Propane is even more dangerous than nat. gas. Because it is heavier than air it is even less likely to dissipate from a leak in a house. Because it is not a pipeline service you have to store a large quantity on-site in a tank that you can't smoke/grill/whatever around and that has to be outside where it is exposed to the weather and more likely to rust than an oil tank in a basement.
air. It's
made up from
Air typically leaks into basements just fine through garage doors which are damn near impossible to seal, utility penetrations, dryer vents and other basement openings. You won't generally see a draft sucking under the gap at the bottom of the one basement door.
I was referring to the losses after the furnaces heat output, not the stack.
Bad assumptions as well since a large percentage of furnaces and related duct work travel through unconditioned space. Horizontal configuration gas furnaces in particular often end up in cold attics.
Yes? And? As I said there are a lot of losses after the furnace output and gas furnaces often end up in icy attics where oil furnaces almost never do.
So what? You keep claiming that oil is so efficient. I say again, my average condensing furnace is about 96 AFUE. Which oil furnaces come close to that again?
converted to
So if you need to put a furnace unit in an attic, you are out of luck with oil again. Oh yeah, insulate those ducts.
Wow! You can't grill near a natural gas tank! I think you just ruined a lot Labor day parties. Nice going. :)
house air. It's
made up from
Well my garage IS quite sealed from my basement, with a tight fireproof door with lots of weather stripping. Of course it's a moot point for the furnace discussion,since the natural gas furnace uses outside temperature air (colder air contains more oxygen too :) which it brings directly inside for its use.
its natural gas that could be cleaned up futher for regular use, supposedly it isnt cost effective...
on the gas vs oil heat consider this.
A electric outage costs the power company little other than fixing what broke......
a natural gas outage costs a lot to the provider, turn off EVERY effected home then go back and turn every signle home back on, winter break in or pay for frozen pipe damage.
gas has a BIG incentive to maintain its infrastructruture well, electric doesnt really have that same $$ reason.
around here duquesne light historically waits till the transformer blows, resetting it thermal protection over and over to save a buck.
gas goes around replacing lines thruout their service area.
longest gas outage we ever had ZERO I am 49:(
Longest electric outage about 4 days after major storm, average outage
6 to 8 hours.. several times a year. mini outages nearly every day of a few minutes long. I gave up on my microwaves digital clock for this reason and keep my satellite DVR AKA TIVO on a UPS since it takes my DVR a couple minutes to reboot and its basically a computer...
Gas CARES electric doesnt although just recently duquesne light having drawn attention for unreliable service has promised to do better and raise our rates:(
And what is causing the aforementioned "cost factors???"
(dirty exhaust, sulfer, soot, acids....)
Where should I look there?
Nope.
Oh really?
"At the time of the 1973 oil embargo, about 17 percent of U.S. electricity was generated by burning oil, and about five percent from nuclear energy. But, twenty-five years later, oil represents only about three percent of U.S. electricity production, while nuclear energy supplies almost twenty percent."
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By the way, a number of larger power plants have been outfitted to burn either oil OR gas. Yet they are burning gas predominantly nowadays. Why?
And why would permitting and siting be so much easier for those natural gas plants? Seems that it would be lot more harder. You know, they must be blowing up and exploding on a regular basis.
And I *also* said that I disagree with your hypothesis.
Too bad you snipped it out, because you missed the point. You were all hot and bothered about gas because a gas bill contains a minimum billing charge. I pointed out that electricity utilities have the same deal, and also the savings from gas makes up for that nominal fee in spades.
Umm, that's no different than gas supplier choice. You were all upset about the gas utility "monopoly" so I pointed out that electricity is a monopoly too. Both for the distribution portions. You appear to be located in Texas with a incumbent distributor of TXU and "choice" options range from about 13.4 cents to 16 cents per kW/hr. So some "choice" but a very minor spread between the highest and lowest, with most options very close together in between, all with varying terms.
Absolutely false. Natural gas generators are a wonderful thing, and do not require tanks, fuel storage, deliveries, etc. They also burn much cleaner than say, a diesel fuel. Extremely practical.
I'm not sure at the moment, I have too many bookmarks to find it easily. Suppose that rather defeats the purpose of bookmarks.
killed in this case,
That is / was *not* an explosion, not even close. I don't think a blowback on a residential boiler has ever injured anyone, much less killed them. Certainly it will scare the shit out of them and perhaps teach them not to keep messing with the thing if they don't know what they are doing.
