What To Do If You Run Out Of Heating Oil In Your Tank

The most important winter preparations for homeowners include; stocking up on heating oil and servicing your furnace. This will go a long way in ensuring you enjoy a warm and comfortable environment during the coldest months of the year. However, the winter season can be much longer than anyone anticipated, so your heating oil stock may not be enough to get you through the winter. If you exhaust your heating oil before winter ends, what will you do? Well, the following is a guide on what to do when your heating fuel runs out.

Step 1: Call the Heating Oil Company

Obviously, the first thing you should do when you deplete your heating oil supply is call your heating oil company for a refill. Since this will take time, especially when snow has blocked all roads leading to your home, you will have to use an alternative fuel, such as diesel or kerosene.

Step 2: Get Some Diesel

Look for a container which is safe for holding flammable liquids and take it with you to the nearest gas station to buy some diesel or kerosene, whichever is cheaper or available. The ideal container should hold at least five gallons of fuel. Since you do not know how long the heating oil company will take to deliver the fuel, you should buy as much diesel as possible. The more fuel you get, the better. If you cannot find a suitable container, you can use a camping water jug, but you cannot use it for camping afterwards.

Step 3: Fill Up Your Oil Tank

When you get back home, fill up your oil tank with the diesel and give it 10 minutes to settle in the tank. This will allow any sediments and impurities to settle at the bottom of the tank, thereby giving the fuel intake line access to clean fuel.

Step 4: Restart The Furnace

Restarting the furnace can be as simple as pushing the red reset button on your furnace. You may need to press the reset button several times to bleed the fuel line and restart your furnace. Once the heater has turned on, your home will be heated normally. The fuel should be enough to last you until the heating oil company delivers the heating oil you ordered.

In some cases, the fuel supply system of the furnace may need manual bleeding. To perform this procedure, you will need to have a pipe wrench a quarter-inch nylon tubing and a clean container.

Start by shutting off the furnace through the toggle switch on the unit. The next step is to locate the bleeder valve on the furnace’s oil pump. This component looks like a grease fitting and can be opened or tightened using a 1 cm wrench. Once you have located the bleeder valve, insert the 1/4 inch nylon tubing. The tube should lead into the clean empty container.

Next, turn on the furnace and loosen the bleeder valve using the wrench. Be sure to hold the nylon tubing inside the container to ensure kerosene or diesel does not spill. At first, the fuel is going to gurgle out of the tube due to the presence of air. After a couple of seconds, however, only oil will stream out of the nylon tubing. When you notice this, use the wrench to tighten the bleeder valve before restart the furnace and cleaning up the work area.

 

If you have ran out of heating oil in your home, contact SOS XTREME Comfort® or, give us a call at (845) 351-4700. We specialize in delivering heating oil and maintaining heating oil systems.

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