Its in the middle of the winter when I really love the type of oil burner I have. Its 31 degrees outside, we still have more months of winter on the horizon, and I am close to note paying a dime to heat my home and business (shop). I am convinced that I invested in the best heating system money can buy.
Here is one of my most recent heating bills. Its for the month of January. As you can see with the use of my waste boiler my total heating hill for the month was $10.66. The last month was cold (not as cold as it was last year) and my total energy bill was a little more than ten bucks.
December was high (see the chart of usage on the picture) because on of my handymen Josh was using the gas space heater to heat an uninsulated shed he was building outside.
It was bone chilling cold that month and because of the holidays he was going abnormally slow. Even with that the bill last month was $40 and the space heater was going all day long.
But by January my heating bill was back to normal as you can see. Again, the average temperature where I live is 14.9 degrees for January and this month was about that. That being said while everyone else was experiencing $350-$450 natural gas bills my total bill was next to nothing.
I am not using that much oil. On really cold days I may used close to 20 gallons. I have enough of a supply to last me for months should it ever run out (that is far from happening though).
I had Steve from Nuera Heating come and do a thorough cleaning on my boiler like I did on a used one three months ago and with my Beckett fuel economizer my oil burner has maximum energy efficiency (you can use that tool on regular oil burners too).
If it sounds like I am bragging about my current set-up I do apologize. I get so excited talking and writing about it. For years I had wanted to find some way to “get off the grid” as best as I could and now its like I have accomplished that to some degree.
It gives me a lot of satisfaction to turn my heater in my home or shop to eighty degrees if I please and pay $10 at the end out the month. With the square feet I would have been paying close to $450-$500 bucks if I had my just a regular oil boiler set up like I did before.
My sister, her husband, and their six kids came to live with me from Idaho as well. It has gotten so bad down there my brother-in-law could not make a living. So with me there are twelve people living in my house. That’s a lot of hot showers! So I would venture to say that if I had not invested in this unique oil burner back in 2007 my heating bill would be close to $500.
Do I recommend getting a waste oil boiler (or furnace)? You betcha!