPplc via youtube.com)
Last week we reported that BP had bought 32 oil cleanup machines developed by Kevin Costner’s company, Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS). Now those machines are in action, and BP has released a video describing in detail how the machines’ centrifuge technology works to separate oil from water.
So far the centrifuges are not a complete success—the separated water is not yet clean enough to be returned to the sea—but they’ve only just been deployed and their efficiency could be improved. To find out more about the technology and how it works with skimmers, barges, and holding tanks, watch the video below and listen to the explanations from the people directing this cleanup effort.
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Heating Oil On The Move: From NJ Terminal to The Westmore Rack at Port Chester, NY
(image: Nicholas Whitaker for HeatingOil.com)
The word picturesque is not often associated with the heating oil industry, but this short piece we’ve produced about a heating oil barge is that and more. I have a soft spot for oil barges. I remember a freezing cold evening in 1980, when my father took his first barge delivery at a terminal he had just purchased from Sunrise Petroleum. It was a small barge, and a small terminal, just like the one you’ll see in this film. I remember standing on the windy dock all of 8 years old in a jacket and tie, waiting for the ship to arrive. It finally did, coming in slow and low to the water, heavy with product. My mother and sister had baked the crew a plate of chocolate chip cookies, which got us a tour of the ship. It was noisy and smelly, but to my father it was the Queen Elizabeth. The ship in this piece, the Patrick Sky, reminds me a lot of that ship.
It also reminds me that this industry and our comfort depends on an almost incomprehensible matrix of people and systems–from the oil rigs of Africa and Asia, to the refineries of the Gulf Coast, to the crew of the Patrick Sky, to the oil truck driver who delivers our fuel. It is awesome to consider all the other systems and companies we take for granted in our daily lives. I hope you will enjoy (as I have) the simple beauty of a glimpse at one of the smallest and most picturesque links in the global energy supply chain.
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From the HeatingOil.com Video Vault: Inside Big Oil’s Boardroom
The face of Big Oil.
As we approach our one year anniversary in late July, we thought it might be fun to share some videos we made in June of 2009 to help us launch the site. We ended up not using any of them at the time- they seemed either too smarmy or too crazy- not the first impression you want to make on the reading public. So they’ve remained in the HeatingOil.com archives for 11 long months, until now.
The first time I watched this, I have to admit I was kind of shocked and horrified. There was no way I was going to use this to help promote our blog. We wanted to talk about helping our readers save money on heating oil and equipment- not terrify them.
But events change your perspective. The insane and creepy feeling of the piece seems entirely appropriate given the absurd situation with BP in the Gulf of Mexico. I think our fictitious ‘Board’ looks more realistic than ever.
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US Won’t Nuke Oil Leak, But This Video Shows How it Worked for the Soviets
Could a nuclear bomb stop the oil spill? (image: atomicarchive.com)
As desperation mounts with each failure to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the idea of using a nuclear weapon to melt the rock surrounding the well and seal off the gushing oil has gained traction. Despite the idea’s popularity in some quarters, the US government has rejected it, says the New York Times. A spokeswoman for the Energy Department, Stephanie Mueller, said the nuclear option had not been considered, and one unnamed senior official called the proposal “crazy.”
So where did this crazy idea come from? The Soviets, who successfully sealed four onshore natural gas leaks by using nuclear explosives. Their efforts caught the attention of the US Department of Energy, reports Salon’s Andrew Leonard, and in 2000 the DOE published a report titled, “The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions.” The report concluded that the first use of nuclear explosives occurred on a gas well that had been leaking for three years. The leak stopped 23 seconds after the nuclear detonation.
Leonard also turned up the video below, which appears to be old Soviet propaganda and shows the Soviets’ successful nuclear attack on a gas leak.
