Propane Vs. Oil

Ray Landry

If one of you were building a home in Mass, and no natural gas was available, would you go with oil or LP for your heating fuel? This is for my fathers house I'm going to panel rads sized larger than need so i can run @ low supply temps (So now I'm sort of leaning towards LP so I can take advantage of my new favorite condenser, the buderus GB) The thing that worries me about LP is that the price per gallon seems to be constantly changing much more erradically than oil does. I've been paying in the area of 1.80/gallon for oil, where at one point during mid winter I heard that LP was around 2.15.... What do you guys think?

Paul Pollets

I'd use...

#2 oil if the home is over 2000SF and has a high temp load. Propane is the most expensive fuel and burns at appx 82K BTU's per gal. Oil burns at 140K per gallon. High tech oil burners like the Viessmann chassis, Hansa or Riello will give far greater efficiency. Wall panel rads are not really condensing heat emitters. Yes, one can design larger panels for lower temps, but....

All fuel prices will rise substantially over the next 6 months, maybe even by 50%. JMHO. Choose the fuel source and the appliance carefully.

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lchmb

Personally

I would go with oil. With the new burner's and boiler's on the market and a good control package you'll save money. On top of which with propane you are owned by the tank (unless you spend a lot of money to buy it). Companies will not deliver to another company's tank so once set they can do what they like with the price. Just my .02 cents....

A.J.

Go with oil

it is tradionaly a better heating value per heating dollar than L.P.

Kupetz's Plb & Htg

Constantin

I went with oil...

... despite having an adequately-sized natural gas main to the house. Due to it's location, Boston gas is very, very expensive. We're at the end of every pipeline, there is only one (clapped-out) LNG terminal, and all the power plants are converting to natural gas as well. I forsee a shortage at some point, unless the proposed LNG terminal goes into Fall River, etc.

In this part of the world, none of the energy choices are cheap. At least with oil, you can install a small tank farm and fill 'er up when the prices are lower. In my mind, Propane is only good for vacation homes with very intermittent loads or areas where indoor oil tanks are not possible.

Joe Brix

Low temp system with oil

While everyone thinks that condensing boilers are the only way to get peak efficency, I think you can build a very efficent low temp radiant system on an oil fired boiler by introducing a buffer tank. Allow an oil fired boiler to heat a buffer tank up to a safe non-condensing temp and mix down for your radiant or panel rads. The BTU's in the water mass will be drawn down slowly and stretch out the boiler firings. Take a look at John Siegenthaler's article:

http://www.pmmag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/features/BNP__Features__Item/0,2379,78589,00.html

Weezbo

Joe, Many fine systems that are economical are oil fueled

and have multiple temps. while baseboard is happy at180 you can roll it with 140 and no problem in extremely cold weather..a garage slab of radiant and a Slab On Grade (insulated) is another fairly sane idea...garage slab,gypcrete first floor ,some staple up with plates ,or buderas panels on trvs ,or lower temp convectors,works also,i think maybe because i like radiant that sog with gypcrete second floors... and right now i would probably be holding out for the modulating condensing buderas ....as a thought. oh and id insulate the walls fur them out with 2X4 on the flat with another 1& 1/2 blue foam keep all the electrical boxes and wires in that area of the building envelope and bump up the roof (ceiling) insulation to a minimum of r-42 ...or go cif and a conventional truss framed roof..with 14 " depth or better over the outside plates use the card board venting amd spray foam that from the inside before insulation of the lid. insulation is going to slow down the heats "getaway" in winter and i am absolute positive that more insulation placed now will pay off exponentially in the long run....

Constantin

You're absolutely right...

On the oil side, we have only one condensing choice to date in the US and perhaps will have more once the allowable sulfur contamination levels are reduced in heating oil and Diesel alike.

I may yet sign up for the B10 program that Mass Energy is offering simply because the low-sulfur fuel + biodiesel will probably wear and tear the Vitola less than the regular stuff... However, I would want to qualify their service personell before allowing them near my boiler.

In the absence of a modulating boiler, the next best thing is one with a lot of mass and very good insulation. Combine the two and the losses due to "on-off" light-offs become pretty neglible and steady-state efficiency can be reached fairly frequently. It's one reason I like that the Vitola VB2-33 not only has 31 gallons of water capacity (!!!) but copious insulation as well.

However, the same effectiveness could be had in a low-mass modulating oil boiler. All things being equal, the key to the efficiency question is attaining steady-state, and a modulating boiler can do so across a large range of heat loss conditions. Sadly, such burners currently only exist abroad. However, I do happily note that the Vitotronic 200 can handle modulating burners, so I guess all I have to do is hack the Vitoflame chassis from the Vitoplus into the Vitola and... nevermind.

Ray Landry

Thanks alot for your input guys

Joe Brix

Constantin

Have you looked at services like www.clickableoil.com
They're offering B20 by me on Long Island. When I replace my boiler this summer, I was thinking of running B20 and just use my hydronics contractor for tune-ups and service. Since #2 oil has increased in price, B20 is only 10 cents more a gallon. If oil prices continues to rise, I think the cost will almost equal! While we all feel the pain of high fuel costs, I hope this will spark a big investment in biodiesel production. We must make this a national priority and help ease our middle eastern dependancy for oil.