Oil vs. Natural Gas for heating

[Dan Mages]

Hello folks!

LOML's old boss has offered her a new job with his new team and we will be moving to Connecticut. Yea wifey! I am starting to research on homes in the Westville neighborhood of New Haven, CT area. I am seeing a lot of homes with oil heat in the area. Being a Midwestern boy, I am not used to oil heat. How does it compare with natural gas with cost and efficiency? Anything I should know or look for when checking out houses with oil heat? Is it prohibitively expensive to switch from oil to natural gas, assuming that it is available?

Thanks!


Dan

[Jim Becker]

Congrats to the LOYL!!

I don't know if there is any quantifiable difference in heating efficiency between the two fuels--someone else can comment on that, but regardless, the age and design efficiency of the specific heating system is more important, IMHO. The newer it is and the better the sizing for the job that was done during the design, the better off you will be. How energy efficient the home is will also be something to look at...have windows been replaced; insulation updated; air infiltration remediated, etc. You really do want to look at these things as you consider different properties.

BTW, get two independent home inspections rather than just one...just to be sure things don't get missed. And pick your own inspectors. The one(s) that may be recommended by the RE agent are not always the best choice if you really want to know what's going on... A few hundred now could pay off very well down the road.

[Lee Schierer]

I second the suggestion for a home inspector. When they inspect the house, tag along. That's what I did. Spotted a few things the inspector didn't. It saved my son a major headache when they found damage up in the trusses.

Regarding your heater question. You used to be able to convert from oil to gas and back, but the eficiency will suffer. If the furnace is more than 10 years old consider replacing it as part of the sale. Also, if the oil tank is buried outside, get it checked for leaks. You could end up with a major problem with underground tanks that have developed leaks. Clean up can easily top six figures.

Make sure the inspector checks the house for CO with all the windows closed and the exhaust fans running.

New England has problems in some areas with Radon make sure the house is tested. Remediation is costly.

Finally check the chimney inside and out for leaks, soot, dead critters, etc.

[Jim Becker]

Lee brings up a good point...there was an article recently in (I think) This Old House Magazine about a family that bought a place with an underground oil tank...six figures is what it's cost them, both to remediate their own property as well as the neighbors due to leaks.

[Pat Germain]

Natural gas is certainly more convenient. You don't have to hire someone to fill a tank regularly. Although the price of natural gas varies, it tends to be more stable than the cost of heating oil. I always hear people with oil heat complain when there's a price spike. It's likel gasonline. You never know where it's gonna go.

The advice about considering the efficiency of the furnace and the home is spot-on! Many people like older homes because of the character or they feel they were better built. This is a myth. Older, custom-built homes tended to be well-built, but your average tract house from the 1950's may or may not be better built than a new home built by a decent contractor. Also, unless they've had significant, expensive upgrades, older homes will be much harder to heat.

Example: I lived in a tiny 1100 sq foot home in Southern Virginia. I had gas heat with old, single pane windows. I moved to a brand new house in Colorado twice the size with gas heat, extra insulation and dual pane windows. Although Colorado gets a lot colder than Virginia, it still costs me less to heat my new home.

Newer home + newer furnace = cheaper to heat. Older home + older furnace = *expensive* to heat. However, as mentioned, installing a new furnace and good insulation and windows in a older home makes a big difference.

[Dan Mages]

Eeeks!! I will definately get the tank inspected if it is buried. I plan on buying buyer's insurance for the house. It costs a little more than a second inspection, but will cover almost everything that the inspector does not find. I have to find my paperwork on the policies and review what they cover.

I do know what you mean about newer furnaces. When I purchased my last house, the furnace was vintage 1970s, and a contractor's special at that. The brass gas line that fed it(!) had a small leak that was "sealed" with duct tape. That was the first thing to be chucked to the curb. Granted, the village took 3 days to approve my application despite the fact that the existing furnace was leaking gas. The city inspector gave me a hard time for buying the best furnace available, which he considered a waste of money. Once that was in place, I was spending less on gas on an 1800sqft house than I was at my 900sqft town home. The bills dripped even more as I replaced the windows and finished the basement. There were months where the gas usage was less than the previous month's estimate.

Dan

[Jeffrey Makiel]

There's some good advice given here.

If the oil tank is buried in the ground, a mortgage company will most likely deny you a loan. Also, home owner's insurance usually does not cover buried oil tanks...they sell separate policies for that.

Also, some mortgage companies, insurance companies, or municipalities may require a change out of a basement oil tank if the existing one is pretty old. Moisture at the bottom of the tank may cause corrosion and a leak.

As far as efficiency, natural gas is still the leader. Mostly because it maintains its efficiency all the time whereas oil furnaces and boilers degrade through the heating season. Natural gas also has less moving parts, and therefore, less prone to repairs.

