Oil to Natural Gas Conversion Costs

[John]

In other words the oil furnace burns dirtier and pollutes more.

Cite?

You *DO* have carbon monoxide detectors, don't you?

[John]

Chimneys? Modern efficient gas furnaces do not require "chimneys." They use ordinary piping to bring fresh outside air in (so you're not sending your heated home air into the combustion chamber to throw away) and remove exhaust.

[John]

Most likely. The exhaust inducer has a pressure switch to monitor performance and also shut down the furnace if there is an exhaust problem. The computer in the furnace will attempt to check again (without lighting the burners if it fails) to clear the fault. If not, an error code is stored.

[John]

They are just about always used on a modern efficient (greater than 90% AFUE) furnace that has direct vent.

Everyone with an attached garage or interior combustion device should have CO detectors, at least on every level. They aren't expensive and some states are now mandating them, just like smoke detectors.

Wind gusts? Back drafts? Yikes! Isn't your oil burner using sealed combustion to prevent inside air from ever touching the combustion chamber of the furnace? It would be a shame for the furnace to consume heated house air.

[AZ Nomad]

Where, pray tell, does the exhaust go? It doesn't matter if it's a 1" rubber hose; it's still a chimney if it carries exhaust.

[John]

There shouldn't be any gas at all outside the furnace or plumbing.

When your house is not inhabitable due to heavy oil contamination and fumes, it *is* a safety issue. "Over hyped" environmental issue? Yeah right, unless you consider oil contaminated earth and pollution as part of your environment.

I guess if your concrete floors are watertight and sealed (so the oil doesn't soak into them) and you don't have any drains or perimeter drains. Oh and if you don't mind everything saturated in #2 oil.

Yeah, technology changes, like inducer motors that shut everything down if there is an exhaust blockage in gas furnaces (very very rare).

So, what oil company do you work for? Typical new high efficency gas furnaces get about 94-96% efficiency (AFUE) My neighbor has the exact same house as I do and he has oil heat. I keep my house a little warmer and last winter's bill was less than 2/3 of his. After comparing numbers, he's very interested in switching too. What is the AFUE of your oil furnace?

[John]

The price differences between oil suppliers are negligible, as they are all buying their oil in the same local market from the same common carriers, unless your oil company also has a terminal to import the middle east crude and refine it. Or some distributors are jacking up the price. Last year, oil companies jacked up prices for non contract customers in a hurry and they went down very slowly. Our NG prices rised a little a few months later and then tapered back significantly mid way through the winter. Our gas service is still cheaper than the "cheap" oil companies, and our furnace is a lot more cleaner burning and efficient too.

If you are against regulated monopolies, than your argument is also the same for opposing electricity service (and maybe water too).

Hope you're around to do that and not on vacation. Oh by the way, if we do have a power failure, we can still take lots of hot showers and cook on our stove indefinitely.

Oil is a great choice if you have no natural gas service available and your climate is too cold for heat pumps.

[John]

The typical homeowner *should* be screwing around with her oil burner innards? Yeesh.

Monster? Our gas furnace isn't much bigger than a small filing cabinet. Just about as noisy as a filing cabinet too.

"Less likely?" My average gas furnace has a transferable Lifetime Warranty on its Stainless Steel heat exchanger.

At the very least, it's good to check the fan motor and clean the blower and/or a/c coil as some amount of dust will inevitably get past a filter and very slowly accumulate over a season.

Please explain what the frequency is, since you are claiming this is relevant.

Our furnace needs (a little with the ECM motor) electricity to operate, but our water heater and range do not. They operate just as normal without caring if power is lost, except I have to find matches to light my stove and might have to reset the clock later.

Huh? Do you think the "smaller competitive" oil dealers are manufacturing oil somehow? Or do they participate in the global oil market? They can charge whatever they like, and the only thing the competition does is keep the costs similar, but the costs will all go up with the price of crude and/or refined product. By the way, we can now "choose" our gas supplier, so if that was really a concern that issue is moot. Gas distribution is a regulated monopoly and as such they cannot raise their prices unless their costs increase, and the price they charge must by law be in line with their costs.

So you forget to mention that you have solid reasons *not* to use an electric company.

[John]

Outside via sealed PVC pipes that are right next to the pipe bringing in outside air for sealed combustion.

No. A chimney is a vertical structure by definition and implies a natural draft is at least partially responsible.

[Pete C.]

They *should* have the minimal skills necessary to change an oil burner nozzle by following instructions. Recall this requires only the skill to operate two wrenches and is little different from the skill to change a faucet aerator, couple a garden hose or connect a propane tank to a grill. Changing a nozzle does not require any knowledge of burner controls, combustion adjustments or anything else technical.

Monster as in the unknown which historically has scared people. Oil and gas furnaces are about the same size for the same capacity unit. They both used to be huge and both have steadily shrunk over the years as technology (and home insulation) improved.

