On Nov 13, 8:33 am, "Pat Brennan" wrote:
It was more me trying to save a penny than being smart. I was installing a
heat pump for summer phal forcing. The unit came with resistive backup and
it made no difference if the power company installed a 200 or 400 amp drop.
It was basically a free backup system that I knew I could not afford to run
very long. We hooted and howled as we watched the meter spin when I first

Today I am working in the greenhouse and contemplating the frightening
oil bill I just got. I thought oil was $2.799 per gallon. But that's
the home heating oil price. I would have paid sales tax of 5% on that
making it $2.93 per gallon, but last year I learned that as a business
I can send the oil vendor a signed certificate to allow me to not be
taxed since the fuel is used to produce items for resale. This woke
them up to the fact that I am a business and should not be paying
"home" heating oil prices. I am now paying "Fuel; commercial tax
discount" prices of $3.094 per gallon. (NO tax on that, however) You
just can't win. Buying oil sans sales tax will now cost me almost
$500 more per season. It never dawned on me to ask if there was a
separate pricing structure before I sent the tax form in. I should
have known. I looked into electricity prices and learned that as long
as Dominion power assumes I am using all this electricity for home use
it is less expensive than what businesses pay. So I should not have
been caught by surprise here. (Electricty is looking prettier all the
time. Of course, if I run a bigger electric line in to power an
electric heater for my "commercial" greenhouse, somebody at the
electric company will notice.)