Bob Sadlowski wants to stay warm without going broke this winter and so, with apologies to home decorating mavens, he's insulating the windows of his home in Easthampton, Mass., with plastic sheeting.
Similarly motivated, R.J. Moore of Kansas City, Mo., will bundle up indoors rather than cranking up the thermostat.
Leroy DeHerrera of Denver expects to deal with home heating costs a little differently this winter: "I guess I'll go through the roof when the bill comes."
Although oil prices have fallen nearly $8 a barrel from their October peak, homeowners are bracing for sharply higher winter fuel bills. The Energy Department this week estimated that bills for heating oil customers will be 37 percent higher than last year, while homeowners relying on natural gas can expect to pay 15 percent more.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting a normal winter in the Midwest and Northeast, cooler-than-normal temperatures in the South and Middle Atlantic states and warmer-than-normal conditions throughout the West.
Unless temperatures are warmer than expected over the next five months, "there isn't a lot of reason for us to think that prices will fall a lot," said Dave Costello, an economist at the Energy Information Administration, the statistical wing of the Energy Department.
And so people like Sadlowski are taking last-minute steps to make their homes more energy efficient.
"I know it doesn't look good," Sadlowski said about the plastic around his windows that flaps in the wind. "You have to ask yourself if you'd rather be paying an extra $100 a month for (heating) oil."
The 33-year-old cook also installed a digital thermostat for more accurate temperature control and -- in what now looks to be a savvy financial decision -- he locked in his heating oil costs for the winter at $1.26 a gallon. As of this week, Massachusetts residents were paying an average of $1.96 a gallon, according to Energy Department data. The nationwide average for heating oil is $2.03 per gallon, compared with about $1.39 a gallon a year ago.
The surge in heating oil prices this fall was magnified by tight supplies, analysts say. Government data show that the nation's inventory of distillate fuel, which includes heating oil, shrank on a weekly basis for two months.
In mid-September Hurricane Ivan forced refineries along the Gulf Coast to shut down and evacuate employees. Rather than restart operations once the storm passed, many started prewinter maintenance earlier than usual.
Inventories of distillate fuel are now roughly 13 percent below year-ago levels, but analysts expect supplies to grow soon. That said, they do worry that supplies could be stretched thin if temperatures are colder than expected.
The strengthening economy has helped push natural gas futures up 50 percent from a year ago to roughly $7.20 per 1,000 cubic feet. Still, many brokers say speculation played a large role in the rapid rise of natural gas futures this fall, because there is plenty of fuel in storage.
Yet if homeowners have little control over energy prices, to say nothing of the weather, they do have the power to conserve fuel.
The Moore family of Kansas City aims to do just that. Forty-nine-year-old R.J. Moore is winterizing his home for the first time by closing off some rooms, putting plastic over windows and caulking any seams where heat may try to escape. Asked if his family wears sweaters and socks around the house, he replied: "We're going to this year."
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