Oil to Gas Conversion

NYMichael

Hi,



This is my first post plz excuse me if I use any non standard term. I'm also a new home owner. Trying to learn more about heating system as well.



Bought my house last July in southern Westchester area. Didn't pay much attention of the oil boiler when buying the house. This past winter is brutal and even more brutal is my heating oil bill which runs $1000 a month!



I have done a home energy evaluation and clearly the insulation is very bad. I'm planning to improve either by myself or hire contractor do it.



All my neighbors have gas so there is line in the street and I think my gas provider will run the line to my house for free. I've been getting a couple of estimates for oil to gas conversion. All estimates are around 12-15k which is a lot of money.



Regarding my current system. I have Weil-Mclain P-WGO-5, 175 BTU. The attached burner is Beckett, R7184P 1064. It's around 10 years old. I also have separate water heater runs on oil. The model is John Wood JWF-657, 60 gallon. The attached burner is R7184B 1032. The water heater is around 11 years old.



Also by reading some posts in this web site I heard there is an option to convert the burner only but keep the boiler.



For my next steps I guess the number one thing is improve the insulation of my house ( also read from some posts here, big thanks ). But I'm still trying to escape oil. So I have a few options below. Would really appreciate any advise which one should be the best one for my current situation?

1. Convert everything from oil to gas. This gives highest efficiency but the price tag is high. Guess will pay off over the long term

2. Convert the burner to gas?

3. I'm also thinking about installing of fireplace insert. It costs around 5k but heard newest ones are very efficient and they can even heat the whole house. Wood burning is cheap but a lot of work though

Charlie from wmass

How does they oil boiler look?

10 years old is about the cut off point for me to convert by changing just the burner. I am also familiar with how some companies in your area service oil boilers and their 10 year old boilers look like my 20 year old boilers. The gas fire place is going back 150 years in comfort levels. Why have central heating if you are going to use a central fireplace to warm the house? If central fire places worked well for home heating no one would have invented the boiler and radiator systems. If you want one to make the room look nice for Christmas and date night go for it, not to heat a modern house to modern comfort levels. Is this steam or hot water?

NYMichael

Really appreciate your input

It's water boiler

NYMichael

Here is a picture of the oil boiler

I was told by the home energy evaluation guy it's in pretty good shape.

Snowmelt

A few things

To consider,

1. Do you have outdoor reset.

2. Change pumps to delta t pumps.

If you do those two things you would save 10-25% on gas or oil bill.

NYMichael

Thx vm for the advice

1. No don't think I have outdoor reset. But read from this forum it may help. Will check it out

2. No idea what this is. Let me do some research

Snowmelt

Both things

Are taco products. That what I use.