Propane Furnace vs Oil Furnace...

NorPlan

Our present Oil Furnace is approximately 20 yrs old , we are told it's % of Efficiency has greatly Deminished because of it's age.. Hence we are exploring the possibility of switching to a Propane Furnace... Initial Queries show Pricing between an Energy Efficient Oil Furnace ,that an Energy Efficient Propane Furnace to be considerably Cheaper, along with Propane selling approximately 0.50 cents a litre cheaper than Oil.. Despite the lingering Cold Winter we endured last winter , we still averaged to drop approximately 856 liters of Fuel Oil in the Tank..(last Winter we started out with the gauge showing 1/4 full, this season were showing 1/2 full.. Delivery day when the nozzles pulled out the gauge shows 3/4 full, diseaving) My Query , Is there a way I can calculate or compare our Oil Consumption into Propane Consumption to get a Baseball Idea as to how much of a difference in Heating Costs ?? Hope my Query isn't to far off the wall.. Cheers Thanks

Jack

Well, oil has 140,000 btu/gal. Propane is 92,000 btu/gal X the efficiency of each. The thing with oil is it will be a single stage (on/0ff) unit and you are limited in how much oil you can store on site. The way to make propane pay is to buy the largest tank you can afford and schedule your own buys. I just bought a 1000 gal tank. LP will be substantially more efficient and you can get two stage or modulating burners and blowers on the gas. Not so on the oil.

Step one with a furnace replacement is (or in my opinion, should be) a duct pressure test. You can have the best unit in the world, but if yo cannot deliver the conditioning...big woop! DOE says that the average home in the US looses between 18-42% of its energy in duct losses. Google "DOEductleakage" and read for a while.