How low is it safe to run my oil tank?

orew

As many of you know, oil prices are crazy right now. We have a 275 gal oil tank with about 1/3 a tank left and I'm wondering if I can run it pretty much to empty? There is an oil filter so I'd hope it'd catch and junk in the bottom.

Some context. It's a fairly new tank, a Roth DWT series manufactured in 2006 and installed probably around then (got a new boiler then too I think).

We have single pipe steam, but we also have heat pumps (and solar, though doesn't produce enough to run them full blast) and a medium sized wood stove on the first floor.

My hope/plan for this winter was to use the oil sparingly, perhaps just to warm the cold house in the morning, and then sustain it throughout the day with heat pumps and wood.

It'd be great to avoid filling the tank now in the hope of pricing coming down later. We used about 2/3 last year, but did not use it as sparingly as we could have.

Thanks!

EBEBRATT-Ed

I wouldn't go below 1/4 full.. The lower you go you run the risk of sludge plugging a nozzl, filter or pump strainer screen or getting air in the line which will require bleeding. You gain nothing but trouble trying to run it to low. Plus with a roth it depends on how low the pick up tube is.

pecmsg

Its only cheaper until you run out and chance freezing the pipes.

Your gambling oil will return to the $3 range shortly…………Not going to happen.

EdTheHeaterMan

Safety concerns associated with running out of heating oil are not necessarily as significant as some people make them out to be.

I know this from more than 40 years of experience. I've had countless customers run out of heating oil, and I never encountered a dangerous condition resulting simply from running out of fuel.

I was also able to arrange a fuel delivery and restart the oil burner with very few, if any, adverse consequences. As a matter of fact, we often performed this procedure without replacing the fuel filter, pump strainer, or nozzle.

Based on my experience, I don't believe running out of oil, in itself, presents a significant safety concern.

What you really mean:

On the other hand, if you are concerned about the condition of an older fuel tank, particularly one that may have years of accumulated sludge and sediment sitting on the bottom, I recommend scheduling fuel deliveries before the tank drops below approximately one-quarter full.

Allowing the tank level to get too low leaves less fuel covering those accumulated deposits. When the delivery truck fills the tank, the incoming oil can disturb the sediment at the bottom, potentially stirring it up and sending it toward the oil burner.

There is another reason I prefer this approach: economics.

When I scheduled automatic deliveries for my customers, I generally targeted deliveries of approximately 160 to 190 gallons. Keeping at least one-quarter of a tank in reserve allowed us to achieve those delivery quantities while avoiding unnecessarily low tank levels.

There is also an economic advantage to taking larger deliveries. Most fuel dealers offer their best pricing when the delivery meets a minimum quantity, often around 150 gallons.

Consider a customer who uses 1,000 gallons of heating oil annually. If the dealer makes ten deliveries of 100 gallons each, that means ten separate trips, ten driver stops, and ten occasions of putting mileage and wear on the delivery truck.

Now consider delivering 200 gallons at a time. The customer still receives the same 1,000 gallons over the course of the year, but the dealer only has to make five deliveries instead of ten.

That cuts the number of delivery trips in half, reducing labor, fuel, vehicle maintenance, and operating expenses.

We called this the economy of scale. The customer gets the same amount of heating oil, the dealer operates more efficiently, and those lower operating costs can translate into better fuel pricing for the customer.

It's a situation where everybody benefits.