Crude oil prices surpassed the $35 a barrel mark last week, inflated by cold weather, unrest in Venezuela, and the growing potential for war with Iraq.

That means your home heating oil has gone up too and it's time to batten the hatches and as much as possible reduce the need for heat in your home.

Jack Sullivan, executive vice president of the New England Fuel Institute (NEFI) was so concerned last week about the rising costs of oil he urged the Department of Energy to release heating oil from the Northeast Heating Oil Reserve to help dampen prices.

"Given current economic conditions a high petroleum distillate price is the last thing we can afford to allow. Families — especially the poor and elderly — small and large businesses all need the direct and significant relief that a release of petroleum distillate from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would provide," Sullivan wrote to DOE.

The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) posted a 26-month peak price for heating oil futures for March delivery at $1.049 a gallon, but on Feb. 6 price differentials on the cash market jumped as much as eleven cents more than the NYMEX futures contract. March's natural gas futures rose too -- to a 24-month high of $5.91 per million BTU's.

Economic conditions that are pushing up home heating prices should be compelling reasons to conserve and take steps to make your home more energy efficient.

First, however, you'll need to determine what steps you can take to make your home more energy efficient. Here are some suggestions to help you ferret out where your home needs tightening.

Published: February 19, 2003

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.