Gas or oil for a steam boiler?

Daniel_3

Being that I am a curious chap and love to get to the essence of everything I wonder what is the rationale some use to say that oil is a better choice for steam boilers?

I have gas and personally am glad it is not an oil fired unit. I bought the house with the intention of having gas. My reason for this is that oil is:

1.) dirty
2.) unreliable in the middle of winter when you have to wait for the oil man in a deep winter storm.
3.) expensive being that crude has topped 98$ a barrel and I just locked in at .99 cents a therm for this season through April 30th.
4.) wasted space since you will need the steel behemoth to hold the stuff.
5.) (not sure on this one) more maintenance in the long term due to moving parts in the burner assembly vs. a standard step opening gas valve.

What do you feel about this? Does oil burn hotter than natural gas?

Unknown

oil or gas

One of the best things about oil that you forgot to mention is you can shop around and when the heat goes out there ,s usually not to much of a wait as compared to getting some one over to get your unit back on line and running ,the service with oil seems to me much better and a quicker responce then getting service for a gas fired unit and usually when your oil guys comes to repair your burner when he leaves you got heat ,i hear alot of stories about 1 to 3 day waiting period for service from gas suppliers as with oil it's usually only a 1 to 3 hour wait from the time you call and some one is there and your heats on and on another note besides gas rates increasing and alot of taxes being added to the bill (i know i use gas and had 40 bucks added in fees for a $ 19.76 bill won't see that with oil and the biggest plus is i have custermers who have steam /oil fired boiler who total oil comsumption for a whole season is less then a grand 4 section weil gold and wanted to convert to save money after reviewing his fuel bills i informed them that they would spend more on gas to heat there home then oil figure 1000 bucks divided by 4 months of heat equals about 250 a month seems like alot but they still ahd oil in there tank if it where gas they would have spent more then that even on budget and probalby no one would have cleaned or check the condition of the boiler as compared to oil which would at a mimiun get a cleaning and a good look see each year peace and good luck clammy