Confronting High Fuel Oil Prices

Between January 17 and February 7, the price of residential heating oil in New England jumped from $1.18 to $1.96 per gallon. Building owners from New Jersey to Maine shouted "Ouch!" Many building owners and managers in the Northeast had expected fuel oil prices this winter to hover around $1 per gallon, as they had last winter and in recent years. The near doubling of that price has resulted in shattered budgets and short tempers.

In New York City, where owners, managers, and low-income residents of multifamily buildings have been hit the hardest, a special workshop was organized by Dick Koral of the Apartment Housing Institute at the New York City Technical College and the Superintendents Club of New York, a Department of Energy Rebuild America partnership. The February 23 workshop included presentations by Henry Gifford of Gifford Fuel Saving Incorporated, Tom Butcher of Brookhaven National Laboratory's oil combustion research team, Bill Reinhardt of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and myself. The audience was composed of over 100 owners, managers, superintendents, contractors, and residents from the metropolitan New York area.

The purpose of the workshop was to offer concrete measures that owners, managers, and superintendents can implement to save energy in the shortrun, and to provide information on opportunities to capture deeper savings that are available with more thorough retrofits. Even if the price of fuel oil falls tomorrow, the price increase should serve as a wake-up call to capture possible savings from energy efficiency measures, as many buildings in New York are operating with considerable waste (see "Fuel Use in Multifamily Buildings," HE Nov/Dec '99, p. 30).

The bulk of the workshop was given over to a lively presentation by Henry Gifford. He spoke about tuning up boilers, cleaning or replacing filters, installing thermostatically controlled radiator valves for two-pipe steam systems, removing blockages from radiators, maintaining appropriate water temperature settings, and correctly placing outdoor temperature sensors. The audience also learned about energy-efficient rehab methods (see "Chicago Apartments Get New Lease on Life," HE Mar/Apr '97, p. 23 and "From Ruin to Rehab," this issue, p. 24). Bill Reinhardt spoke about financial and technical assistance that is available from New York State.

The Superintendents Club of New York was organized two years ago to improve communication among the superintendents in New York and to professionalize the maintenance staff of multifamily buildings. Koral is currently attempting to encourage the development of more such clubs in other cities.

--James Cavallo

James Cavallo is manager of the Existing Buildings Efficiency Research program at Argonne National Laboratory.

For more information: Greg Davoren, who helped turn the Supers Club into a Rebuild America partnership, can be reached at (617)565-9706. For more information on the workshop proceedings, visit Argonne National Laboratory's affordable housing Web site at http://affordablehousing.anl.gov/supers2.htm.

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