So is nuking the oil leak still a crazy idea? Probably. But if the oil is still flowing into the Gulf in a month or two, the nuclear option might start to seem more reasonable.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Fuel Data Services’ FDSweb.net
(image: fdsweb.net)
Like every other service-based business, heating oil dealers need to keep detailed records of their interactions with customers. In the old days, that information was kept exclusively on paper—invoices, service notes and delivery receipts stored in a folder in an office filing cabinet.
Today, the collection and storage of all that customer data is rapidly going digital. Heating oil dealers have a widening array of choices for managing their customer data, including web-based software systems. Fuel Data Systems offers just such a system in the form of their latest product, FDSweb.net, which was on display at the AREE trade show. Director of Operations Janice Carne and Director of Training and Conversions Nancy Comerford spoke to HeatingOil.com about the benefits of FDSweb.net, focusing on the platform’s centralized, web-based data storage. FDSweb.net cuts out the cost of purchasing and maintaining in-office data servers, and because it is Web-based, data can be accessed from locations outside the heating oil office.
Paperless, Internet-based data management—that’s a sign of a modern and forward-thinking heating oil company.
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HeatingOil.com Profiles: Hilltop Fuel
Hilltop Fuel service vans and heating oil truck at the company's headquarters in Fairfield, NJ. (image: hilltopfuel.com)
Customer service is a crucial part of the heating oil business. Heating oil dealers that show honesty, courtesy, and respect to all of their customers are the most successful ones, because happy customers are loyal customers.
Frank Mondsini, president of Hilltop Fuel in Fairfield, New Jersey knows the value of customer service well, and has made it the central pillar of his company. Speaking to HeatingOil.com for our dealer profiles series, Mr. Mondsini details how Hilltop’s previous owners, his father, uncle and grandfather, passed on this focus on customer service to him. He emphasizes that heating oil customers are real people who deserve the care and respect of their heating oil supplier, no matter how much oil they buy. Hilltop rewards these “friends’” business with fairness and a dedication to keeping their heat on. Although he acknowledges that his company’s values are somewhat “old fashioned,” Mr. Mondsini makes it clear that Hilltop will carry those values into the future. And if the past is any indication, they will continue to sustain Hilltop Fuel as the successful, reliable heating oil company it has been for decades.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: EnerTrac’s BigDrops Fuel Oil Sensor
EnerTrac's BigDrops fuel oil sensor. (image: enertrac.com)
Most heating oil dealers rely on software that uses temperature data like heating degree days (HDDs) and records of past usage to calculate when a customer needs a new heating oil delivery. HDD calculations tend to be quite accurate, but wouldn’t it be better for dealers to know exactly how much oil is in each of their customers’ tanks?
That’s what EnerTrac is offering with their BigDrops Fuel Oil Sensor. HeatingOil.com spoke with EnerTrac’s VP of Development, Pat Mansfield, at the AREE trade show and he provided a run down of how the product works: once installed on a tank, the sensor checks the customer’s heating oil level hourly, and transmits the data via radio signal to the oil company’s office, where it’s plugged into a “back end” software program. Knowing exactly when customers need deliveries (usually when tanks are just 20 percent full) helps reduce unnecessary deliveries and reduces costs for heating oil companies. Each sensor costs about $30.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Veeder-Root’s EMR3 Electronic Register
Veeder-Root's EMR3. (image: veeder.com)
The where, when, and how much of heating oil deliveries are crucial components of the business. That all-important data dictates how much customers pay and help dealers calculate when customers might need their next delivery. Although the analog gauges on heating oil trucks and printed and/or handwritten receipts usually work fine, paper receipts can get lost or destroyed, creating a headache for dealers.
At the AREE trade show, Chad Mickey of Veeder-Root spoke with HeatingOil.com about a product that makes the record-keeping tasks of heating oil companies easier and more reliable. Veeder’s EMR3 meter register uses a digital gauge to collect delivery information, which is then stored in its memory until it is wirelessly uploaded to the company’s office when the truck returns from delivery runs. Digital, wireless, and paperless delivery data—marks of the heating oil industry of the 21st century.
