Local Heating Oil Co-op Provides Homeowners With Sizeable Cost Savings
It’s that time of year when the onset of chilly weather has homeowners scurrying to turn up their thermostats and checking their burners but dreading the pain in the pocketbook that heating their house can cause.
A Millwood-based heating oil cooperative helps customers ease that financial burden they know is coming each winter.
For more than three decades Consumers Energy Cooperative, Inc. (CECI) has been helping homeowners, businesses and non-profit organizations in Westchester and Putnam save hundreds of dollars each year on their heating oil costs by negotiating a lower rate than is available to individual customers. The average member using 1,200 gallons of oil in a heating season saves at least $400, said Joan Pavelka, the cooperative’s administrator for nearly 20 years.
Currently with more than 1,500 members in the two counties, CECI is able to offer some of the most competitive prices in the region because of the numbers of customers they’re able to provide. Pavelka called CECI a “best-kept secret in Westchester.”
“We really like to have a lot of members because there is that buying power,” Pavelka said. “If you get more people involved in the co-op, the more numbers, the happier the co-op.”
With the $20 annual fee, saving money for its members is the biggest motivator to join but there are other advantages that are provided as well. Members can choose automatic deliveries or call to schedule a delivery five days in advance.
For a full-service contract that costs $185 a year plus tax, customers receive 24/7 emergency burner service and an annual cleaning, said CECI office manager Betty Texeira. Even if there are sub-zero temperatures in the middle of the night, the oil dealer will make a minimal delivery of about 20 gallons or make emergency burner repairs. Regularly scheduled deliveries are made Monday through Friday.
“They’ll just get them up and running and return with the rest of the delivery (that week),” Texeira said.
The co-op is affiliated with six dealers and members are typically assigned the one that is located closest to them. CECI, which was organized in 1981 though Pace University’s Academic Federal Credit Union as a way to try and save area resident on home heating fuel, serves all of Westchester and about half of Putnam, including Carmel, Mahopac, Putnam Valley and Brewster.
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
