The Oil Bill / Efficiency Post

Let's start with an uncomfortable question: when's the last time you actually looked at what your oil burner is doing with your money? Not the bill total — the efficiency.



Because here's the part your oil company isn't exactly leading with: a lot of oil heating systems, especially ones installed more than a decade ago, run at around 80% efficiency. That means for every dollar you spend on oil, roughly 20 cents of it heats your chimney, not your living room.

That's not a scare tactic — it's how AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency) works, and it comes straight from the U.S. Department of Energy. AFUE measures how much of a gallon's energy actually becomes usable heat in your home versus how much escapes as exhaust. An 80% AFUE system wastes 20%. Older cast-iron oil boilers can be worse — some fall to 60–70% AFUE, meaning up to a third of every gallon you buy is heating the outdoors.

Burning Money vs. Making an Investment In Your Future Comfort

Here's the thing about an oil bill: you pay it, the oil burns, and at the end of the season you have… nothing to show for it. No equity, no upgrade, just a slightly warmer house and a tank that's empty again until the next delivery.



A heat pump works differently. The system itself is an asset that keeps paying you back in lower bills, season after season, for well over a decade — instead of disappearing up a flue.

So How Much Are We Actually Talking About?

Let's run real numbers for a typical Hudson Valley home heating with oil versus the same home running a properly sized ductless heat pump.

Based on a typical Hudson Valley home using about 650 gallons of heating oil per season at the most recent New York statewide average oil price, compared to a heat pump running on the average NYSEG/Central Hudson electric rate. Full methodology and sources in Section 7.

“Will the Savings Actually Offset the Installation Cost?”

This is the question we hear more than almost any other, and the honest answer is: it depends on your home's size, your current system's age and efficiency, and how many zones you need — which is exactly why we run a real load calculation and give you a real number during your free estimate instead of guessing over the phone.

What we can tell you: based on the math above, a typical oil-heated home in Sullivan, Orange, or Ulster County could see well over $1,500 in savings per heating season. Stack a few seasons of that together, and it's not hard to see how a system starts paying for itself.

And if upfront cost is what's holding you back — it doesn't have to. We offer $0 down financing that works with all types of credit, and for a lot of homeowners, the monthly payment ends up being less than what they were already sending their oil company.

Frequently Asked Questions