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First Synthetic Cell Holds Promise for Biodiesel and Green Heating Oil
The basic steps involved in Synthetic Genomic’s creation of a synthetic cell of bacteria. (image: nyt.com)
Dr. Craig Venter shook the scientific world and sparked a fresh debate over bio-ethics when he announced on Thursday that his team had successfully created the first synthetic cell. According to a New York Times report, scientists “synthesiz[ed] an entire bacterial genome and use[d] it to take over a cell.”
In addition to its potential applications to manufacturing vaccines, cell synthesis technology can and will be used by Dr. Venter’s company, Synthetic Genomics, to improve biofuel production from algae. From the Times:
Synthetic Genomics has a contract from Exxon to generate biofuels from algae. Exxon is prepared to spend up to $600 million if all its milestones are met. Dr. Venter said he would try to build “an entire algae genome so we can vary the 50 to 60 different parameters for algae growth to make superproductive organisms.”
While producing biodiesel and other biofuels from algae has some drawbacks, it is widely regarded as the most promising feedstock for large-scale biofuel production due to its resilient and fast-growing nature. In February, the Department of Defense’s DARPA agency announced that it would soon produce bio-jet fuel from algae at the cost of just $3 per gallon. The synthetic cell advancement could lead to the synthesis of algae cells that produce more plant oils than nature-made algae, boosting the per-acre biofuel yield of the feedstock.
Synthetic Genomics’ partnership with Exxon began just a few months ago, and was characterized as “an aggressive program” by an Exxon executive. With the huge economic resources of Exxon behind it, the biofuel applications of the synthetic cell technology will likely receive all the support needed to produce commercially viable algae-based biocrude in just a few years.
A new scientific boost to biofuel manufacturing is great news for heating oil dealers and consumers alike. As the technology for producing biodiesel (the biofuel that can be used as a drop-in replacement for petroleum-based heating oil) improves and the cost of the fuel drops, it will become more affordable and more widely available, providing heating oil users around the country with a cleaner and more sustainable heating fuel.
Watch a video report on Dr. Venter’s announcement from the UK’s Sky News below:
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BP Turns to Kevin Costner for Help With Oil Spill Cleanup
He may not have gills behind his ears, but Kevin Costner has a chance to be a real-life ocean-saving hero, thanks to BP’s interest in technology he helped develop. (image: collider.com)
While Waterworld, Kevin Costner’s big-budget apocalyptic environmental parable, proved to be a disaster in its own right, the actor’s latest role as eco-warrior could earn some rave reviews.
BP has approved six oil separation machines developed by Ocean Therapy Solutions, a Costner-funded venture, for testing on the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the New York Times’ Green blog reported. The machines use a centrifuge to suck up the oily water, separate the two components, and store the oil in a tanker while pumping the water back into the gulf. The largest machines can separate 200 gallons of oil from water per minute.
Costner started this work in 1995, still flush from the success of Dances with Wolves and The Bodyguard and hoping to combat the damage wrought by oil spills like the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989. He bought the oil separation technology from the government and subsequently invested $24 million of his own money into developing a machine that could separate oil from water and return purified water to the sea. He got some help from his brother, a scientist who worked with him on the project.
Costner’s business partner, John Houghtaling, said the technology has been available for 10 years but only now has any oil company shown interest in their machines.
Check out the video below to see a demonstration of the technology and to hear Costner speak on the issue.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Weil McLain’s U-04 Oil Boiler
The Weil McLain U-04 oil boiler. (image: pexsupply.com)
On the floor of the AREE trade show in Atlantic City last month, Bill Price of Weil McLain gave HeatingOil.com a quick tour of the U-04 oil boiler. Mr. Price pointed out the different features of the U-04 on a demo model that exposed the inner workings of the boiler. Its three-pass design ensures that the heat generated by oil combustion is fully utilized for home heating, allowing for higher efficiency and fuel conservation. The U-04 carries an AFUE efficiency rating of 86.5 and retails for around $2,000.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Fuel Management Services’ UltraGuard Additive
(image: fuelmanagementservices.com)
Much like gasoline in a car, heating oil moves from a storage tank and through a series of filters and nozzles before it combusts to do its job. To help ensure that it flows smoothly and efficiently, heating oil can be supplemented with additives that help break up particles of sludge or other substances that can build up in heating systems.