Oil burners do *not* have blowbacks on their own, they have had the safety devices to prevent that for decades. Blowbacks occur when someone keeps pressing the reset button ignoring the warning not to press it more than once. Oil burner controls from the last couple decades have incorporated a "three strikes and you're out" lockout to prevent this.
tiny compared to
America, not hostile
(exported 24.19 cubic
I'm assuming you forgot a billion on the US numbers. So importing something like 18% nat. gas vs. 50% oil. Not that drastic a difference and given the current trends the gap is likely to close further.
foreign policy and
Our perpetually inept middle east foreign policy has less to do with oil than the anti war folks claim. There are serious issues there that we need to deal with that have nothing to do with oil. Those issues did come largely as a result of oil, but not directly from US actions.
The sudden appearance of the oil wealth in the middle east contributed to the downfall of their other economic sectors and the rise of their corrupt / oppressive governments and the resulting collapse of most of their civilization.
If we had not been in the market for oil when it was discovered there, if there culture had advanced more and stabilized before oil was discovered there, or if the Brits hadn't been meddling over there the problems would likely have been avoided.
existing fuel?
That campaign was a while back. Notice that safety is not included in their current campaign either. Their claim that it is environmentally friendly is more or less true, the implication that other options are not is however untrue.
That is an interesting link however you probably didn't read it thoroughly:
"There are many possible causes of oil burner emergencies and fires. Fortunately, despite human error and poor maintenance practices, the millions of oil burners in use today function without a mishap year after year. When they do malfunction, the fire department is called and usually remedies the situation with little effort. But never forget that these seemingly harmless emergencies can and sometimes do turn deadly, whether it be from fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide poisoning, and you must be ever on guard against such instances."
Additionally most of the failure modes they indicate are all but impossible with burners and controls manufactured in the last couple decades. Most are very unlikely with burners or controls even older. Due to the longevity of oil equipment there are however some really old units out there.
This other bit:
"Fuel oil comes in several grades, number 1 to 5 grade oil, and has the following general fire hazard properties: a flashpoint of 1007F to
1507F, a flammable (explosive) range of 0.7 to 5 percent when mixed with air, and an ignition temperature of 4947F."
should give a bit of a reminder on just how difficult it is to get oil to burn and the near impossibility of igniting oil spilled from a tank leak.
natural gas
opposing electric
water heater, gas
efficient furnace
usage charges (similar
Besides even in
a good chance I'm
A 10% efficiency difference during a period when you were only heating hot water (to keep the comparison fair) would amount to about $5 with today's high prices.
climates.
A/C operation only affects the blower. There is no stress on the burner or heat exchanger. Unless of course the POS unit leaks condensate into the heat exchanger and it's rusted out by the time heating season rolls around.
I didn't because I don't use gas. I base that on construction knowledge.
drains, which often have
This was a small storm drain on a road with a significant grade. No issues with gravity flow, no excessively deep installation.
the opposite,
No, not really. An individual town may be an anomaly, but the regions in general have notably different underground utility construction costs. This is changing a bit with some scary new trenchers able to cut through granite without blasting and leave nice cuttings to back fill with.
expensive in
Find me any part of CT away from the shore where you don't have significant boulders and ledge to deal with.
lot of advertising
heat" and how hot it is,
oil dealers, but an
A cooperative advertising arrangement is not in any was a monopoly and indeed it's the only way many of the small oil dealers could get advertising outside local newspapers and direct mail. They little local oil dealers don't have the deep pockets of the big state wide nat. gas monopolies.
I am careful. The tank is located where if it did explode it would be fairly contained and is not located near any windows that could create shrapnel. The range I just have to hope for the best.
That has been my point when people keep claiming that gas burners don't need service. The fact is that any combustion appliance is dangerous if it's not serviced properly.
It also rarely occurs without human intervention not heeding the warnings on the unit. New units take the human factor into account as well with lockout modes.
Right, but that is not the fault of the oil burner and newer oil burners prevent that as well.
Because most do not get their annual service. No annual service for a few years and nozzles begin to clog causing the combustion to go out of adjustment, soot to form and efficiency to plummet until finally someone calls for service. If they were serviced even every other year they would be nice and clean.
Yea, large commercial / industrial boilers of either gas or oil can do interesting things. Recall one story of a fairly small nat. gas commercial boiler on about the 20th floor of a building that had it's own little blowback and blew the boiler door off barely missing the service guys before it went through the wall and fell the 20 stories to the street below.
