Milder weather brings relief from home heating costs

By Pauline Liu
Utility customers around the region are enjoying huge savings on their heating bills as the result of the unusually warm winter. Judy Bloom of Roxbury told the News Monday that since the end of December, she has spent $650 to heat her home with kerosene. Last year, during the same period, she spent $1,200. “I’m saving because it has been so warm,” said Bloom.

How is the mild weather affecting utility businesses? Depending on the utility, companies have found that usage is down anywhere from 10 to 50 percent. At Bender’s Fuel in Margaretville, Warren Bender has been keeping an eye on the trend.  “The people’s usage on home heating oil is half of normal in February,” said Bender. He gave an example of one recent purchase. This month, the homeowner placed an order for 207 gallons of heating oil, while last February, he ordered 478 gallons. 

While oil prices are a bit higher than last year, Bender feels that both the weather and the local economy are having an impact on fuel sales.

Lots of pain
“Since the flood, everyone’s been hurting,” said Bender. “The weather has been a godsend for people, because they don’t need to spend as much. People just don’t have the money to fill up a tank. We’ve been busy this year filling a lot of minimum orders instead of fill ups,” he added. The business, which Bender founded in1996, also sells kerosene, and on-and-off road diesel.  A minimum heating oil order is 100 gallons.

Propane sales are also being affected. Milissa and Jeff Bruno own Bruno’s Bottled Gas in Margaretville. They explained that they have a steady number of customers who use propane for hot water and cooking, but this mild winter, sales are down.

Gas sales plummet
“It’s 40 percent down maybe and all I can say is the boilers aren’t kicking on as much,” said Jeff. “Some of our customers have 1,000-gallon tanks that we filled in September and we haven’t been back,” he added. “With a big tank, they’re trying to make it through the winter without making another delivery,” said Milissa.

However, the Brunos explain there’s an up side to the situation. “HEAP, the (federally funded) Home Energy Assistance Program made cutbacks for this heating season and we were very worried about it, because we didn’t think it was enough assistance, but it’s working to the benefit of customers,” said Milissa.

According to Jeff, he was so busy making deliveries last winter, that he worked every Saturday and even made a few late night emergency deliveries, but he’s found a silver lining through it all.  “The plus side is that we’re able to make all of (our daughter) Cora’s basketball games,” he said with a smile.

The weather has affected electricity usage too. The Delaware County Electric Cooperative is a nonprofit located in Delhi. It began in 1940 and has been serving 5,200 consumers in this region, including Andes, Bovina, Delhi, portions of Middletown and Stamford. CEO Greg Starheim said he knows that many residents use electricity to heat their homes and about 65 percent of the cooperative’s electricity sales are residential. To find out the reduced kilowatt-hours used, Starheim compared January’s sales with the three-year average for the month.

“It’s just about 10 percent less than the three-year average for sales,” said Starheim. “We’re not here to make money. We’re happy for our members,” he added.

NYSEG, meanwhile, serves approximately 2,500 in eastern Delaware and northern Ulster counties. As with other utilities, NYSEG Spokesman Clayton Ellis agreed that the mild weather is translating into bills that are lower than normal. NYSEG’s January sales numbers were not available at press time.
“To give you a sense of what’s happened so far this winter, December 2011 temperatures were about 15 percent warmer than the average December temperature over the last 10 years,” said Ellis. “If temperatures in December 2011 were at the 10-year average, our total electricity sales (in kilowatt-hours) would have been about 1.5 percent higher.”