Are there any compelling reasons to convert from oil to gas?

tmc

i don;t know if this stat is true but i've heard that THIS YEAR the cost of oil @ approx. $3.30 a gallon converts to about$1.80 natural gas

Nelson_4

I've posted previously and received great advice about our boiler. How Old is this Boiler?
Now that we've had a few estimates (from oil companies), we are almost ready to replace our (one-pipe) oil steam boiler with a Burnham MegaSteam. But a lot of co-workers think we should consider gas. I've searched the Wall but can't find a definitive answer, and maybe there isn't one...Are there compelling reasons for either fuel? None of these I've heard are too persuasive (if they are true): gas is cleaner, oil is safer, gas is more convenient, oil is better at making steam, gas is quieter, oil doesn't need a chimney liner...Should I get a gas company estimate too?

ed wallace

oil vs gas

1 reason to stay with oil if you dont like the oil company you can fire them 2nd reason to stay with oil better service as for getting an estimate from gas compny call them just dont tell them you want a mega steamer or that you have already calculated how large a boiler you need watch them size it according to whats there now you need someone to calculate your connected load

Chas_5

I would

I like Gas, its more flexible. You can cook with it too. No storage tanks or huge trucks delivering. Equipment is more efficient, smaller, and quieter. Also, there are more options, modulating.. I know nothing about steam. Gas is more local, not from Saudi Arabia. Lots of advantages to it. As for the liner, heck, you dont need a chimney at all with gas. And with oil, you need a liner with most newer boilers.

Some people like Oil, I have it (no choice). I dont think I would go with LP gas though if thats what you mean. Im talking Nat Gas.

Nikolasvipam

Don't tell the oil mafia I told you but gas is cheaper

Larry_52

pricing

The true cost difference in long island right now with national grid is roughly $2.50 to $3.33 a gallon of oil when calculated in the same available energy. This difference will be temporary as both prices fluctuate wildly. The truth is either one will never have the edge, the only reason for conversion to gas is the convience. The only reason to stay with oil is if you tend to believe in nuclear winters and have your own generator, then at least you have the fuel. Note the price of gas near major metropolitan areas is always high & if you live outside these monopolies the price tends to be lower (like 50 cents less per units above). The price of oil is probably not going anywhere soon or ever, but mind you gas will be a future issue. There is plenty of it but the problem is getting it there when every utility in the nation is retroftting and repowering with natural gas. This winter is a prime example in NYC, where gas usage reached an all time record in December to January when the tmeperature was relatively mild. The reason for the record was that every single power plant was burning it. Now the next 10 years there will be more power plants burning gas and the old supply and demand issue will peak its head out. Get ready, if they can't get the wealth of gas to you the price is going to go only up.

Wild Rover

Oil prices rising fast

Check out this link

Just copy and paste into address bar
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/080219markets.aspx

It's on MSN.com

Steamhead (in transit)

We recommend

that our customers install boilers that are available with either oil or gas burners from the factory. This way the owner can switch fuels without buying a new boiler, and there's no field-engineering involved.

Examples are the Smith 8 series for steam (gas version is called the G-8) and the Solaia series for hot-water.

Burnham knows we'd like to have gas burners in the Mega-Steam and MPO, not sure when they'll appear.

"Steamhead"

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

scrook_2

Compelling reasons...

Assuming residential or small commercial, and assuming you need to replace the boiler and/or oil tank anyway.

1.) would be to get NG piped into a building that currently DOES NOT have gas piped in, so as to also be able to use it for cooking, and perhaps also for gas cloths dryer (cheaper to run), gas mantle lanterns, NG (vs. propane) fired gas grill, and/or a direct fired (assuming hot air vs hot water or steam space heating) or a tankless on demand domestic water heater.

2.) to save space occupied by the oil tank (assuming severely limited space or need for an outdoor oil tank, especially in a cooler climate) -- an oil tank isn't all that large, so in many applications this shouldn't be an issue.

3.) to take advantage of a condensing boiler (assuming you have radiation capable of operating at low enough temperatures to ensure condensing conditions at most if not all operating conditions (e.g. oversized cast iron hot water radiators, or properly designed in floor radiant.)

4.) possibily if you need/must to side vent vs. lined chimney vent the boiler or furnace.

5.) this is the toughest: If you believe that gas and oil will not return to price parity again (or, as in the case of the N.E. US, gas returning to *more* expensive than oil). The farther away South or West you go from the Northeast the more gas may become attractive both due to price and to availiability (or lack thereof) of heating oil and service.

What's your location, what's the heating system that the boiler (furnace?) is connected to, what's the availability of good service techs/companies for each fuel, and is gas already piped into the building?

Tim_41

oil/gas

I am in the process of switching over to LP. I had to take into account of the following:
I have to be on my hands and knees to work on the oil fired boiler. (3.5' cellar)
The past few springs we have had lots of water. Sooner or later, it will come over the cement island in the cellar.

