Observation-Based Tracking
Prices displayed on NH Fuel Watch are discrete, point-in-time observations captured from public provider websites. Rather than treating a provider's price as a single mutable database row, we preserve immutable records of every historical observation.
Source Lineage & Provenance
Every recorded observation retains its raw extracted text, source URL, parser version, and observation timestamp. This prevents distortions and ensures that any price point can be audited back to its public web source.
Observed Date vs. Provider Effective Date
We strictly distinguish between when NH Fuel Watch checked a provider's website (Observed Date) and when the provider explicitly publishes an effective date (Effective Date).
If a provider does not state an effective date, we describe the observation as “Checked today” or “Observed on [date]” rather than claiming the price was updated on that day.
Lowest Published Price
For each provider and fuel, NH Fuel Watch selects the lowest qualifying publicly posted current per-gallon price. Cash, credit, prompt-pay, delivery-program, and quantity variants can all qualify. Price conditions may vary, and we do not decide whether a visitor qualifies for the selected value.
The provider determines the customer's actual rate, terms, and whether delivery is available. We keep the observed source text and the scrape timestamp. A provider-published date is stored separately when the page states one. We do not treat the scrape date as the provider's update date.
A nearby office is not evidence of delivery. Verified service areas remain limited to municipalities a provider-owned source names.
Market averages and medians describe the set of lowest public prices tracked from reporting providers, not an estimate of the average final customer invoice. Each provider counts once. Town statistics use verified coverage only.
Physical Locations vs. Verified Service Areas
NH Fuel Watch strictly decouples a fuel provider's physical business location (bulk plant, dispatch terminal, or business office) from their verified delivery territory.
Having an office or storage tank in a town does not automatically mean the provider delivers to residential customers in that town, nor does an out-of-town or out-of-state headquarters preclude delivery across New Hampshire borders.
- Physical Location: The audited physical street address of the provider's headquarters or facility.
- Verified Service Area: Explicit, published municipalities or ZIP codes where the provider publicly declares they deliver residential heating fuel.
- Nearby suggestion: A provider with a physical location within 50 straight-line miles of the municipality centroid, and a current posted price. This is not driving distance and it is not a claim that the provider delivers here. Town statistics ignore these suggestions.
Service Area Integrity
Service areas are linked to New Hampshire's 234 canonical municipalities (13 cities and 221 towns) strictly through verified lists, ZIP code mappings, or explicit geographic coverage declarations. Vague marketing statements (e.g., “Serving Central NH”) are never expanded into municipal service records without verifiable evidence.
Consumer Notice
NH Fuel Watch is an independent public-benefit data project and not a fuel dealer, broker, or ordering system. We show the lowest current price we found publicly posted by each provider. Actual prices may vary based on quantity, payment method, delivery program, location, customer status, or other provider terms. Delivery availability is not guaranteed. Contact the provider directly to confirm your price and whether they serve your location.