New Construction Home - Which is better Propane Vs Oil? Long Island NY

2Luckysat

Hi All and thank you for allowing me to join the group.

I am starting the process of building a new construction 2200 square foot home that has some space restrictions (no cellar and no garage) . Unfortunately there is no Natural Gas in my neighborhood and most people in the neighborhood are currently on oil. Contractors have me leaning towards a propane combo unit to supply my: two zones of hot water cast iron radiators, domestic hot water, clothes dryer, kitchen stove, fireplace and house generator. I like the idea of saving space but have never used propane heat and fearful about the high cost of propane vs oil heat. Wanted to get peoples thoughts on 1. cost of propane heat, 2. maintenance required and 3. over all reliability? Thanks

Jamie Hall

Look up the fuel prices in your area. That's critical. When doing so, keep in mind that LP or propane only produces about two thirds as much heat per gallon as oil does, so a straight price per gallon comparison isn't valid.

Some LP boilers have higher efficiency — called "mod/con" boilers — provided that the entire system is designed around their capabilities. The difference, however, is not that large on a year round basis — perhaps 5 percent, if the mod/con and the rest of the system are optimally designed and controlled.

Some LP boilers are, as you have found, "combis" — that is, they produce on-demand domestic hot water as well as heating the house. I don't care for them; the problem is that they are a little complex, but more important to me is that unless you are really lucky they are either too big for the heating requirements or too small for the hot water requirements.

I'd use an indirect tank, which can be powered wither by the LP or oil boiler.

I have to ask, though, have you given any thought to an air to water heat pump system instead? They are still fairly new in the trade, but on Long Island they might be quite feasible in new construction.

2Luckysat

Thanks Jamie. I really appreciate all the tips. I didn't realize you could heat a whole house with mini splits. I will definitely look into that. I heard they run nice but I thought you needed a back up boiler? Also I just filled up on oil last week I believe it was $3.99 per gallon

Jamie Hall

I wasn't referring to minisplits — though they might do it on Long Island. I was referring to heat pumps which heat water — not air — and use large, but conventional radiators or radiant flooring or both to heat the structure.

@Hot_water_fan , where are you?

With oil at $3.90 per gallon, propane would have to be less than @2.78 per gallon to be competitive.

ethicalpaul

Also I just filled up on oil last week I believe it was $3.99 per gallon

OK now how much is propane there?

Edit: Doesn't look great.

Everyone here knows I'm not a fan of oil, but if most people in your neighborhood are on oil, that is an indication that there is good infrastructure of providers and possibly good competition and maybe good service.

Personally, I wouldn't choose a modern high-efficiency boiler or furnace, I'd stick with the 83% ones that are cheap and easy. One thing I would do differently than many here is forget about an indirect water heater. Let your boiler rest during the summer and cut way down on complexity and have a standalone heat pump water heater, or even resistive electric water heater.

2Luckysat

Thanks so much, fellas. It looks like I just called a local propane provider and they said $2.59 a gallon of propane for fixed price for the year. I don't know how that calculates two $3.99 a gallon for oil but Jamie had asked so I just wanted to get his thoughts. Also my local oil provider does a great job and provide the seasonal contract for $271 a year which includes parts and labor on anny breakdowns and a free annual cleaning.

Hot_water_fan

@2Luckysat if you're installing AC, then you should install ductwork. Once that path is chosen, a ducted heat pump is the natural choice - it costs about the same as plain AC. From there, you can add a furnace - it can be oil or propane, both will work just fine. You can also just use a heat pump.

This path affords you flexibility - you can protect yourself from price spikes in either fuel, and gives you AC, which has a higher market value than hydronic heating.

As to the propane vs. heating oil debate, the math is easy.

$/MMBtu heating oil: $/gallon * (1,000,000/138,000) / COP

$/MMBtu propane: $/gallon * (1,000,000/91,452) / COP

hot_rod

This calculator makes it easy to compare. I used 87% for the LP mod con as it will condense for part of the year, probably.

https://coalpail.com/fuel-comparison-calculator-home-heating

2Luckysat

Thanks for the great ideas and insight… I did plan on doing ductwork for AC and didn't think of adding the heat pump idea which makes a lot of sense. Then looking at hot rod's heating calculator looks like going with propane will be the way to go because of the small space requirements (no garage no basement).

Any thoughts on best brands to use for combo units for heat and hot water? Or should I separate the heat and hot water units?

hot_rod

Pros and cons to all fuels. Price stability is a big one. I always took advantage of the pre-buy or lock in deals.

Buy and own your tank if possible. I ended up with 6 tanks at our farm in Missouri. They are cheap to buy when NG gas Iines started going in around the towns.

