Where the prices come from
Government averages. Each week from October through March, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) surveys what households pay for delivered heating oil and propane, by state. We show your state's latest number, the change from the week before, the U.S. average and a 26-week trend line. If your state is not part of the survey, we show your region instead. Outside the heating season, we show the last week surveyed and say so.
Neighbor reports. Anyone can add the price a company quoted them in the last 7 days. Heating oil and propane reports stay up for 10 days, firewood reports for 60. A report more than 35% above or below the government average waits for a person to check it. If three different people flag a report as wrong, it is hidden until a person checks it.
Company-posted prices. Fuel companies can list for free and post their own prices and discounts. Before a listing is verified, we look the business up ourselves and call it to confirm the person who asked works there. A company's own price stays up for 14 days (90 for firewood), so an old price does not linger.
The rules
- Every list is ordered by price, lowest first. Nothing else moves a company up.
- When a company has not posted its own price, we show the middle of its recent neighbor reports, so one wrong report cannot set its price. A price from a single report, or one that needs a very large minimum order, is listed after the rest.
- No company can pay to be listed, to rank higher, or to have a report removed.
- "Verified" means we looked the business up and confirmed it by phone, and it posts its own prices. It is not a recommendation.
- When a neighbor reports a newer price than the one a company posted, we show both.
- Under "Call for a price" we list companies that deliver to your area but have no recent price on Fair Heat, in alphabetical order. Their phone number and website come from the company itself or from its own public listing. Any company can be listed this way, free.
- Each price shows how well it is backed up: checked by Fair Heat with the company by phone, a matching receipt, posted by the company itself, confirmed by several neighbors, or a single report not confirmed yet.
- Prices on Fair Heat are what people and companies told us. Always confirm the price, minimum order and any fees when you order.
The price bot
Our price bot runs every hour and does two jobs:
- checks for a new EIA survey week every six hours (the EIA publishes once a week, so checking more often would not help);
- reads the price page of each company that turned this on, once an hour, and updates that company's listing.
The bot only reads the page a company gave us, and only if that company turned this on. It identifies itself as FairHeatPriceBot, and a company can turn it off at any time from its update page.
Firewood
No government agency tracks firewood prices, so firewood prices come only from neighbors and local sellers. To compare them, we convert every price to a full cord: a stack 4 feet high, 4 feet deep and 8 feet long (128 cubic feet). A face cord, a single row of 16-inch logs, is about a third of that. Buy firewood near where you will burn it: moving firewood spreads insects that kill trees.
Privacy
You do not need an account. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. When you add a price, we store the price, the company name, your ZIP code and a scrambled, one-way version of your internet address that we use only to limit spam. We never show who reported a price. Your browser remembers your last ZIP code on your own device so you do not have to type it again.
If you add a receipt photo, Fair Heat sends it once to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI, to read the company, date and price. We never store the photo or anything personal on it. Anthropic does not use it to train its AI and deletes it after a limited time.
Companies give us a contact name and email so we can send their update link. We never show these on the site.
Contact
Questions, corrections or removal requests: hello@fairheatprices.com. The full rules are in the terms of use.