Natural gas is always available. No 'degree-days' by the oil company or delivery issues. No sludge. No spills. No soot.

The downside to natural gas is the potential of generating poisonous and odorless carbon monoxide gas. Also, a natural gas leak within your home can be disastrous. However, there are ways to protect you from this risk.

Converting to natural gas is a significant cost and only possible if natural gas service is located on your street. If the home has natural gas for other appliances, the gas company must first check to see if your service is adequate to supply heating also. On the positive side, many gas companies offer a conversion rebate and often provide additional rebate if your new unit exceeds 80% flue efficiency.

Lastly, the chimney may need to have a stainless steel liner. Especially so if the chimney is along the outside of the house. A byproduct of natural gas combustion is water. This water vapor combines with the oil soot in your chimney (even if you cleaned your chimney) and creates an acid that attacks the masonry. A new liner, which is fairly expensive, will fix this issue.

I've had both natural gas and oil. I will choose natural gas every time. I converted my Mother's home from oil ten years ago. Never had another heating issue.

-Jeff :)

[Nancy Laird]

Oil heat is dirty, dirty, dirty. If you have any sort of blockage anywhere, you will get oily smoke and soot and sludge backblowing into your house, into everything. Happened to me in Maryland many years ago--chimney got clogged with leaves (in a rented house), and the oil furnace decided to regurgitate all over the house. Almost killed my dogs, I had to have EVERY PIECE OF FABRIC in the house professionally cleaned or laundered, had to wash down walls, floors, appliances, everything in every cabinet in the kitchen, and repaint the entire house. I had to move out of the house for 11 days!! It was not a pleasant experience whatsoever.

Natural gas is the only way to go. Just get a CO2 detector for the house.

Nancy (130 days)

[Ron Jones near Indy]

Nancy is correct. Oil heat is dirtier than gas. The air coming out of the duct will be warmer with oil. I've had both. When I replaced my furnace I could have gone either way. I chose natural gas.

[John Shuk]

Gas is much easier to deal with. basically invisible maintennece wise

[Ben Grunow]

Plan to have a buried oil tank removed as part of the buying process. Oil heat works and has been around for ever. You need to clean the unit each year (service contract with Oil provider cost about $350 yr) to take care of it and also reduce costs if something breaks during the winter and middle of the night service is required (lower rates with service contract).

I believe that CO gas is a by product of the cobustion of oil as well as nat gas so dont make that a deciding factor.

I have NO faith in home inspectors as the first thing they do is ask you to sign their form that holds them completely harmless should anything they comment on or miss, no matter how obvious, be wrong. I bet there is a school that provides certification for these types so if you go that route, make sure they are carrying the highest degree.

I have had several friends buy homes only to have simple problems that (to me) were completely obvious only to find that they were not noted by an inspector. No idea who the inspectors were.

Good luck and welcome to CT.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I have adjusted, managed and litigated tons of claims involving oil fired furnaces. Ran out of fuel and froze pipes, supply line clogged and froze pipes, low pressure cut off valve failed and froze pipes . . . can you tell I see a lot of frozen pipes? LOL!

There is no comparison between these units in how clean they are. Over time there WILL be film from oil through out your home. Soot and puff backs aren't much fun either. Never saw any of these problems with NG system. Overall NG and LP systems are much newer than oil based systems. Oil based systems are often retrofitted and improperly balanced resulting in insufficient draft which kills efficiency.

[Bryan Rocker]

When I moved up here to Ohio I was very concerned about oil heat. I had a friend here who used to own a heating and air conditioning company come out and look at prospective homes. LOML and I decided to remove oil heated homes from our research. We both grew up in natural gas homes but our last house in Oklahoma was propane. Sometimes when you want to replace oil furnaces with natural gas you will find there are no gas lines run to the neighborhood. At that point its either electric or propane. My house has a 90 percent propane furnace. The exhaust duct is PVC piping since it is a high efficiency condensing furnace. IMHO propane is cheaper to run than gas, especially if you own the propane tank. Owning the tank can save you as much as 50-70 cents per gallon.

Bryan

[Michael Morgan]

I built my house about 10 years ago and had a oil fired furnace installed. No gas lines near here:( It's been trouble free for 10 years and I have a 1000 gallon buried tank as well. After reading these responses I guess I have been real lucky. The one good thing about oil is I have not heard of a house exploding because of oil heat. :eek:

[Pat Germain]

The one good thing about oil is I have not heard of a house exploding because of oil heat. :eek:

That is a good point. Although, such occurances are pretty darned rare.