Relative to the total number of units? Very few. Relative to each other there is a significant difference.
Yes, well it can be overblown if you let yourself be taken in by the hype. Even then it still pales in comparison to rebuilding from the crater the gas explosion left, or paying for the funeral.
The outer tanks are poly or fiberglass and they have leak detectors between the inner and outer walls that will trigger an alarm mounted in the house. Basically just a smaller version of the tanks they now use at gas stations.
Not particularly cheap, but if you need the capacity and don't have the room for several conventional 300 gal indoor tanks they are a good option.
Old tanks certainly caused problems, new tanks generally do not.
The MTBE fiasco was caused primarily by eco-nuts pressing for something to be done without adequate research. The problem was not just from leaking tanks and those tanks were likely old tanks, not new. The problem that the MTBE lowered mileage enough to cause more gas to be consumed to offset any pollution reduction was an even bigger problem resulting from the knee jerk nonsense. So not only was no pollution reduced from the tailpipe, additional pollution from the additive was generated, all of which could have been avoided with a year of research and testing.
Actually, per building codes, they are. There is supposed to be a concrete or block containment wall around tanks of sufficient height to contain the contents of the largest single tank in the space. I don't have the codes handy, but I think it should have a sealer applied to the wall and floor as well. Fairly recent code.
Well, I keep hearing of people killed in gas explosions in their houses. Many are elderly which may be a result of reduced ability to smell the leaking gas, not remembering warnings to not turn on lights and get out if they smell gas, forgetfulness in having the equipment serviced regularly, very old equipment, or a combination of all of those.
When they are out of adjustment and producing a lot of CO, yes. When they are operating properly they produce little CO and little fumes.
Ones that presently cost too much for residential use.
That picture was attributed to not turning off the water before going on vacation when it got very cold and a pipe froze and burst in the ceiling over the unheated garage. I've never seen any reference to the type of heating system in the house or a fault with it.
Diesel generators offer auto start, exercise cycles etc. as well. As for burning cleaner that depends on the particular engine. Larger and more expensive units will be cleaner than small inexpensive ones. Run it on biodiesel or WVO and you have yet another comparison.
Such as? A properly sized and installed geothermal heat pump will operate just fine in most any environment.
A lifetime warrantee on one component is not necessarily a good thing if you keep replacing the components around it.
That mid range Weil-McLain WTGO4 boiler I just had installed in my mother's place has a comparable warrantee:
"Limited Lifetime Warranty Covers cast iron sections. "
Efficiency isn't everything. If the 8% more efficient gas furnace saves me $200 in fuel during a heavy heating season, but subjects me to a gas outage that I have no way to provide backup for which cause $1,000 in damage due to frozen pipes (neglecting the fact that I know to drain the pipes, most people don't).
My immediate neighborhood did not have gas service, guess the gas company didn't want to spend months of blasting to install lines.
The neighborhoods within 10 miles of me that did have gas service had at least a couple outages per year that I heard of and since I was not there to personally count them probably several more per year that got little press. Multiply that times 36 years and compare to the same 36 years of flawless oil service.
Yep. Better to be prepared than screwed. Almost like a boy scout, except I was never a scout.
You misread that statement. I said it is possible and practical to provide backup for electric service. It is not possible or practical to provide backup for gas service.
Providing backup for gas service in a residential setting would require a redundant backup furnace or boiler fired by an alternate fuel like oil or electricity.
Wood fired boilers are becoming popular in the northeast, but as primary sources, not backup for the most part. Some commercial sized burners are available in dual fuel (oil / gas) though and can switch between fuels at any time.
For lines inside a home, not for the distribution lines in a neighborhood.
Somewhere between 5 and 10 years ago. In CT, I believe in the Avon / Simsbury area. I think it was a gas line rupture, not a dig up or anything. Should be somewhere in the Hartford Courant archives if you want to look.
Yes all numbers are in billions sq meters. It's a huge difference in terms of energy, as total gas imports was estimated at 114.1 billion cubic meters total for the year. Oil imports were 13.15 million barrels per DAY average or 4.790 billion barrels .
To compare, 1 cubic meter of natural gas contains about 36 409.2241 BTUs, 1 barrel of oil contains about
Or to put it in another way, natural gas was about 1/7 of oil imports.
our foreign policy and
Please. I'm not an "anti war folk" but get real. The United States will spare no expense to keep the Straits of Hormuz open and flowing.
Which civilization was "collapsed" by oil? Saudi Arabia (formerly wandering nomads?)
