Abstract In this pilot study, a hitherto untapped source of fuel oil delivery data is explored as representative of a potentially powerful data source for analyses of residential oil consumption. The application of PRISM to oil data is studied in two parts: a detailed examination of a small number of houses, followed by an analysis of groups of houses in disparate (urban vs. suburban) regions. Extremely good fits to the data result, with interesting differences between houses with and without oil-fueled water heaters, and with some caveats regarding the interpretability of the results. The regional comparison shows almost no dependence on type of region or subset of houses. The most important finding is that monitoring consumption in oil-heated houses is almost as straightforward as it is in gas-heated houses, provided there are sufficient oil deliveries in the time period of interest.