Buy Now or Wait It Out: What to do about Home Heating Oil this Winter

Posted on August 15 2022

With prices where they are, everyone's thinking it, so we'll just go ahead and say it: Should I fill up now or wait? And will the prices ever come down?

The short answer: we wish we knew. The thing is, here at Heatable we're really good at a few things. Delivering heating oil, making easy to use apps, showing up when we say we will and keeping our price consistently at the low end of the local market – these are all things we do really well. But predicting the price of heating oil? Well, anyone who says they can do that these days is probably lying. Because even though we're heating oil delivery nerds, we aren't world politics experts, global economy gurus, or oil refiners.

As a delivery company, we buy our heating oil from the oil companies.
So when home heating oil prices go up, our prices go up. And when crude oil goes up, our transportation costs go up with it. Sound familiar? Yea, we feel you. So here’s the deal. We can’t predict what’s going to happen to heating oil prices in the next weeks to months (if you want take a stab at it, here’s a quick summary of what has affected home heating oil prices in the past: https://www.heatable.com/what-affects-heating-oil-prices/ ) – but what we can promise is that any price gouging going on won't be going on at Heatable. When our price goes down, your price comes down. And the best way to see that is to download our app on the App Store or on Google Play and check the price daily. You can also compare our price to state and regional averages here: www.maine.gov/energy/heating-fuel-prices.

The bottom line?
Because heating oil prices have been so unpredictable this year, our advice is the same as it always has been – order at a quarter. Running out of oil isn't fun for anyone, so just make sure you have enough to get by. We'll do our part to get it to you quickly – and hopefully prices will come down in the meantime!