It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to notice that home heating prices are skyrocketing. Like anyone paying their bills, Deerfield resident Marc Dautreuil found that out after filling his oil tank as the winter season nears.
“It’s insane,” he said on a recent weekday as he shopped in Thornes Marketplace. Before the war with Iran began in February, he remembers a refill being in the ballpark of $329. More recently it has been $450.
“Me and my wife both have good jobs, and it affected us,” he said, adding that he can’t imagine how other people are feeling the heat. He remembered a time when he was a line cook making $20,000 a year. “I can’t imagine being in that boat.”
Oil isn’t the only fuel squeezing households. Propane prices have also jumped, Massachusetts residents pay some of the highest natural gas prices in the country, and electric rates are rising. Upgrading to a heat pump is out of reach for many, and burning wood offers little to no savings once the labor is counted, according to companies across the Pioneer Valley as residents brace for colder temperatures.
Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of energy emergency last month, issuing an executive order aimed at expanding heating assistance and lowering electricity costs as Massachusetts residents grapple with soaring fuel prices.
The average price of heating oil in Massachusetts is $6.21 per gallon, according to the state Department of Energy Resources, with prices ranging from $5.77 to $6.75 per gallon.
The average is substantially higher than a year ago, when heating oil cost about $3.63 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. More recent federal figures put the statewide average at $6.18 per gallon for the week of Nov. 2, down slightly from $6.25 the previous week.
The oil market right now is “so flippy-floppy,” said Dennis Simmons, owner of Richard’s Fuel and Heating in Easthampton.
“Oil fluctuates. It goes up, it comes down,” he said. “Electric doesn’t normally come back down. Electric rates go up. We don’t ever hear about electric rates coming down except for a quick promotional thing mid-season.”
He said going solar is a great move, but it can be a difficult option during the darkest days of winter. Simmons added that politics will ultimately determine when prices drop. In the meantime, knock on wood, it is supposed to be a mild winter, he said.
He said many customers are understanding, except for the occasional one who calls to berate his staff.
“We’re all in the same boat,” he said. “You look across the street, diesel at the pump is $6.39. We’re paying at that pump to drive it out to you.”
They refill their trucks multiple times a day. Each refill costs at least $150.
“We’re not making any more money,” he said. “We’re just getting by like everyone else.”
Jane Larson, a Richard’s customer and Goshen resident, has seen oil costs jump from about $3 a gallon last year to more than $6 now.
She described herself as more reluctant to casually turn the heat on, and has been trying to come up with creative ways, like letting more sun into her home, rather than reaching for the thermostat.
As for natural gas users, Massachusetts residential natural gas prices averaged $32.10 per thousand cubic feet in August 2026, the latest available data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show.
That’s up about 13% from $28.46 during the same month last year and nearly 49% from $21.59 in August 2024. Prices have also climbed from $30.57 in July 2026.
Electric
National Grid points to two main reasons for rising electric bills: higher wholesale electricity prices and increased delivery costs, said spokesperson Brendan Moss.
For a customer using 600 kilowatt-hours a month, the estimated November bill is $259.54, up from $226.26 during the same period last year. That figure includes both supply and delivery charges.
National Grid’s Basic Service rate for the six-month period beginning Aug. 1, 2026, rose from 15.4 cents to 17.2 cents per kilowatt-hour, following approval from the state Department of Public Utilities.
Moss said the company has no control over wholesale energy prices, which are set by the market, and National Grid passes those costs along to customers without a markup.
“Energy supply in New England has not kept pace with demand,” the company said in a statement, arguing that bringing down costs over the long term will require more electricity generation and the infrastructure to deliver it.
Eversource said it does not expect significant changes to electric bills until Feb. 1, when its next Basic Service supply rate takes effect, said spokesperson Jamie Ratliff, adding that it is unclear what customers may be paying after that date.
Supply costs make up about 45% of electric bills for western Massachusetts customers on Eversource’s Basic Service plan, making them the largest and most volatile expense, she said. But only about 37% of the company’s residential customers in the region use Basic Service; most buy electricity through alternative suppliers.
Eversource also offers a seasonal rate for customers who heat with heat pumps. The rate, which took effect Nov. 1, lowers distribution and transmission charges during the winter heating season. From May through October, those customers pay the same rates as other residential customers.
The company said heat pump customers enrolled in the program saved an average of $430 during the 2025-26 winter season, or about $72 a month, compared with standard rates.
Wood ‘not cheaper’
Mike Cox has seen an uptick in people investing in wood stoves at Olde Hadleigh Hearth and Patio, the store he owns in South Hadley.
“The price of oil has changed the foot traffic in here,” he said.
