ooooops

[DrPizza]

We have an oil burner for hot water... a tank of oil lasts a LONG time; apparently 15 months, with long showers, leaving the hot water running while washing dishes, etc. I very rarely go into the basement; I rarely think to check the oil level. There's a minimum delivery of oil, thus I can't "top it off" when I have a half tank; I need to be fairly low before I get a delivery.

Pita; now I've gotta run out and get a couple gallons of kerosene to make it through the weekend. The first oil company we called wanted an extra $150 for an "emergency" delivery, and couldn't guarantee delivery during next week without it. We decided to try the other company; the guy said, "there's a $100 charge for emergencies; just get some kerosene to make it through the weekend, and we'll deliver it as a normal delivery on Monday." Well, they won our business (not that it's much)

I'd just switch our hot water tank over to propane, except that I've never seen a tank that heats water as fast as ours does... when taking a shower, once that burner kicks on, the water actually gets hotter while you're taking a shower, not colder.

 

[Captante]

Gonna be a funky weekend for you unless you can go shower at a friends house or somthing.

 

[DrPizza]

Nah, I can just put in a few gallons of kerosene or diesel. It's a pita though; I have to bleed the line, etc.

 

[Tiamat]

id be nice if you could get a wireless meter from your tank to your personal computer that sends you an alarm if it hits ~10%

 

[jadinolf]

Here's some nostalgia for you.

When I attended college in the mid fifties I worked for a fellow who sold fuel oil.

It was 12.9 cents a gallon.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: Captante
Gonna be a funky weekend for you unless you can go shower at a friends house or somthing.

Lol, or just suck it up and shower anyways. Our hot water has been broke here for about a month. Showers are breath taking. But I aint complaining. At least we have running water. That goes out sometimes too!

 

[Indolent]

Just curious, how much does it cost to get it filled up? Is it a savings over natural gas or do you just live in an area that you can't get gas?

 

[Coquito]

We have a 275 gallon tank that generally lasts 2.5-3 months during a normal winter. If it gets a bit cold, or we're wasting more water then we should, fillups occur every 8 weeks. Because of the so far warm winter, we last had a delivery at the end of September, & there still seems to be a decent amount left. We can usually last the latter half of spring, along with summer, one one tank.

A water heater is near the top of the purchase list.

 

[DrPizza]

I've got natural gas under my house; sold the mineral rights (or rather, leased). If they put a well on my property, I get free natural gas. Otherwise, I just get a nice check at some point this year. (No well, and I don't want a natural gas well.) We get propane delivered a couple times a year; they're pretty good about figuring out how frequently we need propane and keeping it full - that's for cooking and the clothes drier. The oil is for the hot water. Oh, and we heat with coal.

I've been extremely happy with our hot water tank. If it ever goes, I'll probably just swap it out for propane, depending on the cost to replace the tank. Like I said, once that burner kicks on, it heats the water FASTER than I can use it.