I know next to nothing about oil heating. I know that when it works, and the radiators come on, my house is toasty. I know that when we don’t put water in the oil burner, it turns off and the house is cold. I don’t really want to HAVE to know a lot about the heating system. I have only so much hard disk space in my brain, and I choose to use it for other things.
I looked around a lot when deciding whom to contract with for our oil heating needs. We have a 96-year-old home in small-town Rhode Island. Bigger oil companies offered me a lower per-gallon rate for my heating oil. I got mailers, most of them addressed to “resident.” I found out I could get bulk oil at a very competitive price. I mulled these things over from July 2002–when we bought this house–to the beginnings of Fall in this home, our first home in New England.
On a day that felt a little cooler than the day before, Jim, from McKee Brothers Oil Company, located a block and a half from me, knocked on my door. He came by to see if he could answer any questions about my house, as they were the company that had installed the new oil heater in my basement three years prior. And, of course, they were hoping to get my business. They offered me a payment plan so that those months when we use more oil, we wouldn’t have to send out checks of $600 and go without eating. We pay a flat amount for 10 months of the year, regardless of what we use. If we pay more than we use, they reimburse us in May. If we owe them money, we have the summer to pay it off. It’s a smart way to do business. There’s no fee. It’s just the way they do business.
Yes, their per-gallon price is higher than the competitors. But I get a free oil burner cleaning and maintenance every year. And they’re on call around the clock if there’s a problem with my heating. I had a problem the other day, and I got a call back 5 minutes after my call to see if it was an emergency or a “next day” thing. It was the latter. My oil burner is using too much water.
So today, the owner of McKee Brothers showed up at my house with his adult son to check our oil burners and radiators. The son repaired a hole in one of my radiators while they were here. He pointed out the fact that, yes, some of my radiators would need replacing or at least repairing. The father then educated me on the best use of my radiators (Hello! I lived in Florida for most of my life!!), and said that his company could try to find some used radiators at junkyards to replace the ones that needed replacing. I accepted graciously, thanking him in advance for anything McKee Bros could do to help us update our heating system.
When the two left, he said “Glad to know it wasn’t something wrong with your oil burner. Welcome to Rhode Island. We’ll be talking to you in the warmer months about replacing or fixing those radiators.”
As long as I’m in this house, I’ll be using McKee Brothers.