Oil or Gas; which is more economical,what is the truth?

Mark White

My boss and I both have oil fired heat in our homes, he has baseboard and I have scorched hot air. Both of us hate oil, we hate to service it, it is dirty, the tank takes up room in the cellar, there is the possibility of the tank leaking, and my heat exchanger cracking and the house filling with soot. We will both need to replace our heaters in the future and would like to replace them with gas fired ones but not at the cost of paying an arm and leg to heat the house . The gas companies say that gas is cheaper to heat with and the oil companies say that it is cheaper to heat with oil, what is the truth. The truth is out there.

Thanks for the help and God bless you, Mark

Constantin

Paging Fox Mulder...

Wether gas or oil are more economical depends on a lot of factors. First, the caloric content: Oil has 140kBTU/gallon, NG has 100kBTU/Therm, Propane has about 91kBTU/Gallon. I don't know your prices, they vary by region.

Here in Boston, NG is being sold at $1.5/Therm while oil is around $1.7/Gallon. If you do the conversion to $/BTU, oil is still cheaper here.

However, you also have to take combustion efficiency, etc. into consideration. An new, minimum-efficiency CI oil boiler may have a AFUE rating of 80%, but if it runs hot all summer because of a tankless coil, you can be sure that a 94% AFUE condensing, modulating, low mass gas boiler will beat its pants off well beyond the 14% AFUE difference most of the season. Controls also have a big impact. Outdoor reset, boiler water temp, etc.

There is no way to do an apples-apples comparison unless you could hook up either unit in otherwise idential houses and read the meters. As Mike T pointed out, he couldn't do half the stuff he does with his Vitoddens with his old boiler because of flue gas condensation, etc.

I installed new oil equipment in my home under renovation. It is my belief that a properly-set up system will not produce a lot of the issues you're describing. Besides, how much of your basement space does the oil tank take up? 5%, if that? There have to be better reasons than that to make a switch to a fuel where you have no choice in providers, a steadily escalating price structure, etc.

Oil isn't dead yet... I love my Vitola and if modulating oil burners make it to this part of the world, much of the performance advantage of gas systems will be matched also. If low-sulfur oil fuel becomes a reality, we may even see a renaissance of condensing oil equipment. Brookhaven National Labs and the equipment they're testing is showing the way of the future...

Fred Harwood

Dare one say

that propane and natural gas also have intrinsic hazards? Both gases have demolished homes (ask your insurace company), and require safeguards against carbon monoxide poisoning. Propane prices can be volatile, and natural gas prices generally follow electrical generation and seasonal heating needs. (The natural gas "bubble" of a decade or so ago is gone, due largely to political matters.) None of the above is definitive, however, and change is to be expected.

jerry scharf_2

You would be wrong

Fred,

The risks of propane and natural gas are very different. Propane pools in explosive mixtures while methane (NG) does not. Both can produce explosions, but I'm much more careful with propane.

Also, if you haven't figured out by now that CO can kill you whether you have NG, propane or oil, I'm not sure how much of the wall you read. You need to be just as careful with oil as anything else when setting up combustion and you still need something to measure the CO generated.

jerry

ed wallace

oil vs gas

dont forget the extra charges for gas from keyspan such as transportation cost the extras cost more then the gas

jerry scharf_2

It depends on where you live

Mark,

You're trying to guess the average relative future price of often interrelated products, fuel oil and natureal gas. You get to look deep into your crystal ball and then take a WAG.

As for the rest of what you said, if you have a cracked heat exchanger and are getting soot in the house, then you need to shut the furnace down RIGHT NOW!!! There is a myth that oil doesn't produce carbon monoxide. You don't want to be the one who finds out how wrong that is. It may not kill you, but the list of other exposure problems starting with permanent loss in mental capacity, heart and lung problems should scare you.

If you are in the trade, go and take a course from NCI, Timmie or Firedragon and learn about combustion. It will open your eyes!

jerry

Fred Harwood

Error

Thanks, Jerry. My view may be skewed because I have a buddy in the insurance adjusting business, which infrequently but still too often intails investigating why a home using natural gas just plain shattered. My only point here being that when comparing fuels, all the cards should be on the table, not just fuel cost. I am not saying that natural gas is especially hazardous, just that it, like most burnable things, it has an insurable risk factor.

imatellerslie

also don't forget the expense of

having gas hooked up to the house. I was shocked to find out that, even though there is a gas line already running across my property, about 220 ft from my house, the gas company wants at a minimum $4500 to hook me up. This price was based on my plan to install 5 gas fireplaces, a gas dryer, gas range, and a 200 MBTU gas boiler. I was told that if I didn't have a signed contract to install those appliances, the price would be higher.

That seemed like a lot of money to me for burying a plastic pipe, and the economic sense of using a geothermal heat pump came more into focus. So I'm flipping the gas company the bird.

Constantin

Too true...

.... out of the $1.5/therm Keyspan charges right now, about $1.03 is for transportation and distribution. Not likely to ever go down, either.

I'm glad I have oil heat. At least I can chose who is going to fleece me! :P

Geno_15

Well with oil

you can run on kero, oil, diesel, biofuels, veggi, oil, whatever if you have to and oil is cheaper by price and by btu's, if you need new and it sounds like you do, RIGHT NOW!!!! buy hi eff.

Soot in the house from your registers is very bad OK! Do not mess with this your are getting exhaust fumes GET A CO DETECTOR NOW AND GET THIS REPLACED NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

see the CO in VT thread here for more info on CO

Constantin

Allow me to quibble...

Like I said above, the relationship of gas to oil to kWh prices is all over the map in this country.