LP prices can really drop in spring time after a mild winter. Dealers need to move their inventory or pay storage fees at their bulk plants. I paid .29 a gallon on one occasion!

With LP you can run other appliances, dryers, cooking appliances, outdoor barbecue, standby generator, patio heaters, even your vehicles.

Underground LP tanks are more common in new subdivisions. I see a lot of new home development west of Phoenix, Az as all LP.

Steamhead

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806625#Comment_1806625

@2Luckysat , don't forget the comfort factor. Cast-iron radiators will provide far more comfort than any forced-air system. The fuel used makes no difference.

The simplest boiler to maintain is a non-condensing gas one. Both oil and mod-con gas boilers need annual servicing to maintain their efficiency. Non-condensing gas boilers' maintenance needs are much simpler.

DCContrarian

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806631#Comment_1806631

The better-insulated the house is the less true this is.

New construction that is truly built to current codes should be pretty darn tight.

Hot_water_fan

Thanks for the great ideas and insight… I did plan on doing ductwork for AC and didn't think of adding the heat pump idea which makes a lot of sense. Then looking at hot rod's heating calculator looks like going with propane will be the way to go because of the small space requirements (no garage no basement).

Any thoughts on best brands to use for combo units for heat and hot water? Or should I separate the heat and hot water units?

I think the big decision here is whether you want 1 distribution method or two. AC will use ductwork - your heating system can use that or you can add a separate method. There are pros and cons to both. This is the decision to focus on IMO. The central heating and DHW can be connected or not, that difference is relatively small. If you don't use water as the central heating distribution method, there's little reason to have a combi or an indirect.

leonz

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/197488/new-construction-home-which-is-better-propane-vs-oil-long-island-ny

Using cast Iron radiators will help you hold heat and allow it to radiate slowly into the living spaces.

Using a top fed gravity hot water system will simplify how your home is heated and will provide a slow even heating method that does not require circulators or zone valves as it uses the heat of the water to rise to the attic or the top floor and then drop to fill the radiators with hot water.

The new oil fired boiler can also provide you with Domestic Hot Water for the entire heating season and in the off season as well as long as it has a domestic hot water coil.

A building salvage yard is a good place to find good used hot water radiators as you will not require that many to keep your home warm.

About propane or oil for a fuel choice you need to keep in mind that storage of fuel in bulk being 500 gallons-1,000 gallons in 2 saddle tanks of propane or 500+ gallons of K-1 kerosene in a Petrohopper which is a true double wall oil tank will save you money.

petrohopperG_LIT_Hopper-Series (1).pdf

george_42

If you can drill wells you can put in geothermal heat and cooling. I live in central pa with geo and 4000 sq ft home and average a little over $100 a month

2Luckysat

Nice suggestion on the building salvage yard for used hot water radiators… If possible I would like to use recessed sunrad cast iron type radiators under the windows… do they use a mono-flow system? Also is there a good way to properly size the amount of sections required for each room?

Jamie Hall

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806642#Comment_1806642

Any radiator can use a mono-flow system. I wouldn't, as they are — in my view — a colossal pain and you lose all the possibilities of balancing and controlling the heat room by room in exchange for very slightly less piping. But that's me.

The only way to properly size the radiators for each room is to do a room by room heat loss, which is part of a Manual J heat loss for the building, which I very much hope you have done.

bburd

Monoflow systems are obsolete and no longer installed in new construction. If you are using radiators rather than baseboard, the usual practice today is to pipe them individually back to a manifold in the boiler room using oxygen barrier PEX.

DCContrarian

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806637#Comment_1806637

The thing is, you want your heating system to be able to react quickly. Especially in a house built to modern standards, where the heating load is so low the solar gain on a sunny day becomes significant factor. When the sun goes down on a clear, cold winter day you have to go from zero heating load to perhaps 100% in a few minutes.

If you look at the latest trends in both radiators and under-floor heating it's toward minimizing heat capacity to maximize responsiveness.

hot_rod

Also look closely at panel radiators. Same comfort as heavier radiators, faster response and theyn can operate at 120- 140F. This matches nicely with a mod con boiler, GEO or A2WHP heat sources.

leonz

If you have a top fed gravity hot water system you have plenty of thermal mass and the heat is slow and even all the time keeping the house warm with little lag time and a top fed gravity system would be easy to install in new construction.

PRR

most people in the neighborhood are currently on oil. Contractors have me leaning towards a propane

I had a sad oil furnace. I replaced it with hi-eff propane and no regret.