Now, I stole my wifes 8x8 closet and it will have a vitodens on the wall with cast rads and a cement radiant zone.
This will free the chimney up for a wood stove also.
These are some of the reasons other than price of fuel to consider.

stacie b_2

We Got team Heat!

Thanks for all the ideas! We are in the Boston area, so there are plenty of good techs available. We have oil, one-pipe steam connected to radiators and condensors. Hot water is provided by a 40-gallon indirect tank. I believe gas is available on the street, but is not piped into our house. (Although, there are some old gas pipes in the basement that suggest at one time there was gas?)

Long Beach Ed

Oil vs Gas

We operate and own a bunch of two and three family houses and have always had about 1/3 of them burn gas and 2/3 burn oil. Oil was historically cheaper and we paid low bulk prices which saved us about $350 per house. This made up for what became the AWFUL task of servicing and cleaning the oil boilers.

This year for the first time in ages, gas became cheaper. For the safety edge, I burn oil in my own home, but I'm strongly considering converting the other oil accounts.

A few manufacturers are working on small dual-fuel burners which I hope to see by summer. If they pan out, we'll put those in.

JohnNY

Everyone's got an opinion.

I'd love to see all the oil guys out there make a good living, believe me, but isn't it enough to make you want oil out of your house knowing that we buy it mostly from the people in the world who hate us most?

Do we really need to line Chavez's pockets while we have options?





To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Paul_58

My cost for NG in Boston

is as follows:

2004-2005: $1.48/therm
2005-2006: $1.83/therm
2006-2007: $1.79/therm
2007-2008: $1.75/therm

Periods are June-May (except 2008), and are calculated as the Total 12 month Cost for natural gas divided by the total 12 month usage. Trying to break down the cost on a monthly basis is maddness...minimum charge...first 150 therms...distribution adjustment...gas supply charge. Hope this helps.

RonWHC

April is coming fast.

New boiler time. Some back ground. Last time Feds mandated minimum AFUE #s - gas steam boilers got a pass. Couldn't get to 80%. Let off the hook w/ 78%. New numbers coming down the road. Gas atmospheric (like your gas oven) will probably need another pass.

Oil fired steam units have best efficiency #s. Even when compared w/ power fired gas. Problem is fuel price spread. Particularly this season. Want to do your own survey. 1 gallon of oil is approx 1.4 therms of natural gas. Watch out for sales types lies. Do your calculations w/ absolute bottom line. Utility bills cannot be read by mere mortals.

Burnham's new steam piece looks good. However. There are other proven steam boilers out there. Most lend themselves to gas power burner conversion at a later date. Caution: If you go gas, local code folks may insist you remove your oil tank.

The keys to a good steam boiler replacement, no matter the fuel, is GETTING THE SIZE, PIPING, & VENTING RIGHT! Too many installers(?) think they know better. Do it wrong & you might as well be burning buffalo chips.

Good luck.

P.S. JohnNY. Wouldn't be here if we had brought ANWR & some of the Continental Shelf on line. As Pogo said. "I have seen the enemy & he is us."

kevin_60

Is your tank inside or buried outside. If buried i would think of removing it only because of the risk of it leaking. If you have tank insurance that could be another problem. I converted 2 years ago and ran into the following problems with my tank insurance company. 4 years ago i called the insurance company and told them i was going to convert and they told me i could not convert in the first year of my contract, my original company went out of business a few months earlier. So i waited until the next summer and paid for another year. I called them again and now they said i could not convert and keep my coverage, i asked why they didnt tell me that last year they had no answer. So i looked at my contract, the only way i could convert and keep my coverage in case of a leak was to do a volantary pull that would cost $500 non refundable unless a leak, plus the cost of removal then pay to install a new tank then pay to remove after 365 days. I told the company where they can stick their policy, took a gamble and removed the tank, thank god no leaks. I hope this helps.

ChasMan

Two More Differences.

I forgot a couple more differences between oil and gas.

Electricity consumption of an oil burner is more than that of a gas one and oil burners are noisier than gas ones.

I think thats it.

PS_2

Interesting

Following up on Metro areas vs suburban price spread for NG, my costs (Central MA, NStar gas) are as follows:

2004-2005:$1.29/therm
2005-2006:$1.64/therm
2006-2007:$1.68/therm
2007-2008:$1.58/therm* (2/07-1/08)

* - Fixed supply portion price ($.99/therm)since 11/07.

% increases for NG over the past few years (MAR-FEB) are as follows:

2003-2004: Baseline,
2004-2005: 7%,
2005-2006: 17.7%,
2006-2007: 7.7%

These numbers are based on normalized (for HDD)usage.

% increases for electricity over the past few years (MAR-FEB) are as follows:
2004-2005: Baseline,
2005-2006: 38.2%,
2006-2007: 15.5%

And this with varying levels of state regulation of utilities!

Anyone have similar data for oil?

Maine Doug_70

Since so much

imported oil comes from him (Venezuela 1.246 million barrels per day), it is unlikely the answer to your question will ever be "no". Oil demand, whether crude or refined, is still climbing.

