Wednesday, September 20, 2000

Heating oil crisis evident long before winter

By CAMELA ZARCONE, Telegraph Staff zarconec@telegraph-nh.com

Want to know More? Free information on making your home more energy efficient is available from the Governors Office of Energy and Community Services. The office can be reached by calling 271-2611 or at: webster.state.nh.us/governor/energycomm/

Summermay not have officially drawn to a close yet, but already winter is very much on the minds of local people worried about another year of high heating oil prices.

We already know theres a crisis, said Louise Bergeron, the energy director for Southern New Hampshire Services, who oversees the agencys fuel assistance program for low-income households.

Its not like last year when the crisis didnt happen until January.

Bergeron wont even begin accepting new applicants for fuel assistance until Oct. 2, she said. But memories of last winter  when heating oil prices averaged $1.89 per gallon statewide by February and her agency saw the number of households it helped jump by 1,500 over the previous year  have her monitoring the current situation closely.

And shes not alone.

With government forecasters and industry analysts warning that prices this winter could top last winters steep rates, heating oil customers all over the region already are looking for ways to trim a few dollars from what threatens to be a hefty heating budget.

Local oil companies say the number of customers seeking to lock in a price through prepayment plans is up this year.

Prepay is definitely up by as much as 50 percent, said Penny Maybey, an office manager with Eastern Propane Gas, which serves heating oil customers across the state.

Membership is also swelling rapidly at Our Town Consumers Choice. The newly renamed, 2-year-old energy cooperative in Barnstead has more than 800 members across the state, including customers in Nashua and several surrounding towns.

Earlier this month, Our Town locked in heating oil prices for its members ranging from $1.09 to $1.12 per gallon.

Currently, cash prices in Greater Nashua are hovering on either side of the $1.40 mark, while the latest statewide average calculated by the Governors Office of Energy and Community Services was $1.35.

Even now, with prepay rates already higher than that, Dan Barraford, who heads Our Town, said he is expecting to sign up another wave of members who were too late to lock in the earlier price but are still looking for some sort of price guarantee.

Dan Lorden of Lorden Oil in Hollis said he is seeing the same phenomenon. Currently, his lock-in price is 10 cents higher than his cash price of $1.399 a gallon, but thats not deterring customers from choosing the higher lock-in rate to protect themselves from future price increases.

Im surprised theyre still doing it, he admitted.

Others are looking beyond wheeling and dealing with heating oil companies for ways to save money.

Art Kelley, vice president of The Stove Keepers, a wood stove shop in Amherst, said sales of stoves  particularly pellet stoves  began picking up in July.

We tell people that when your oil gets above $1.30 a gallon, pellets become more economical to burn, he said.

We dont really have to make a pitch to sell wood over oil, added Steve Larose, assistant general manager of Fireplace Village, a stove shop in Bedford where sales are also up. The people who come in are already convinced.

Still others are choosing to make the most of the heating equipment they already have.

Fears of natural gas price increases seem to be curbing local interest in conversions from heating oil to natural gas, reported Tony Joyce, the owner of Joyce Heating and Cooling in Nashua.

But Joyce has been receiving more calls than usual from people looking to have their current heating-oil systems upgraded so they are more efficient.

Theres a lot of 60-percent-efficient equipment in this city, he said.

Those who know their systems could use a little sprucing up have been on the phone to Joyces office, he said, with questions about setting back thermostats or adding air cleaners or humidifiers, as well as inquiries about more involved upgrades.

People seem kind of panicked, he said.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 21, 2000

Answers

I wonder what the heating oil burning people of New Hampshire, who are locking in their prices now, are going to do in January when hit with a five day sequence of twenty degrees below zero weather--which is entirely possibe in a New Hampshire winter--and can't get delivery--at any price.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), September 22, 2000.