Yes, partly because the old burner had real issues and a modern gas furnace is a nicer machine. The flue on the oil fire would burn your face at arms-length, and flay flesh (throwing heat up the chimney); the gas smoke is a hardly-warm plastic pipe. The old one didn't have enough return ducting and the re-design let me fix that.

The 2nd winter there was a BIG price spike on the propane market. That would be a reason to stay with the most popular fuel (oil). It developed that of gasoline, fuel oils, and propane, propane was always going to be last to be transported, at least 9 years ago cars and oil-heat had priority. I was fine, my propane suppliers know the game and had sufficient fuel under contract.

I thought I wanted my own tank but it has worked out that the hidden "rent" in the propane price has never been onerous. I'd have to finance a tank for a decade out to get an equal deal. That's of course what my delivery guy does— second generation (it was his dad when I started) and he probably has flocks of tanks in inventory.

OTOH Long Island must be a real haven for oil-burners and their suppliers and mechanics.

And today I read of two propane explosions.

2Luckysat

Thanks Leon and Hot-Rod I am not familiar with top feed gravity systems and panel radiators. Are people still doing gravity systems or are circulators more common? Both sound like a good option for my home, also the use of a manifold after running the manual J bburd & Jamie… I will ask around to see if anyone still does top feed gravity systems in my neighborhood or if circulators with use of a manifold would be better (don't want any "first time experimenting" done on my home Lol)

Robert_25

If the house has no basement, I would definitely plan on using radiant heat at least in the first floor. If you use propane for heat, cooking, and drying clothes the heating cost usually works out close to what it will would be with oil. A high efficiency propane setup would also require a smaller mechanical room than a traditional oil boiler.

leonz

Hello and good morning 2Luckysat,

Gravity hot water heating systems were in use in old 2 and 3 story homes before the circulator came into use. The top fed method will cost more to install but the simplicity of the top fed method is a huge factor as there are no air bubbles to worry about bleeding off, no bladder tanks or air scoops as any air trapped in the water rises into the open to air expansion tank and is vented out.

One of the members of the forum has a multistory home and the rectangular expansion tank sits quietly at the top of the stairs on the third floor allowing the hot water to rise into the tank and at the same time any microbubbles just rise up and dissolve into the airspace above the rectangular tank and the hot water falls by gravity to the radiators on the third floor then the second floor then the first floor and finally drops to the basement to the boiler to be reheated.

The old open to air expansion tank began leaking and required replacement. The fellow took the old tank and lid to a sheet metal shop and the shop built a new tank for him with an inner and outer skin and they placed insulation in the space between the inner and outer tank. The sheet metal shop brazed pipe fittings into the base of the new tank and the new tank was installed in place of the old one.

Please go to the Heating help bookstore and order a copy of classic hydronics and by purchasing it you will learn how the hot water heating method evolved over time and how easily a top fed system works and works silently.

I mention the top fed gravity hot water heating method as an option as there are no air bubbles to deal with EVER.

There are gravity hot water heating systems still in use today in old homes that are over 100 years old and still work reliably.

DCContrarian

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806675#Comment_1806675

Circulators have replaced gravity.

The whole reason to do hydronics rather than forced air is comfort, forced air is going to be a lot cheaper, especially if you're doing air conditioning already. The reason hydronics can deliver superior comfort is you can put heat exactly where you want it, in exactly the quantity you want. You do this by having thermostats in every area where the heating demand is different, and using low heat-capacity emitters that respond quickly to the thermostat.

You can't do either of those things in a gravity system.

leonz

But in using circulators you cannot have slow even heat through the entire home with a simple heating method that uses the physics of thermodynamics to its advantage either by using thermal mass to its advantage.

Hot_water_fan

I'm with DC here, this is a luxury system. Let's make it as capable as possible: zone-able, responsive, and flexible.

leonz

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806694#Comment_1806694

A simple turn of the valve on the specific radiator or radiators means its capable, zone-able, responsive, and flexible by controlling the amount of hot water entering the radiator while slowing it or stopping it and letting the water bypass the radiator or radiators and by doing so the excess hot water bypasses the radiator and falls by gravity to the boiler sump.

Jamie Hall

Gravity circulation does have its points, true. Unfortunately, at least in this instance, it is my impression that it simply won't work at all: you need to have several feet — at least 8 — to make it work reliably, and big pipes. Nope, sorry @leonz , there is a time and place for everything — but this isn't an application for gravity.

Robert_25

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806693#Comment_1806693

sure you can, with in-slab radiant and outdoor reset.

DCContrarian

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806693#Comment_1806693

What do you even mean by "slow" heat?

hot_rod

No cellar, no garage? Will it be a crawl space or slab? If it is a slab, radiant is a no brainer. The cost of the tube and insulation.

