Last week, I ordered my first oil delivery of the season. My last delivery was back in March so I was due for a fill-up. As I have done, since discovering the site last winter, I ordered my heating oil through Codfuel.com. They service Long Island and the surrounding region. The site serves as a clearinghouse where participating heating oil distributors can post their prevailing price per gallon. These prices are much cheaper than your contract oil dealers. In fact, you can call around and check this very easily.
Go to www.Codfuel.com and look around; simply enter your zip code and you are free to peruse the list of heating oil distributors servicing your area. Many post a cash and a credit price per gallon with discounts depending on the amount of gallons you order. The more you order the cheaper it is and if you pay cash, you can save an additional 10 cents per gallon in most cases. I ordered last week because I saw the price of crude edging up with the stock market rally and I had been watching the prices for a few weeks. I wound up with $1.99 per gallon. Not bad.
As usual, my household will make this fill-up last as long as possible. When it gets cold, we turn to the fireplace in the den. We have two heating zones, upstairs and downstairs, so it never makes much sense to us to heat the whole downstairs when we can all keep warm in the den. Even though the price of oil has come down significantly since last winter, we all can still strive to save money on our heating bills; it is one of those bills that we can control. Throughout my entire existence, starting from growing up in my mother's house and now in my house with my family, the maximum thermostat setting for heat has always been 65 degrees. The same temperature as the lovely day outside that everyone was raving about today. Generally we keep it a few degrees below that and we always turn it down when we are not at home and when we go to bed.
Anyhow, I digress. The most important point about Codfuel.com is the huge savings over the contract heating oil companies. What most of us don't know is that when you sign their yearly service contract, you pay at least $1 more per gallon. Sure that contract includes your "free" annual checkup and preferential maintenance but it also requires you to accept automatic refills. If you do the math, you will see how that service contract benefits the oil company more than it benefits you. For every 1000 gallons of oil they deliver, they collect an extra $1000 dollars so all of that service isn't free, is it? If you had to call an independent oil heating system maintenance person for service, would it cost you $1000 dollars? I don't think so. So, quit your contract, save your money and use Codfuel.com. They should thank me for this.
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2 comments:
Thank you very much for the nice article. John Franco (Codfuel.com)
There is another good reason to use Codfuel.com.....
Fuel oil comparison websites are sprouting up more and more these days. Some of them are even faxing and e-mailing consumer credit information to select oil dealers. This opens up a whole new relm of possible identity theft. When it comes to safe, online ordering, CODFUEL.com is the only website that does not give out credit card numbers to ANYONE; not even the dealer delivering the oil.
CODFUEL.com is the ORIGINAL PIONEER of heating oil price comparison websites. CODFUEL.com gives consumers the advantage of shopping online and the ability to select the oil dealer of their choice for delivery, yet not exposing their credit card information to employees, delivery drivers, telephone operators or anyone who can come in contact with this information.
CODFUEL.com makes ordering home heating oil fast, easy, convenient and credit card safe! Remember, identity theft is not totally avoided because you are ordering from a website that has a security seal. This does help a great deal and you should always look for the security seal before ordering, but limiting the additional exposure of the offline process after your order should be a big concern.
Please Note: Most oil dealers are reputable people and operate with good business practices. Unfortunately, any time credit card numbers become available to others, it can be considered risky. CODFUEL.com is an automated system which does not store credit card information unless you ask for it to be stored. Your credit card is not handled by employees.
Credit card fraud and identity theft are amongst the biggest fears of online shoppers. Now that local fuel oil dealers are making it easier for their customers to order home heating oil online with credit cards, you may be at a high risk of exposure. For example, if you order heating oil on an as needed basis (C.O.D) and you order by credit card both online and off, your card is exposed to each individual dealer and their employees. In some cases, the delivery driver has access to consumer credit card information too. If you order oil from five (5) different oil companies in one year and they each have five (5) employees, your credit card has the potential of being exposed to 25 separate individuals in that year.
CODFUEL.com's automated system eliminates the potential of individuals viewing your credit card information and processes your order on a secure server directly with the credit card merchant's bank.
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