Uh huh.
existing fuel?
Natural gas burns much cleaner than oil. Don't take my word for it, super efficient condensing furnaces are common with natural gas but oil doesn't even burn clean enough for a condensing application, all the soot and sulfur and crap makes it a show-stopper. New electric plants are favored to be gas because it burns cleaner and has lower emissions, which is now important. Transit agencies are even starting to buy clean "natural gas" buses for the simple reason that they have so much less emissions than #2 oil (aka Diesel fuel)
No oil will generally not go boom, unless it is atomized, but that doesn't mean that an oil burner malfunction can't fill your house with soot or burn it down.
In Eastern Massachusetts last winter, a home had to be abandoned due to an oil leak causing heavy fumes and making the home uninhabitable. The family wasn't going home anytime soon, and the last I heard about it they were talking of demolishing the structure.
my natural gas
opposing electric
water heater, gas
efficient furnace
usage charges (similar
efficiency. Besides even in
is a good chance I'm
Efficiency difference? Read again, I was referring to your complaints about "service charges" during non-use periods (summer).
Yeah, except the main consumption of natural gas and reason for using it is heating the HOUSE.
climates.
Yeah it only affects that "cheap" blower, remember???
But you're making claims about gas, which is what we're discussing.
What construction knowledge? And using that construction knowledge of yours, please show the numbers.
drains, which often have
Uh huh. So what does that have to do with natural gas?
other area in
the opposite,
Good thing natural gas is the only underground utility, right? And natural gas is so expensive that nobody can afford to install it, right? Good thing sending huge heavy trucks with people driving them around to everyone's house is so cheap and efficient.
more expensive in
If you're talking about new construction on an apples to apples comparison, it is possible you might need to do some blasting to install some utilities. However that also includes sewer pipe (which is generally a lot more deep than nat gas), water, maybe electric, telephone in newer subdivisions, etc. Big deal.
lot of advertising
heat" and how hot it is,
other oil dealers, but an
So to rectify that they collude together. Big deal.
But you don't provide any reference for you claim, so it is just rambling.
You don't think it does? You think you just stick a pipe in the ground and run it to your furnace?
Think again, nat. gas does indeed get refined to remove a bunch of nasty impurities in the gas. If it didn't need refining to be useable offshore oil platforms would use the nat. gas they separate to power their generators instead of just flaring it off.
The points are that you think natural gas is not a petroleum related product and that there was a significant amount of oil based electric production in this country.
Electricity production has been shifting from coal (not oil) to nat. gas due to price (until they built all those generating plants and drove up the price) and political issues making it easier to build small nat. gas generating plants.
Um, it's the same gas, before the refining done to clean it up enough to be plumbed to your house.
In numbers, what is the "significant difference" that you claim?
Yeah an oil spill into the ground causing environmental damage to the ground, not to mention the damage to the house and its contents and/or making the house uninhabitable is just "hype." I don't think there is a difference in funeral costs from people dying in burning houses caused by oil, gas, or whatever. If oil is so much safer, which insurance companies give the oil heat discount or gas heat surcharge?
Great. So this residential detector needs to be working properly in a decade or two or three when the tank starts leaking. How common is this?
What are they putting in your Texas water? The problem with MTBE is that it gets into the water and travels. It travels much farther than the leaking gasoline/petroleum mess in service station leaking tanks disasters.
That's false. MTBE actually did help meet clean air goals, which is the reason it was used. The oil companies weren't buying it for nothing. In the cylinder, this ether is an oxygenate.
Yeah, it's all the "eco-nuts" fault. Like President Bush, who just eliminated federal protections for oil companies for MTBE lawsuits. Funny how all of the oil companies phased out their MBTE faster than they could lift up a price changing pole. The fed government didn't ban MTBE by the way; several states have.
I have never seen that, even in brand spanking new houses finished two months ago. Which building code are you talking about?
backhoe
Yeah, it's so common now, the news doesn't even bother covering it anymore.
You keep changing your topics. My comment was directed at your complaints that natural gas burns too cleanly for someone to smell the fumes if somehow they come into the house, unlike oil, thus CO would be more likely to kill. Even if that was true, it's moot with CO detectors, which everyone should have anyway.
very
And which ones are those ? With that huge residential oil market, why would it cost so much to make a high efficient furnace from a such a superior product like oil, when they've been around for years with natural gas? Maybe the natural gas market is just so much larger due to the need to keep replacing the furnaces when the house keeps blowing up.
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