Home heating oil is a precious asset during the coldest months of the year. Without a full tank, you could find you and your family in an uncomfortable or even dangerous situation. Unfortunately, heating oil theft is something that happens — and something that you should plan for as a homeowner.

With winter soon to arrive, many homeowners are rethinking their budgets and trying to find a way to manage the cost of heating. While heating your home will always be an added expense, there are ways to reduce the cost of staying comfortable and safe through the coldest months of the year. Here are a few tips to save money on home heating oil:

Heating oil — also known as No. 2 heating oil — is a cost-effective, efficient, clean and versatile fuel that has been used for years to heat homes. The invention of the forced air furnace in 1935 made heating oil commonplace. As a more efficient fuel for generating heat, it replaced wood. Heating oil remains popular — out of the 10 million oil-heated homes in the U.S., 350 thousand were built in the last ten years.

If you have young children in your home, you may have to navigate some added complexity when it comes to heating. Children are young and curious, and it’s only a matter of time before they start exploring registers, radiators, electrical outlets and other heating system components. As you think through your options this winter, consider these tips for childproofing heating systems:

Whether you're living in a bustling, urban area or the remote hills of rural Appalachia, the cool air and stunning colors of falling autumn leaves are a good reminder that harsher weather conditions are on the way. Is your home ready for winter? While there's still time to prepare, you should already be thinking about ways prepare for the challenges of the upcoming season.

When installing a new heating system, you are probably more concerned with the choice of furnace than of the fuel storage tank. Maintenance, insurance and replacement issues of the heating system probably have you focused on the furnace, too. If you have an oil furnace, the tank can be a major cause of unnecessary hidden costs.

 If you inherited an oil tank when you bought your house, you certainly need to get the tank assessed to establish a baseline. Here is our checklist of oil tank issues that will help you improve safety and bring down the costs of your oil-fired heating system. We can help you get your oil tank working efficiently.

Long marketed as the “evolution of oil heat,” Bioheat® is a blend of traditional home heating oil and renewable biodiesel.

Bioheat® — a registered trademark of the National Biodiesel Board and the National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) — is a safe, clean, environmentally friendly fuel that heats cleanly, efficiently and reliably. It can also safely burn in most unmodified diesel engines. In the United States, Bioheat® has already been used as a blending stock for number two fuels for over a decade, and it has been used in Europe for over 20 years.