I have to get rid of my oil heat !

wrooper

I have seen a lot of posts on another site from folks who want to get away from oil heat, usually because of perceived expense of fuel. While I can understand trying to get to an electric /solar future? a common one I see is folks asking if they should spend $25k to get a Nat gas line run to their house [or switch to propane, which is another issue]. The usual response is that Nat gas is so much less expensive that it will pay off in the "long run".

I have an inkling that in the long run [20 years?] Nat gas pricing will match that of oil. My reasoning is that when shipping liquid Nat gas gets established Nat gas will become a world commodity and pricing will stabilize somewhere near the $/BTU of oil.

Any opinions on my theory?

Fred

My only comment would be; If (and only if) the cost difference is great enough to save you money for the next 20 years, you will likely be near the "End of Life" for your current (or newly installed) heating system and you may be well positioned to take advantage of new technology and/or renewable energy sources at that time.
I'm not sure your estimated cost to bring a natural gas line into your home is reasonable, unless you are paying for natural gas to be run into an area that doesn't have access at the street or nearby. If it's at the street the typical cost for a moderate run, on private property is typically 10% maybe 20% of your estimate.
At the end of the day, it's about a projected break even for the gas line and the equipment conversion to gas.

BDR529

Well what are you trying to heat? Any 80% boiler in a 40% house.. Well, you know.

SlamDunk

Con Ed recently announced it will raise natural gas prices approx. 23% over next three years.

Jamie Hall

Woe is me! The sky is falling!

At some point there may come a time when we are forced by the majesty of the law to abandon fossil fuel heating -- whether oil, LP, or natural gas (and, perhaps, wood -- CO2 and fine particulates, you know).

Until then, do your sums. It is an economic question, and it has an economic answer. What is my return on investment for capital, otherwise invested, which would be required to make a switch? What is the expected savings solely from changing fuels? Bottom line, does changing fuels have a reasonably high probability of a better return on the investment than other things you could do with the money? If you are uncomfortable with this type of financial analysis, a good financial advisor should be able to assist you.

On the other hand, if you have enough capital to make a statement to the world about going green, that's OK too, but that is not an investment decision, nor an engineering one. That's a cultural one.

Jellis

I don't believe LNG will become more widely distributed due to trucking like you mentioned.
LNG has to be very very cold to be liquefied, much colder than propane, this makes it very expensive and more complicated to liquefy and transport.

I would not pay an excessive amount to convert to any type of fuel source if money is a concern to you.

dopey27177

Find out if coned has any programs where changing to gas fired boilers will meet your pocket book.

That said I wouldn't worry about theprice of gas going up because as that happens the price of oil will follow or visa versa.
\
Jake

george_42

If you have the space, consider geothermal

Jon_blaney

Take a look at this report. Convinced me to do nothing about my heat equipment. Be careful, I think the electric costs my be understated.

ChrisJ

I guess it depends on the area and what company you're dealing with but my gas company ran a new line to my house for free as long as I agreed to use it for heating.

gerrytheoilman

Well after being in the trade for way to long I don't see natural gas taking over, sure if you have a gas line you would be crazy to use oil over it, you get rid of tank, its cleaner for sure you don't have to worry about deliveries and shoveling a path. As a tech I see the future going to heat pumps and geothermal. 10 years ago I would laugh at this but they have hyper heats making great heat at zero degrees and they are very reliable. So if you asking for opinions of what to install I would say you are sleeping on heat pumps. The improvements on electric consumption and output and the fact you get a/c make this the most practical solution for a no gas line customer.
Plus you go gas good luck finding a combustion blower for that wall hung 10 year old mod/con boiler at 2am Christmas morning.

SuperTech

Good luck finding someone who has parts for the hyper heat mini split at 2 a.m Christmas morning.
I needed a control board for a whole house ductless unit. My distributor said "Well, we have one available on the east coast. We can have it here in a couple days." Some mod cons are even harder to get parts for.
Meanwhile I carry everything you could possibly need to fix an oil fired boiler on my van. Reliability and ease of service trumps efficiency in every way possible.

ChrisJ

> @SuperTech said:
> Good luck finding someone who has parts for the hyper heat mini split at 2 a.m Christmas morning.
> I needed a control board for a whole house ductless unit. My distributor said "Well, we have one available on the east coast. We can have it here in a couple days." Some mod cons are even harder to get parts for.
> Meanwhile I carry everything you could possibly need to fix an oil fired boiler on my van. Reliability and ease of service trumps efficiency in every way possible.

So, in other words atmospheric gas is your recommendation.

SuperTech

@ChrisJ atmospheric gas is very reliable and easy to service as well. I'm in favour of the use of heat pumps as a secondary heat source, but I would never get rid of my boiler!

Zman

Jon_blaney said:

Take a look at this report. Convinced me to do nothing about my heat equipment. Be careful, I think the electric costs my be understated.

How can they make these kinds of recommendations after studying a few areas in zones 2,3 and 5?

Steamhead

Zman said:

Jon_blaney said:

Take a look at this report. Convinced me to do nothing about my heat equipment. Be careful, I think the electric costs my be understated.

How can they make these kinds of recommendations after studying a few areas in zones 2,3 and 5?

I'd bet it's because of who commissioned the report.

gerrytheoilman

I was shocked at amount of heat pumps when I visited nova scotia this year as the only source of heat, I fully agree a oil burner or cga boiler is like the most dependable but you have to agree the technology on the mini splits is insane. The biggest downside is working on them if they do break.

ethicalpaul

> @george_42 said:
> If you have the space, consider geothermal

You don’t even need space with a vertical well. And compared to a 25k NG line, closed-loop ground-source water to air is very competitive, plus AC for free

flat_twin

Now that I know a SWT of 120 will heat my home down to -5 degrees, I'm curious about operating costs of a heat pump vs NG. I suspect up front costs of the heat pump would be a long time ROI.
When our WM Eco boiler was installed in 2016, one of the questions I asked the tech was "if you could install any system you wanted in your own home, what would it be?" His answer was a heat pump backed up by one of these (pointing to the Eco boiler).

SuperTech

If I could install any system in my home I'd have an Energy Kinetics boiler, cast iron radiators and a geothermal heat pump for A/C and a secondary source of heat.

Brian26

I am in the process of getting rid of my oil fired furnace. I had solar installed and 3 seperate 12k hyper heat mini splits. This is an awesome setup as during the day my panels power my mini splits and send majority of the power back to the grid. I then can use the excess at night or during cloudy days. My electric bill every month is just the $9.44 connection charge.

No fossil fuels being burned, no storing large amounts of flammable liquid/gas, no carbon monoxide risks, etc. So far in the 2 years I had my mini splits the only maintenance has been filter/coil cleaning.

I self installed both my Midea and Gree units. They cost around $1k each online. If a compressor blew or something major I would just replace it as at those prices they are disposable.

Attached is a picture from my energy monitor showing my solar production and 2 mini splits running.

wrooper

"no fossil fuels being burned" ? Not all electricity is hydro/nuclear

Jamie Hall

wrooper said:

"no fossil fuels being burned" ? Not all electricity is hydro/nuclear

Yep. That's the usual mistaken argument for going all electric... remarkably few folks seem to be able to grasp the overall picture on these things.

Zman

I love complimenting E-car users for helping bring back coal power. They usually don't get it but it's fun anyway.