08/28/2026
If You Heat Your Home with Oil, Read This Before the First Cold Snap
Why are we talking about heat at the end of August?
Because more than 100,000 Rhode Island households rely on oil heat, and if yours is one of them, now is the time to schedule annual maintenance on your furnace or boiler, especially if you’ve never done it before.
Here’s one reason why.
Imagine the first cold snap this fall. You turn up the thermostat, go to bed and wake up the next morning covered in oily black soot. It’s on your walls, your furniture, your bedding and belongings. If your heating system uses ductwork, the soot can travel through those ducts and spread from room to room throughout your home.
It can happen. It’s called a puffback.
Why pay to service a heating system that seems to be working just fine?
Because a dirty or worn burner nozzle, faulty ignition components, problems with fuel delivery or improper combustion can prevent oil from igniting and burning properly. And you may have no idea there’s a problem.
Annual maintenance gives a professional the opportunity to find and correct these issues before they contribute to a puffback.
And consider the alternative.
Significant puffback cleanup can cost up to $13,000 or even more. If soot has contaminated furniture, carpeting, clothing and other belongings, some items may require specialized cleaning, while others may have to be replaced. More extensive losses can cost even more.
That annual maintenance call suddenly doesn’t seem so expensive.
Our latest blog explains what causes a puffback, how oily black soot can spread throughout your home, how annual maintenance can help prevent one and why trying to clean up the soot yourself can actually make the damage worse. Read it here: https://www.singlesource-usa.com/useful-info/2026/august/it-s-still-summer-so-why-are-we-talking-about-yo/
If you’ve been skipping annual maintenance because your heat has always worked, be read this before you turn up the thermostat this fall.