I think the concept of no dependency on imports is foolish. It is not for humanitarium reasons that we are establishing a base in the middle of large foreign oil reserves. Its all about control.

Russia (Gazprom) now controls 25% of natural gas in 3 pipelines to Europe and a new one is under construction to Germany. Tweaking those valves would cripple that economy. It is estimated that three-quarters of Europe's natural gas will be imported by 2020, the bulk of which will come from Russia who has the world's largest reserves.

This kind of control makes countries with hugh idealogical differences good friends and is a big incentive to reduce consumption and design high efficiency appliances.

Keeping options for both oil and gas on a new boiler would seem to be good as recommended by others in this thread.

stacie b_2

For Massachusetts...

Oil prices shows that at the beginning of 2005, oil was about $1.90, then rose to $2.40 in 2006 and held until 2007, then rose steadily to $3.30 in 2008. Seems like there was often a summertime reprieve, but that didn't really happen in 2007.

Paul_58

The more you use

The cheaper natural gas is, at least around here. I am a Keyspan customer just south of boston. My cost per therm (total billed cost) from June-September, which is just DHW and cooking, is almost 25% greater than the year-round average.

PS_2

Fixed costs

With low usage, your fixed costs are a larger percentage of unit costs. I see the same increase in unit costs during the summer when I am only using the gas for my indirect. I have started another thread for others to post their fuel numbers, "Gas vs Oil Fuel Costs".

chelini

Keven Sorry for being so dense. But I don't understand your post. You converted but wanted to keep your tank insurance? What did you convert to? Did you remove your tank and still needed tank insurance?
thanks
Jim

Keith_8

Kevins point

I think Kevin was trying to say that he wanted to leave his buried tank in the ground for the time being and continue the tank Ins.

Because the tank was taken out of use I doubt the Ins coverage would have been valid anyway.

So many of these Ins. companies went bankrupt that the exceptions outweighed the benefits making them marginally useful in my opinion.

Keith

kevin_60

Chelini i converted from oil to gas, I wanted my tank insurance until my tank was removed, so if there was a leak i have coverage. Homeowners does not cover unless it contaminates neighbors property. I live in jersey and when you convert you remove or abandon the tank. You would not be able to sell your house with an unused tank in the ground. The tank insurance companies do not want you to convert. If you do ANYTHING to your tank without them sending someone to oversee the work you void coverage. The only way to have the tank removed and covered by insurance if there was a leak is a volentary pull, install new tank, keep for 365 days, then remove. My tank was about 40 years old, It was tested 7 years ago when i moved in, i had no way of knowing if it started leaking a year after i moved in.

Maine Doug_70

I always have to

chuckle when I hear about tank removal in NJ. I lived in north Jersey for 13 years and watched that big fire from all the chemicals illegally stored in warehouses by a "legit" processor. They took in waste and just filled many buildings. It blew up. Was a pretty sight as the barrels shot up in various colors. Then there is Dupont, the refineries etc. We never drove on the highways behind tank trucks on rainy days. You could not tell which ones were emptying their load although sometimes the smell gave it away.

Perhaps NJ is trying to make up for all the years everyone and their uncles dumped and since it is difficult to control the big boys, they control the little ones.

And yet there are such neat areas of NJ. We has big oak trees in our yard and the kids used to skate on a pond in the winter. My wife's family is native NJ although they have lost the art of the plural "you". Pity.

chelini_2

Keven

So what happens if you punp the tank out, cut a hole in the top and drop in 10 or so bags of kitty litter then dig the thing up and hull it to the scrap yard after cutting it in half. Can you tell I know nothing about underground tank removal? But I am looking at a job where it may be nessary.
Thanks
Jim

kevin_60

Jim in jersey we have to get a permit and have it inspected by the town and removed by licensed tank removal company. Any leaks are reported immedietly and if no insurance it could be costly. I have one customer that is in his third year of cleanup. I had nothing to do with it but asked when i saw vents sticking up through his driveway. he was lucky only because it affected his neighbors property and homeowners covered cleanup. no tank insurance. You have to cover yourself and get permits or you might get stuck when selling the house realtors always ask about oil tanks.

Home owner_2

In Jersey you can also have your tank filled with sand or foam and leave it in the ground. You still need a permit and town inspection. I would rather do this then pull it out of the ground and see a there was a problem you could of just covered up.

Home owner_2

I recommend this company highly. You can read about the foam fill on their site.

http://lombardoenvironmental.com/

Bob Bona_4

huh?

Cover up a "problem"? Leave a possible Superfund site for your friends, neighbors, and future homebuyers? This can't be a legit post.

Foaming is short sighted in the residential arena.

Home owner_2

Foaming and sand filling a tank is done all the time in NJ. It is legal and you must get a permit and inspected.

Bob Bona_4

it may

be legal, but not wise. Big deterrent in house sale even with paperwork.