Fuel Management Services’ UltraGuard product is one such additive. HeatingOil.com caught up with the company’s representative, Ed Kitchen, at the AREE trade show and spoke with him about how UltraGuard works for heating oil dealers and consumers. The additive keeps particulate from forming in oil heat systems, which reduces the need for maintenance and keeps systems operating at maximum efficiency.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Honeywell Digital Thermostats
Honeywell's Prestige HD thermostat. (image: designtemphvac.com)
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of digital programmable thermostats here at HeatingOil.com. Programmable thermostats allow you to control the temperature in your home more precisely and not burn any more heating oil than you need to keep warm (check out our instructional video on how to install a digital thermostat). Conserving heating oil means saving money on heating oil bills, making programmable thermostats a great investment in energy savings.
At the AREE trade show in Atlantic City, we spent a moment with Ralph Florio of Honeywell and learned about his company’s latest and greatest digital thermostat, the Prestige HD model. This top-of-the-line thermostat includes high-definition touch screen, USB port for heating technicians to download heating and cooling data, wireless outdoor temperature sensor and a remote control with an on-board thermometer to aid in the climate control of hard-to-heat (or cool) areas of your home. The impressive functionality and snazzy interface carry a pretty hefty price (about $320), but could be well worth it for those with larger houses looking for pinpoint control of their heating and cooling systems.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Hedge Solutions
(image: hedgesolutions.com)
At a time when wild volatility and rampant speculation rule the heating oil market, financial protection in the form of hedging is more important than ever for heating oil dealers.
At the AREE trade show, HeatingOil.com spoke with Richard Larkin, president of Hedge Solutions, about the state of the heating oil market and how his company helps dealers manage risk. As HeatingOil.com has previously reported, the fundamental and technical factors that used to drive heating oil prices on commodity futures markets have become secondary influences behind national and global economic trends and speculative activity. As Mr. Larkin explains, Hedge Solutions is well aware of this reality, and offers dealers a “soup to nuts” basket of services to help them adapt and protect their businesses.
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Bird Washing Machine Is Latest Tool to Combat Effects of Oil Spill
Despite efforts to keep the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico from reaching shore, wildlife have already been affected. (image: telegraph.com.uk)
Pictures of the oil slick shimmering in the Gulf of Mexico provide evidence of the scale of spill, but images of animals covered by oil do more to tug at the heartstrings. For birds affected by the oil spill, the prospect of being cleaned of oil is no more appealing—two stressful hours of being washed and scrubbed by human hands.
In the process of cleaning up after the BP oil spill, treehugger.com reports that we could see a new method being used: a bird washing machine. It still doesn’t look like much fun for the bird, but it only takes seven minutes instead of two hours, reducing the time the bird spends under stress and increasing the speed with which birds could be returned to the wild.
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HeatingOil.com at AREE: Savage Associates
Brian Savage, president of Savage Associates, speaks to HeatingOil.com at the AREE Trade Show in Atlantic City. (image: Nicholas Whitaker for HeatingOil.com)
At the AREE trade show, HeatingOil.com spoke with Brian Savage of Savage Associates about his company and its work with the blending of pure biodiesel (also known as B100 fuel) with petroleum-based heating oil. Savage Associates, based in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, constructs facilities for the storage, flow measurement, and distribution of heating oil and other fuels.
On the biodiesel side, Savage facilities include the infrastructure necessary to blend biodiesel with conventional heating oil in such a way that greatly reduces the risk of cold-weather coagulation and biological contamination problems that can affect biodiesel heating oil, as Mr. Savage explains.
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