Noise levels for modern gas or oil furnaces of comparable capacity are comparable as well. Older units of both types were noisier.

Yes and average oil furnaces are cast iron with similar warrantees. Many low end gas furnaces are not stainless steel and have much shorter life expectancies. Only a very few bottom of the barrel oil furnaces use plain steel heat exchangers.

Quite correct and with either oil or gas, if there is an A/C unit incorporated there is a significantly greater need for service since air (and dirt) is circulated all year instead of just during the heating season. Without A/C both oil and gas are also comparable in cleaning and service requirements.

In the town I was in and the adjacent towns during the past couple decades I recall hearing of a gas outage of some duration at least every few months. This is also an area with relatively sparse gas service, probably less than 50% coverage of residences in the area. I recall several times there were multi day outages during the winter where people had to go to shelters.

Your point is? With oil heat / hot water and a generator (it doesn't have to be a very big generator either) I have heat, hot water, range, oven, clocks, TV, etc. with little more than a few minutes interruption. With a diesel generator and the typical 275-300 gal oil tank even at half full I have enough fuel for heat and generator for at least a week without outside utilities.

The costs of nat. gas also go up with the cost of other energy commodities and also with the growth of nat. gas fueled electric generation "peaking" power plants. Nat. gas is not some fixed cheap energy source unaffected by the rest of the energy market.

My concern is that they are allowed to charge you even when you do not use gas. This has no parallel with oil. If I don't use any oil I don't pay anything. With oil you also have the option of having a larger tank and purchasing off season to get better prices something you can not do with gas.

Excuse me? I have solid reasons to have a generator as backup for the electric companies outages. Outside of that the electric company can provide me power at a lower effective rate than I can generate it myself for since they can keep their generators fully loaded and therefore at optimum efficiency.

A generator loaded to 25% of it's rated capacity as it would by much of the time supplying a single home will still consume far more than 25% of it's full load fuel consumption. If you could maintain a steady load from the house so that you could match the generator size perfectly then you could generate at close to utility rates.

So it is most economical to use an electric utility because of the lower cost and the fact that it is practical and economical to have backup for that utility. Electricity (like oil) also does not present the hazards of gas. If the insulation on an electric line fails it does not fill your home with explosive gas. If an electric line is shorted a circuit breaker or fuse interrupts the power. Gas services generally do not have comparable protective devices other than very recent seismic valves in earthquake areas and those provide no protection from any other faults.

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

For reference some of the better oil burners have similar features. Side power vent kits which can be used with any oil burner also have this feature where if there isn't airflow they lock out the burner.

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

Correct, however they haven't really found their way into non-direct vent furnaces yet.

Right and if you have gas you can get the combination explosive gas (nat. gas or propane) and CO detector. Note that with these you have to mount them high to detect nat. gas and low to detect propane since nat. gas rises and collects ceiling down and propane sinks and collects floor up. I think most states have CO detectors mandated in rental housing already.

Only a small percentage of furnaces oil or gas are sealed combustion at present. The Riello burners are particularly nice in a sealed combustion configuration with their pre and post purge cycles.

Oil furnaces are more prevalent in the northern climates where gas service is spotty and backup more critical. In those areas they are typically in basements to they are not consuming heated air.

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

The same applies to modern efficient oil furnaces though they do not use PVC pipe for those vents.

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

Correct and older furnaces, both oil and gas required chimneys. New furnaces both oil and gas have the option of direct venting though oil furnaces use metal pipes for their vents, not PVC. That difference is of no relevance to cost or operation though.

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

False. Modern oil and gas furnaces produce comparable amounts of emissions. The exact composition is different, but the overall pollution is the same (the EPA and DOE have studies that confirm this if you want to look).

Different emission components have different levels of human detectability and oil emissions are more detectable than gas emissions. In the case of both oil and gas, they don't produce a lot of CO unless the combustion adjustments are quite a bit off. When the adjustments are off the oil becomes even more detectable than the gas when the adjustments are off.

None handy, just personal experience with the exhaust of both under both proper combustion and improper combustion conditions. Neither is very detectable under proper combustion, but neither produces much CO then either. Under improper combustion the oil exhaust is far more noticeable as it produces both fine particulates (soot) and vaporized hydrocarbons.

I did, before I moved. I do not at present because I have no combustion appliances at present (electric).

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

There shouldn't, if pipes, regulators, valves and controls were all 100% reliable. As can plainly be seen from all the gas explosions that occur, that is not the case.

First off, uninhabitable meaning you have to leave during cleanup, and uninhabitable because it collapsed after the gas explosion are vastly different things. If you are home when the oil leaks you simply leave, safe and sound. If you are home when the gas leaks you can easily end up dead.

