Oil heat question
 

I live in rural CT and the only options for home heat are oil, electric, and propane. the most cost effective currently is oil (which my house is set up for). My furnace also heats my hot water. It has a fairly small resivor, but can heat water as fast as i use it (two showers going at once, only prob is low water pressure from the well tank). My big concern is that the furnace keeps the water hot like a standard water heater; cycling on/off throughout the day, regardles of use.

Anyone know of a way to minimize/eliminate the cycling? w/ my locked in rate of over $4/gal, my budget plan doubled from last year. I want to reduce the amount of oil i use to save money. (in the winter, i use programable thermostats: 54F during day, 65F when home (morn/even), 50F while sleeping. The house is new (2003) and well insulated, so i rarely see the temp reach the low settings.

Thanks!!

I made a control box that keeps this off unless I turn it on specifically. It saves me about a half to 3/4 a tank of oil a year vs leaving it hot all the time..

Another way to heat your whole house is coal.. There a lot of people making self-feeding coal boilers now. You just add coal to a hopper or bin and empty ash.
http://www.efmheating.com/
http://www.alternateheatingsystems.com/
Big forum to see whats up at
http://nepacrossroads.com/
You get the coal in bags. A ton of bags costs 165 dollars and is equal to 200 gallons of oil, or $800 of oil heat. Look in your yellow pages under coal to see if someone near you sells it. You want anthracite coal.

My house came with a programmable boiler setback unit. You could make one using a programmable outdoor light timer by wiring it into the boiler emergency shutoff switch circuit.