I'm sure having a thousand gallons of petroleum in your yard was no big deal in the past. However, these days one tiny spill could result in someone calling the EPA on you. Then, you'd wish it was the IRS after you instead. :eek:

[Joe Mioux]

The downside to natural gas is the potential of generating poisonous and odorless carbon monoxide gas. Also, a natural gas leak within your home can be disastrous. However, there are ways to protect you from this risk.
-Jeff :)

Are you saying that CO only occurs with Natural Gas? I always thought CO poisoning could happen with other combustible fuels.

Joe

[David G Baker]

I didn't read all of the details of all of the posts so I don't know if this was covered. In some areas natural gas is not available, especially in rural areas so the only options are oil, propane or electric heat.

[Frank Hagan]

CO is produced when you burn any carbon based fuel, LP, natural gas or oil. Or wood. So don't make that the deciding factor. I've been involved in cases where people have died from all of those sources.

Most oil heaters are not as efficient as the newer natural gas ones, but the trade off is in the complexity of the unit with natural gas. In areas where there are a lot of oil heaters used, you can easily find someone who knows the unit and its idiosyncrasies. That being said, oil heat is much dirtier for the environment, and the price fluctuations are more volatile. The purchase price also hits all at once ... 250 gallons of oil can get pricey (some oil companies allow you to spread out the payments, making it closer to your monthly outlay for something like natural gas).

From the standpoint of cost, efficiency and ease of use, I would go with natural gas. (Disclaimer: I used to work for a residential boiler manufacturer who sold natural gas, LP and oil-fired boilers.)

Many areas with a lot of oil-fired boilers do not have natural gas available, so you are stuck with either oil or LP (and LP is the most expensive option). I would make sure you have natural gas as an option in the area, even if you decide to give an oil-fired boiler a try.

[Kyle Kraft]

I'll agree with you Ben on the lack of faith in home inspectors. A couple I knew had one who couldn't tell them the amperage of the electric service in the house!!!!

[Rob Russell]

Dan,

There has been a lot of bad-mouthing of oil heat in this thread. Both my wife and I grew up in houses with oil heat and it's what we have in our house now. Yes, you should have the boiler or furnace cleaned every year. We do and the service contract is about $200 including the cleaning. Most full service oil companies offer a pre-buy program and/or fixed price program where you can insulate your self from winter price spikes. We have never had any of the issues that folks referred to and certainly have never had a "film from oil through out our home."

None of the gas folks have said it, but in the winter time gas prices spike up too - at least they do in our area. Generally speaking, I always thought that oil heat was considered to be overall lower cost than gas. Gas is cleaner and there is no doubt that natural gas is more convenient.

If the house has an underground tank, I would require it's removal as part of the house purchase. Many homeowners insurance policies will cover removal of a leaking underground tank, but I wouldn't want to move into a house that had one - just not worth the hassle. Anyone selling a house with an underground tank won't be surprised if you make the tank removal a condition of the purchase contract.

I'm not familiar with New Haven, but I'd check carefully with a couple of realtors about the neighborhood you're considering. There are definitely parts of New Haven that you do not want to live in. I'd ask about the change in the neighborhood over the past 10-15 years and the character of the Westville area.

Good luck onyour move to CT! Once you get here, I can clue you into some good places to eat about 30 minutes up the coast from you.

Rob

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Are you saying that CO only occurs with Natural Gas? I always thought CO poisoning could happen with other combustible fuels.

Joe

Joe,
All hydrocarbon based fuels produce carbon monoxide. However, it is more prevalent with natural gas vs heating oil in reality. I believe it has something to do with the thoroughness of natural gas combustion and the fact that improper natural gas combustion is virtually odorless too. In my area, CO monitors were first required for homes with natural gas heat. Now, everyone must have one regardless of heating fuel type.

However, I would not make it a deciding factor in what fuel type to buy...it's just another candid thought on my part. As folks stated, CO monitors are pretty cheap and effective.
-Jeff

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Dan,
Many homeowners insurance policies will cover removal of a leaking underground tank, but I wouldn't want to move into a house that had one - just not worth the hassle. Rob

Rob,
Be careful with that assumption. In my area, removal of an oil tank has been explicitly exempted from modern policies (less than 5 years old).

If your tank started leaking years ago, and you hire some expensive folks to help determine how much and when, you may have an insurance claim if you saved your old policies when the leak was assumed to begin. However, this is an up hill battle for the homeowner.

Also, the cost to remediate your property is astounding, and these costs may first come out of your pocket. Your State environmental agency, or local delegated authority, may not wait until financial responsibilities are settled amongst you and your insurance company. You are the owner of the property and that's what matters to most regulatory authorities.

It's a scary thing. Avoidance is key.

