Poll: Oil or Propane

Hey Guys I am looking to see who has which of the following options. Do you heat your house with Oil or Propane. Other than propane being cleaner, post up reasons below you have what. I am looking into a house with an old oil burner and am considering replacing it one day with propane. But am in the air

 

www.eia.gov/neic/experts/heatcalc.xls

At the time I built my place propane was much cheaper than oil to heat with and it's less maintenance.

 

I would install a condensing propane furnace with an air source heat pump. The heat pump will be able to heat the house when the outside temperature is above 35 or 40 degrees. When it's colder than that the furnace will run instead of the heat pump. Also, if you loose power you can run the furnace off a generator. For example a tri-fuel Honda EU2000i portable generator or a whole house auxiliary generator running off the same propane tank supplying the furnace.

I would replace it sooner rather than later. Old oil burners are horribly inefficient. Even new ones NEED annual maintenance and you have to remember the existing oil tank is probably at least as old as the furnace. Removing a leaking tank and the contaminated soil is a nightmare.

 

Where I live oil is not an option and Natural Gas has not made it this far out yet. So I have Propane but I don't use it to heat with. When I purchased my home I installed a Pellet Stove and It Was The Best Thing I could Have Done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This. I see oil tanks/burners fail on a daily basis. Trust me you dont want to have to deal with contaminated soils around and under your house. Very expensive and time consuming to have a cleanup done.

 

Plus side is old in ground tank was removed with no leak or contamination already. New one as of last year is in garage

 

kerosene in a diesel stove. cheap and efficient. the stove is expensive unless you can find someone getting rid of one.

 

Pellets.

 

I have oil right now, but I'll be switching over to natural gas this summer.

Around here, propane is now 4x more $ than what it was a few years ago... not sure about your area's prices.

I do all my own maintenance on my oil burner/chamber because I have an oil burner technician certificate that I've earned many years ago (now has long expiered ).

Gas/propane is so much cleaner and virtually maintenance free compared to oil, but a properly maintained/tuned oil burner is just as good.

 

My heat and hot water are oil but I have propane for the stove top and dryer. I like the propane for the stove in the event we lose power, I can still cook even without hooking up the generator. I bought a small generator that'll power the boiler and the fridge. My heat is forced hot water baseboard heat and I have one zone that has 1 cast iron radiators in a back room. I like oil heat, it does well for our house but I would prefer to have a cast iron stove or a firebox with a blower.