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Propane or Oil

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bam
bam Member Posts: 3
in THE MAIN WALL
Currently on oil. Have a Burnham pv-7 boiler that is 12 years old with a cracked block. Our local tech was able to make a temp. repair on it yet will have to be replaced because we are not the orig. home owners...



Am torn between:



Oil - Buderus G115w\crown indirect or Biasi B10 w\crown indirect



or



Propane - Challenger Solo HEw\crown ms or Viessmann WB1B-35 with combi unit.



Looking to heat approx. 2500 sq. ft home with 2 floors in the northeast. Have copper baseboard. Will have heat loss analysis done this week yet am trying to get a better feel for the brands and any goods or bads that you may have heard of.

Comments

  • bob eck
    bob eck Member Posts: 930
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    Propane or oil

    I would look at going propane with the triangle tube prestige solo (stainless steel self cleaning heat exchanger) and one of their smart stainless steel indirect water heaters. If you go propane buy your propane storage tank and you can shop for the lowest cost do propane fuel in your area. If you can add more copper baseboard to run the boiler at lower water temps and stay in condensing mode most of the heating season. Sterling has a new copper baseboard called synergy and it delivers the following BTU http://www.sterlingheat.com/modules/lit_lib/download.asp?litFileID=2640
  • Jim Godbout
    Jim Godbout Member Posts: 49
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    Heat emitters

    Most important piece when deciding fuel is how energy is being delivered to space

    Condensing gas is great with proper design

    Oil vs gas is always economics and figuring this out requires many pieces, cost of fuel, btu of fuels, efficiency of boilers, and efficiency of heat emitters with specific appliance

    Get competent contractor and work with them

    Good luck

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  • TonyS
    TonyS Member Posts: 849
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    Price of propane dropping

    because of the shale production. 1.48 a gallon now, 2 months ago it was 1.27.

    Always buy your propane tank outright and get a tank large enough for your winter demand.
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,262
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    avoid motors

    I prefer atmospheric. No pump . No blower.

    So propane is my inclination.
  • Gordan
    Gordan Member Posts: 891
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    Where are you getting your propane?

    That's half the delivered price I got from my supplier, and I have my own tank. You're in the Reading area, if I recall correctly, so we're in the same region. If my supplier's gouging me, as it sounds, I'd sure love to show them the road...
  • kcopp
    kcopp Member Posts: 4,432
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    Figure your cost....

    per  BTU... I'm in NH and there is no way I would do LP ,unless my house were super insulated. Gallon for gallon #2 oil still has more btu / gal. 139k vs. 91k.  If you go w/ a good reset control on either of the oil units (which is now standard) you can get a very good system. If Natural gas is around.... well that's a different story.
  • SWEI
    SWEI Member Posts: 7,356
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    LPG or fuel oil

    Both give you the security (and headaches) of local storage.  Both leave you at the mercy of the liquid fuels market and of the local suppliers.  Cost per BTU varies, though over time I suspect that fuel oil will continue to command an unfortunate premium over other options.  Thanks to our nationwide frac-fest, NG prices are stupid low right now -- we pay less than 1/4 of what #2 costs here on a BTU basis.
  • TonyS
    TonyS Member Posts: 849
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    LP has roughly 2/3 the energy of oil

    without getting in to all the other advantages of gas.

    So when you see oil at 3 dollars a gallon and LP at 2 they are the same price.

    When oil is at 4 bucks a gallon and LP at 1.50.....

    Not much to figure..
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