But if the motivation is to save money, it’s generally a vain endeavor, he said. Cox said that by the time the cost of labor is factored in, there’s no savings in transitioning to wood. There’s stacking, hauling and chopping. Also, wood stoves start at $2,500. But on the bright side, he said, some people use hauling wood as a form of exercise.
“In all honesty, burning wood is really a labor of love,” he said. “There’s no savings in it, but they have been doing it for years and they just like doing it, and there’s no replacement of the heat, the crackle, the smell.”
Then why do people make the move to burning wood? Sometimes it’s just to avoid writing a check to oil companies, he said.
If people are looking to save money, Cox points them toward a direct-vent gas system, which can be bought as a stove or built-in like a traditional fireplace.
The appliance warms up to 2,000 square feet and is instant on, instant off. It saves money because it cuts down on heating the entirety of a home, similar to a wood stove that would be located in one or two rooms.
“You’re heating the living room where everybody is hanging out instead of a furnace turning on, heating the whole house,” he said, adding that he does not know exactly what the savings would be.
“There’s a lot of variables. Some people have natural gas. Natural gas is cheaper than propane. Some towns have a moratorium where you can’t add anything to your natural gas system,” he said.
Towns with a moratorium on additional natural gas appliances include Northampton and Amherst, he said.
Dennis Karr of Cummington heats his 650-square-foot cottage with a wood stove. He said he pays about $300 on average for a cord of wood, a stacked pile measuring 128 cubic feet, a price that has risen in recent years.
Karr needs about three deliveries a winter, costing him $900 a season total. To save a little money, he has been picking up wooden pallets to burn.
In an ideal world, he’d upgrade to a heat pump.
“I wish I had a heat pump, but I can’t afford it,” he said. “It’s a class issue. Even for a little 650-square-foot cottage, it’s $8,000 or $10,000.”
Propane
There is no shortage of propane in America. For a while, propane was immune from the insane price hikes of oil and other energy sources, but that changed a month ago.
Mike George, owner of a local propane supplier, said prices have risen about 40 to 50 cents per gallon over the past four weeks, largely because of shipment disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz. The disruptions have pushed international buyers toward U.S. supplies, driving up domestic prices.
Even with the increase, propane remains a few dollars a gallon cheaper than heating oil, he said. [The United States is the world’s largest producer and exporter of propane, and domestic inventories remain high.
“We have more propane now than we’ve ever had,” George said. The issue, he explained, is not a shortage of propane but the logistics of getting it where it needs to go.
Customers who participate in annual prepayment programs, which allow them to lock in a price ahead of the heating season, have generally benefited this year as prices have risen. He recommends prepaying whenever possible.
“If you do the prepay every year, you’ll make a better year,” he said.
Gov. spearheads assistance
Community Action Pioneer Valley, the Greenfield-based agency that helps eligible low-income households in Franklin and Hampshire counties and the North Quabbin region pay their winter heating bills, is reporting a roughly 30% increase in first-time applicants for heating assistance so far this year.
Executive Director Lev BenEzra that 5,000 heating assistance applications have been filed as of Friday. Of those, 557 are first-time applicants. At this time last year, the number of first-time applicants was 429.
“That’s an indicator of the need we are seeing,” BenEzra said.
Many times, people are torn between whether to “heat or eat.” That is, whether to protect their home from freezing pipes and keep warm or to put food on the table, BenEzra said.
The federally-subsidized Home Energy Assistance Program, or HEAP, covers all forms of heat. To qualify, a single person can have an income of up to $53,585, or a family of four with an income of up to $103,049.
Meanwhile, Healey’s executive order has expanded assistance for middle-income households that heat with oil. Under that new benefit, families of four making up to $171,749 could get up to $680 off their bill this winter.
Roughly 50,000 middle-income households are expected to qualify and receive the one-time benefit under the initiative designed to help families who typically are not eligible for heating assistance.
Applications are available now and will be processed starting in December.
The assistance for oil is especially crucial in western Massachusetts, an area where people predominantly heat with oil, said BenEzra.
The state’s electric providers also have assistance available.
Eversource said it encourages customers struggling with their bills to explore available payment assistance and energy efficiency programs, including weatherization, which can help reduce energy use.
National Grid has offered a discount program since last year. The system provides larger discounts to those with the greatest financial need.
“Targeted assistance like this can make energy bills more manageable for customers who need help most,” the company said in a statement.
The utility also voiced support for Healey’s “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, saying it would continue working with state officials and regulators to improve affordability while maintaining a reliable energy system.
Applications for fuel assistance can be filed online, faxed or mailed to Community Action Pioneer Valley. For more information, visit https://www.communityaction.us/program/fuel-assistance/.