Mark Eatherton and others out West have posted some (for us NE'ers) unbelieveable electricity prices in the 4-6 cents/kWh range, where Boston consumers pay something like 16 cents/kWh. Gas prices and oil prices are similarly skewed. IIRC, Paul Pollets in Seattle had higher quotes for oil prices than I do, and he lives much closer to the domestic source...

Anyway, I agree that biofuels have a lot of potential and could significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, while helping out US farmers with a guaranteed harvest. The big issue is bringing the price of biofuels down, as virgin bio-derived oil is still somewhere in the $2/gallon range, IIRC.

The good news though is that the emergence of viable biofuel operations may limit the extent to which oil prices may rise as domestic biofuel refining capacity comes online. Since the contamination levels of such fuels are much lower than the stuff being pumped in Alaska (or steamed out of the sandbeds of Alberta, etc.) the costs of setting up such refineries should be much lower...

Fred Harwood

Addendum

See today's NYT for an example of a natural gas explosion that "turned the house upside down."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/nyregion/31blast.html

Again, I'm not saying NG is better or worse than other fuels, just putting all the cards on the table.

Al Gregory

A cracked heat exchanger with an oil furnace may smaell and dirty your curtains but atleast you know something is wrong A cracked heat exchanger with a gas furnace could kill you. New oil equipment burns so clean that its not even an issue anymore

BillW@honeywell

The differences have been welll defined by the other posts...

Yes, oil contains more BTU's than natural gas or propane. Gas and propane can cause explosions, and ANY fuel can produce CO! Gas, oil, propane, wood, coal, charcoal, heretics, whatever...combustion will produce CO.

That said, think about this. Your house is a system. It's made up of interdependent sub-systems to make it work. Water, electricity, heating, cooling, sanitary system, roof, windows, and all make it up. If one fails, it has a domino effect on all the others. With heating/cooling, you want to maximize comfort and minimize energy costs. It's not just a matter of what you burn, its how you burn it, and how you deliver the heat to the space, and how you keep the heat there for as long as possible.

Effective Insulation, energy-efficient windows, housewrap, sealing air leaks, heating/cooling controls, adequate combustion air and so on, all have a marked effect on how much fuel you use. So does how your house is built, which way it faces, window area, wind exposure, landscaping etc. There are tons of free info on such things at DOE and EPA websites, check it out.

I don't want to get too wordy about this, but the fuel you burn is only part of the puzzle. By the way, those old steel basement oil tanks have a nice replacement in the new Roth style tanks, and modern oil burners by both American and European manufacturers burn very clean,quietly and even monitor themselves for any potential problems. By coming here,it shows you are doing your homework. Look at the whole house, not just one sub-system.

Paul Mitchell_2

As far as I am concerned

> My boss and I both have oil fired heat in our

> homes, he has baseboard and I have scorched hot

> air. Both of us hate oil, we hate to service it,

> it is dirty, the tank takes up room in the

> cellar, there is the possibility of the tank

> leaking, and my heat exchanger cracking and the

> house filling with soot. We will both need to

> replace our heaters in the future and would like

> to replace them with gas fired ones but not at

> the cost of paying an arm and leg to heat the

> house . The gas companies say that gas is cheaper

> to heat with and the oil companies say that it is

> cheaper to heat with oil, what is the truth. The

> truth is out there.

>

> Thanks for the help and

> God bless you, Mark

Paul Mitchell_2

As far as I am concerned

oil is a better choice. If your tank is inside then not much to worry about on average. If you are worried about a cracked heat exchanger I would install a hot water boiler with hydronic coils to heat the air. You can then also install a indirect water heater for domestic hot water and it does not get better than that. Much nicer heat than a furnace also. You can add heat in the form of baseboard in other areas also. If you purchase a good piece of equipment, set it up correctly, buy a box of blue nitrile work gloves(for future service) andyou will not know what hit you. I have a system 2000 energy kinetics boiler with baseboard and I love it. Sell as many as we can.
As for your boss he just needs the right boiler.
Paul

Mark White

Thank you for all the feed back !!

I appreciate everyone sharing their wisdom and knowledge with me. Thanks.
Grace and peace, Mark.

S Ebels

Other criteria...........

When I replaced my natural gas fired, atmospheric boiler a couple years ago, I too penciled long and hard about which fuel to go with. In my area, natural gas holds the low price position and has for some time. It has historically been around 25-30% cheaper per btu. However, during the past 2-3 years the price gap between gas and oil has narrowed significantly due to increases in natural gas costs here in Michigan. Observing this trend in addition to the overall volatility of the fuel market made me think of another point to ponder.

That is that flexibility in a persons choice of fuel is going to become very important within the next 5-10 years. Many boilers/furnaces are limited to only one fuel type by design and I think this will prove to be a handicap in the not too distant future. That being the case, I think a person should also consider whether their new heating appliance can be converted from gaseous to liquid fuels or vis-versa. Being able to do this usually means selecting a boiler because there are few, if any furnaces that are capable of being changed from one type of fuel to another. A boiler also gives the homeowner a host of options for delivering heat compared to a furnace.

As a confirmation to my thoughts on multiple fuels I offer this tidbit of info which I heard this week. There are currently plans underway for a large scale bio-based fuel production facility here in Michigan. I am not at liberty to divulge any more info than that. In my conversation with someone connected with this project, it was stated that production costs look to be in the $1.10 to $1.20 per gallon range. On top of that would be federal and state fuel tax plus delivery and other charges but you can see that there will be other options coming along besides the three currently available fuels.

All that being said, I think it would be prudent for anyone considering a new heating appliance to keep as many options available as possible for the future. It may become common to se a house connected for gas with an oil/bio tank also sitting in the basement. The times they are a changin'. This industry and our country are on the edge of a major shift in the energy is produced, transported and consumed. Choose your weapon carefully.