-Jeff :)

[Rob Russell]

... the cost to remediate your property is astounding, and these costs may first come out of your pocket ... Avoidance is key.
Yup. That's why I said I'd require underground tank removal as part of the purchase contract.

Our neighbors across the street went through this about 5 years ago when they sold their house. When they built in 1978-9, they had a 1000 gallon underground tank put in. That had to come out. They were lucky - no leaks.

[Pat Germain]

There has been a lot of bad-mouthing of oil heat in this thread. Rob

I don't think bad-mouthing was the intent here, Rob. Rather people are just sharing their ideas and experiences; some good, some bad. Thanks for sharing yours. :)

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

CT has a job crunch. Be sure to explore your own options.

I prefer oil it's a tad less volitile in price but hey~~ things change.

Natural Gas ( opposed to bottled gas) is the best cooking fuel. It burns hotter than bottled gas.

[Dan Mages]

CT has a job crunch. Be sure to explore your own options.

I was laid off 3 months ago and will going back to school after we complete this move. If my plans come fruition, I will be self employed and running a bakery in about 2-3 years.



I'm not familiar with New Haven, but I'd check carefully with a couple of realtors about the neighborhood you're considering. There are definitely parts of New Haven that you do not want to live in. I'd ask about the change in the neighborhood over the past 10-15 years and the character of the Westville area.

The Westville area is just north of the Yale Golf Club and West of Edgewood park. About 2-3 miles west of downtown New Haven. We have chosen this neighborhood because it is the heart of New Haven's Jewish community. We spoke with the local Jewish Family Services office and they informed us that is is a safe and friendly neighborhod.

[Rob Russell]

The Westville area is just north of the Yale Golf Club and West of Edgewood park. About 2-3 miles west of downtown New Haven. We have chosen this neighborhood because it is the heart of New Haven's Jewish community. We spoke with the local Jewish Family Services office and they informed us that is is a safe and friendly neighborhod.

Sounds good.

[Gary Muto]

Dan,
Good luck with your move. I go to Chicago (Lisle) regularly and always think that a native would not want to leave such a great area, but I'm sure CT is great too. Chicago is one of my favorite places.
I moved to and from NC in two years. My advice... pack your own tools. Better to risk the damage of your own pack than dealing with teh moving comapny for damaged and "lost" tools.
Do your research on the entire house and the oil/gas thing will work itself out. I guess I'm partial to NG, but I'd probably take oil over LPG.

I would worry about a buried tank as other have metnioned though.

I found it interesting that I'm not the only one who likes baking and Wood working. I recently changes jobs and my wife wanted me to open a bakery. I chickened out and stuck with engineering.

[Scott Long]

Just make sure that if you do find a house with an underground storage tank that when you you do get it tested that you srecify that it not be pressure tested.

My wife works for the DEP and I couldn't count how many horror stories that I have heard from people that just bought a house and had it pressure tested and found out a year later that their tank has a crack that has developed from the pressure testing. And you cannot go afted the agency that tested the tank because 9 chances out of 10 they have a clause in there contract.

[Al Willits]

fwiw I work for a Natural gas supplier and I'll rant for a sec here....:)

First, natural gas is not hotter than LP, but it doesn't make any difference anyway, a 100,000 btu furnace is a 100k on nat or propane.

CO is basically caused by incomplete combustion, not from a specific fuel, least in the heating industry.
If your worried about it, still a CO detector in each bedroom.

Also we deal with city/state inspectors on a daily basis and the one thing that stands out here in Minn is...thay are NOT responsible (read liable)for errors, make sure the inspector you get is or at least has very good reference's.

Now days converting a oiled fired furnace to nat gas is a waste of money, the higher efficiency gas models are designed for nat or propane and not oil, least here anyway.
So if your gonna change over to nat, get a new furnace, designed for gas.

As far as nat gas leaks go, the majority of serious gas leaks do not just appear, in almost 30 years of doing this insanity, invariably its Mr. homeowner the DIY king, who almost blows him and his family up, Nat gas has a very strong odorant added to it and a very small leak with usually stink up the house.
And occasionally we'll loss a house because of construction in the streets or malfunctions, but it pretty rare.

And while Nat gas furnaces require generally less maintenance, they should be looked at occasionally, Stuff does happen..

Nat is usually cheaper than Fuel oil, but it may depend on location, see if you can find cost per btu's of each and compare that cost versus converting from oil to gas, big part is how long do you plan on staying in this house, may not be enough time for payback if your only there for a few years.

rant off....besides its bed time...:D :D

Al

[Dan Mages]

Thanks again everyone for all of the great insight!

I did a little research on the web. Most of the data is heavily biased by oil or gas companies. I did find a little information claiming that oil burners can be converted to run on biodeisel. That would be an interesting way to stick it to those folks in the persian gulf!

Dan