The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
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FUELS 20 NOVEMBER 2015 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com l F O N Services, a company in Seymour, Conn., that trains its dealers in a "whole-house" approach to energy cost-savings—enhanc- ing insulation and sealing and improving the integrity of ductwork. "We fix houses, basically," Lapointe said. "We make them more efficient. Most fuel customers feel that their oil com- pany doesn't want to help them save on fuel. To the contrary, we care about helping our customers save." As a dealer for Dr. Energy Saver, the company covers New Hampshire and Maine. "It's all based on lead genera- tion through the internet," Lapointe explained. A consumer doing an internet search for ways to save on fuel oil or pro- pane, or on adding insulation to their house, would be led to information about Dr. Energy Saver services, which provides, as an initial step, a free "energy assessment," Lapointe said. The company has been building the energy-saving busi- ness at a deliberate pace, running announcements about it in the company's quarterly newsletter to customers, for example, and producing a radio spot for D.F. Richard Energy that includes a mention of Dr. Energy Saver. "We didn't want to jump into this without having every- thing in place first," Lapointe said, because whenever a cus- tomer can get something, like an energy assessment, for free" the response can be overwhelming. "We didn't want to be inundated with hundreds of leads and not be able to support them," Lapointe said. "But we're at a point now where we've got two sales guys for the Dr. Energy Saver business and the vehicles and equipment, too." Besides starting to promote the energy-saving service in the newsletters, "we've targeted some homes that we feel might benefit from this," Lapointe added. "We sent out a couple of hundred mailers promoting the program." Home shows are an opportunity to further spread the word: Lapointe said the company takes two booths at such shows, one for the oil and propane business, and another for the Dr. Energy Saver business. "It's worked out real well," Lapointe said. "It's like a one- stop shop for our customers. They can call us for their oil and propane needs, they can call us to make their homes more comfortable, less drafty, [and to] help them save on fuel." The energy-saving business has three vehicles with spe- cialized equipment. Two box trucks are each equipped with a cellulose machine. "After we air-seal an attic we'll add cel- lulose to bring the [house] up to the R standard," Lapointe said. A third vehicle, a Ford 250 pickup truck, pulls a trailer that houses a high-pressure foam rig. "We spray-foam the roof decks of the attics to make the attic a conditioned space, especially if they have duct work in their attics," Lapointe said. Temperatures can soar well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in some attics in summer, Lapointe noted. If ductwork is running through that attic space "you're wasting a lot of energy cooling that air," he said. "We move the envelope," Lapointe said, taking insulation from the ceiling of the top floor of a house and repositioning it to the underside of the roof deck. "We make the attic part of the conditioned space," Lapointe said. "In theory it should be the same exact temperature as the rest of the house, if it's done properly." D.F. Richard Energy in Dover, N.H., was founded in 1932 as a fuel oil dealer, and it expanded into propane in the 1950s.