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In this work, we present hardware and firmware design and preliminary testing results for a noninvasive device for measuring fuel oil consumption in fuel oil vented heaters. Fuel oil vented heaters are a popular space heating method in northern climates. Monitoring fuel consumption is useful to understanding residential daily and seasonal heating patterns and understanding the thermal characteristics of buildings. The device is a pump monitoring apparatus (PuMA) that employs a magnetoresistive sensor to monitor the activity of solenoid driven positive displacement pumps, which are commonly used in fuel oil vented heaters. PuMA accuracy for calculating fuel oil consumption was evaluated in a lab setting and found to vary up to 7% from the measured consumption value during testing. This variance will be explored more in field testing. 

Space heating is a necessity in Alaska; however, the use of heating fuels carries both economic and environmental costs. In the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB), Alaska, most households utilize heating fuel oil as a primary source for home heating and firewood as a secondary source. In the FNSB, wood-burning devices are the principal source of fine particulate matter with a size of 2.5 microns or less, (PM2.5), but firewood is less expensive when compared to heating fuel oil. The FNSB has been designated as a nonattainment area for PM2.5, which has been linked to negative cardiopulmonary impacts and other adverse health consequences. Electric thermal storage heaters (ETSH) could help solve the PM2.5 problem by displacing firewood used for residential space heating. We use dichotomous choice contingent valuation (DC-CV) to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for an ETSH program which would allow FNSB residents to offset 100 gallons of heating fuel oil annually. Certainty correction is used to control for the presence of hypothetical bias. We find median WTP is USD 33.98 without certainty correction and USD 9.75 with certainty correction. Our results indicate that implementation of a special ETSH electricity rate based on the WTP estimate may lead to broader adoption of ETSH for space heating, which could improve air quality, reduce fuel poverty, and reduce the carbon footprint of residential space heating.