Quick story:

One winter in the 1970s, my great-aunt moved into her kitchen and heated that one room with her oven until spring. She worried that it was too expensive to heat the rest of her house. She told nobody.

My father found out in the spring and said, “I would have bought oil for you! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Because she was proud. And ashamed. 

The cost of oil

The midterms are past now, but as of this writing, we’re still looking at frighteningly high prices for heating oil. 

Marketplace.org notes that only three percent of households nationwide heats with oil, and those are concentrated in the Northeast. 

In late October, the cost per gallon of heating oil had increased almost 84 percent from 2025. (Check out weekly prices at the Energy Information Administration, eia.gov.)

That chill is real, especially if you’re living on a fixed income.

So while you’re sitting in front of your heat-generating computer, you can search on “staying warm in the 1930s” (the Great Depression); in the 1940s (World War II and rationing); the post-war period (inflation hit 18 percent in 1946); and the 1970s (the oil shock, plus inflation at 12.3 percent in ‘74, 9 percent in ‘78, 13.3 percent in ‘79 and 12.5 percent in ‘80) to glean some tips. 

I asked around too.

The Sullivan County Bureau of Fire came through with suggestions that encompass the basic and the safety-related. (For safety tips as you focus on staying warm, see “Be warm, be safe” on page 16.)

Stop drafts and keep heat inside

Install weather stripping around doors and windows.

Use caulk to seal small gaps and cracks.

Close curtains at night and open sunny-side curtains during the day.

Keep heating vents and radiators unobstructed.

Check attic insulation and basement drafts when possible.

Warm people, not just the whole house

Use blankets while sitting or relaxing.

Spend time in the rooms you use most, while keeping other rooms safe from freezing.

Open interior doors to help distribute heat where appropriate.

Then I moved on to older family members and friends

“Turn the heat down” (but not too far down; consult your doctor about what to watch for regarding hypothermia).

“Use a knitted wiener dog stuffed with odds and ends” to exclude drafts at doors and windows.

“Put on a sweater.” 

“Put on a blanket.”

“Put on a sweater AND a blanket.”

“Wear heavy socks, or indoor shoes if you’re likely to slip.”

“Use cheap blankets over windows and doors.”

“Search on homemade thermal curtains.”

“You’ll burn energy just existing. Remember to eat.”

“Drink warm liquids.”

“Cuddle your dog.”

“Move to South Carolina.”

Use less oil

“We use a fireplace, electric heaters and electric blankets at night. We have been doing it for years. Heating the whole house with oil would cost an arm and a leg. So we use oil sparingly.”

In the 1970s, “I was living in the midwest at that time. I recall the ‘invention’ of gasohol, refining corn oil to blend with gasoline to ‘stretch’ the fossil fuel.” 

To keep homes warmer, there was the “invention of foam insulation that was pumped into wall cavities of existing homes (a terrible idea, as we learned!).” Also “double-stud walls were explored as a way of building a more robustly insulated house; unfortunately, ventilation of the interior was not considered, which led to ‘sick building syndrome.’”

“I suppose that in the Northeast, there was a great resurgence of wood-burning stoves of all sizes and configurations. Wood was plentiful, and we did not understand the proper seasoning of it to be an effective heating fuel. There was a fuel shift also to other forms of fossil fuels, e.g., coal, propane. Solar energy was introduced, a very nascent technology, which could provide electricity to run a heater.”

People: If you need help, don’t be like my great-aunt. See the information about here and here.