As for the environmental part, yes, it is over hyped. Cleanup of even

300 gal of fuel oil that leaks in a concrete basement is pretty minor if it's done reasonably soon. Cleanup of oil leaked from an underground tank is a different matter since until the advent of the double wall tanks with monitoring you aren't likely to detect the leak for months or years. That is why we replace 50 yr old underground tanks with indoor tanks or new double wall underground tanks.

Concrete floors are fairly water tight if they are in good condition. Oil will eventually soak through, but at a pretty slow rate. Not that many basements actually have drains either.

As for saturated in #2, I'd vastly prefer that over a smoldering crater where my house used to be. The oil can be readily pumped and vacuumed up from the surface and the concrete if it's saturated can be removed and replaced with far less expense than rebuilding the whole house after the gas explosion (if I survived the explosion).

Current oil furnaces have the same feature available.

I work for a bank.

How old are each of your furnaces? Where in the model range is each one? Both make a big difference. New vs. 30yr old isn't a fair comparison and neither is new high end vs. new low end.

Also since both nat. gas costs and oil costs fluctuate it's difficult to make a really valid comparison based on cost, particularly when someone buying their oil off season can get lower prices than someone buying just month to month. Rate lock-ins are also more frequently available for oil service.

The last furnace I just had installed at my mothers house this spring (Weil-McLain WTGO4 with a Becket burner) is 85% AFUE, but it is not a high end unit. If I was going for high end it would be a Buderus boiler with a Riello burner. The house needs a lot more insulation so the burner efficiency is a small factor at present.

Pete C.

[Pete C.]

Price differences are not negligible. During the peak of price gouging season one small company was about $0.15/gal cheaper than another larger one and the small company didn't even have their own storage terminal where the big company did. They also offered more discounts (senior and COD) than the larger company making the effective difference more like $0.25/gal. I consider that pretty significant when oil was running around $0.85/gal.

Not at all and not even the same comparison. First off I can choose between more than a dozen electric suppliers and second off the monopoly status is only one of the reasons I won't use nat. gas. Also unlike nat. gas, electricity is far less likely to have periods of no use while still being charged a service charge. Additionally the last time I checked you could disconnect and reconnect electricity without large service charges, unlike gas.

If you're leaving for vacation and don't review the house status and things like turning off the water and looking at the level on the oil tank then you're an idiot. If I'm getting ready for vacation and the oil tank is low I just call my supplier and ask them to deliver the next day (before I leave). Doesn't cost me any extra and is no more effort than turning off the water or unplugging some appliances.

Same here. With my diesel generator and oil heat I can go for weeks.

Oil is indeed a great choice under those conditions and it is also a very good choice under many more conditions, particularly if you are in a cold area even if gas is available.

By the way, no climate is too cold for geothermal heat pumps, you just have to get the coils below the frost line where you have a nice constant temperature.

Pete C.

[trader4]

Now, I'd love to see the supporting data for the claim that modern gas and oil furnaces produce the same amount of pollution. Why do you think many cities have replaced diesel bus fleets with ones that run natural gas if burning oil is just as clean? Natural gas produces only water and CO2. And nat gas even produces a third less CO2 than burning oil. Burning oil, in addition to the above, produces particulates, nitrous oxide, and sulfates.

The poster is right. First, you proclaim the smell produced by burning oil to be a virtue, because it may save you from dying from CO. . Then you claim oil heat is as clean as nat gas. Did you ever see an oil based appliance of any kind vented into a home? Yet millions of nat gas kitchen stoves work exactly that way. Gee, I wonder why?

A whopping total of 28 people a year die in the US from CO from natural gas heat systems period. I'd like to see any real world evidence that oil heat systems are any safer overall. Nat gas continues to increase in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?

[trader4]

I'd like to see the data that shows that home nat gas heating systems actually cause far greater fires than oil heating systems. Does the insurance company charge higher rates for gas furnaces based on payout on fires and explosions? Again, you are making wild assumptions, without any supporting data.

Sure there is a small additional risk from nat gas due to the possibility of an explosion that you do not have with oil. But you blow all this way out of proportion to the real risk. How many people die each year in auto accidents compared to furnace systems of any kind? It's 2 orders of magnitude or more higher. There are 40K people killed every year in US auto accidents. 17K die in falls. Only 3K die from ALL sources of building fire/explosion. While I couldn't find actual data on accidental nat gas fire deaths, by the time you seperate those out of the 3K, you will surely be down around the level of deaths due to lightning or commercial aviation. So, who besides you cares?

[George]

Explain how big oil isn't a monopopy. They are all in lock step with each other. Most people who use gas tend to use it for hot water, cooking and clothes drying so you tend to use it year round.

is subject to outages and is far

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in price.

you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages

No outage here in 35 years.

A natural gas furnace is already "green" since it isn't a petroleum product.