Heating orders continue into summer
According to Met Éireann there has been frost on the ground in the morning.
This is “rare” in mid May, according to Harm Luijkx. “We are just in the middle of a flow of cold air at the moment. There is sun during the day and that warms temperatures but once the sky clears, there is a noticeable drop in temperatures,” he said.
Normally, City Oil in Cork would see few orders for home heating oil from April onwards but six weeks on, it is still getting requests for oil — albeit in smaller quantities.
“There is a still a big demand out there in mid-May, something we wouldn’t have seen before. We’re getting orders for small tank fills, for €300-400 worth of oil. People are still feeling the cold in their homes. The big switch off hasn’t happened yet,” said the company’s Aidan Cahalane.
At Kiernan Oil in Knocklyon, Co Dublin, Matthew Kiernan said the long winter had been “tough on people” as instead of two fills of oil, they were being forced to get top ups.
“We’re seeing people getting €200 worth of oil as they just can’t manage with heating at the moments. They really are ‘reluctant’ buyers. It was only two years ago that we reduced our minimum delivery to 120 litres. But that’s all that many people can afford these days and we’re selling a lot of 120-litre fills in the past number of weeks,” he said.
Joe Lane of Suttons Tedcastles Coal in Cork said the company is “more than surprised” at the amount of coal it is selling.
“We sold a lot of coal in the run-up to the carbon tax and we really thought that would be it as people would have enough to get through until next winter. But not so. We are still selling wholesale at this time of the year and that’s unheard of before,” he said.
The good news is that the cold weather looks set to disappear over the weekend when night time temperatures will rise up to a more seasonal 5-10C.