The "dry" radiant systems with transfer plates or on the top systems tend to be more $$.

Maybe start the search with a budget number in mind for the entire HVAC system. See what % of the total budget you want to allocate for HVAC.

Like any purchase, the more $$ the nicer the system options.

A new construction for me would be hydronic panel rads with some radiant floors in the bathrooms, maybe the kitchen if it is tile. Quick, easy to control panel rads everywhere else.

A stand alone AC ducted system.

The 'all eggs in one basket": would be an A2WHP. Heat, cool, and DHW.

Or a separate boiler with furnace/ AC as back up heat, AC, and air quality with humidification or de-humidification, air filtration, energy recovery system.

DCContrarian

I'd start with a room-by-room heating and cooling load calculation, done by a paid consultant, not as a freebie by the installer. You want this to be accurate because all of your decisions will flow from that.

First, sketch out what a cooling system will look like, in very rough terms — CFM per floor, tonnage. That's your baseline. From there, comfort is money, how comfortable do you want to be?

The cheapest way to go is just to upsize a heat pump to meet the heating load and call it good. You don't say where on Long Island you are, but I just looked up Nassau County and the heating design temperature is 17F, cooling is 88F, it might very well be that a unit that meets your cooling need rounds up to meeting your heating need and very little upsizing is necessary.

From there you can go in two directions. First, depending on local electricity rates and the cost of other fuels it may be cheaper to heat with a combustion appliance rather than a heat pump. Or it may be cheaper part of the year, when it's really cold. So one way to explore is supplementing the heat pump with a furnace, using the same ductwork.

The other direction to explore is pinpointing more exactly the delivery of heat. The thing about forced air is there's a limit to how much you can target the delivery of heat, there will always be rooms that are warmer or cooler. With an air handler you can only make the zones so small. With hydronics you can pinpoint to your heart's content, you can put a thermostat in every room and keep every room within a tenth of a degree of the setpoint. And it's straightforward to deliver heat in unconventional ways, like heated floors or towel racks or whatever.

How comfortable do you want to be?

leonz

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806697#Comment_1806697

Hello Jamie,

A ground level single story home can be heated with a top fed gravity system by placing the open to air expansion saddle tank in a boiler room or in the attic.

A single level home can also be heated with top fed steam as well.

Larry Weingarten

Hi, It may be too late in the process, but if possible, start by making the shell of the house much more efficient and snug than people think is sane. I like SIPS as a way to get superior performance at marginal cost. In a "moderate" climate, I built with 8" thick walls, 10" floor and 12" roof, all solid foam. This helped my energy usage to be around 1/10th of the norm. With an efficient shell, you have more options around heating and cooling, along with reduced up front equipment costs and down the road energy costs. Is it too late to consider using SIPS?

Yours, Larry

Jamie Hall

Just for the sake of adding a tiny bit here — just did the arithmetic for adding a heat pump to Cedric's home, to take some of the shoulder seasons.

Nope. Sorry. Cedric is still cheaper to operate. never mind maintain or replace.

Cedric, for those who haven't met him, being a Weil-McClain 580, oil fired, powering a 100 year old vapour steam system.

hot_rod

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806733#Comment_1806733

willing to show your math😉

2Luckysat

Thanks everyone for sharing all your hard earned working knowledge. The house is going to be a basic 2.5 Story 3bdr 3bth Colonial with a crawl space and no garage in Suffolk County Long Island NY. From everyones suggestions I am looking to start moving forward with:

-Manual J Calculation with a full set of blueprints

1. Hope to place a condensing propane fired boiler and separate tankless water heater in a utility closet under interior stairs if it will all fit.
2. Purchase (not lease) an in ground 500 Gallon tank to supply: Clothes dryer, kitchen stove, Boiler, water heater, BBQ and fireplace
3. 2 zones cast iron hot water baseboard
4. 1 zone electric ducted AC unit with heat pump to help off set propane fuel bills
5. Spray foam insulation throughout

Any suggestions on good reliable equipment would be appreciated. Looked at some condensing boilers and modern Heat pumps with high seer ratings today and lots of choices out there all with astronomical prices Lol.

Jamie Hall

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1806734#Comment_1806734

Sure — but keep in mind that this is a pretty rough thought piece as a starting point for internal

Some thoughts on heat.pdf

discussions…

Hot_water_fan

So the decision is two distribution systems? If so, I’d skip the condensing boiler and skip the tankless water heater. Add a simple boiler and you can attach an indirect to it. It’ll provide high capacity and save vs. a modcon. Since the heat pump will probably be substantially cheaper than propane, no sense paying for boiler efficiency if it’s not running when the boiler would perform most efficiently (mild weather).