I have an oil furnace that is pretty expensive, we just moved in 2 months ago. The salesman from the hvac company said that gas is cheaper than electricity now, and that I could halve my heating costs by upgrading to a natural gas furnace.
I put in a new gas furnace, replacing an old oil one about a year ago. Heating costs did go down by over 40% but probably not 50%.
Depending on furnace size and installation difficulty, figure on over $4k for a new one. If your oil tank is underground and has leaked, removing it and cleaning up the mess could cost many thousands.
I did the change because our 63 year-old indoor oil tank was having problems and the furnace was nearly 30 years old. We would need to replace both shortly and it made sense to go with gas as there’s gas in the house. Being the oil tank was in the basement, removing it was only around $250.
If your oil furnace is old and will need replacing soon, doing the switch before it fails could make sense. I calculated the payback time on our replacement was around five years.
You can run some numbers at:
http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/fuel_cost_comparison_calculator/
Be sure to enter accurate numbers for efficiency. The gas efficiency might be 93% with a new furnace while the existing oil furnace may be old and have low efficiency.
Get a heat pump instead of gas. Not only will you save an absolute fortune, but it will double as an air conditioner in the summer.
I heard gas is cheaper right now. No?
My father did that nearly 50 years ago, and was never sorry.
One other thing - if you live in an area where it snows, having gas means you never have to worry about if the oil truck can get to your house. They should never let you get that low, but still.
I switched from oil to gas 4 years ago and the savings for the last 3 years have been significant ranging in the 40-50% range. With the cost of oil in decline this year, my savings will be in the 25-35% range but I still pleased because the cost of NG has also declined. I keep a spreadsheet on my energy costs and my $4,000 gas furnace will have paid for itself within the next 2 to 3 years.
I am also pleased with the new high efficiency gas furnace as it has a dual heating mode. When it first comes on, the burner runs at 100% capacity until the indoor heat setting is reached. After that, it basically runs at 50% capacity to maintain the indoor temp. I can’t imagine going back to oil.
Gas is the way to go for home heating and water heating from what I can tell. I’m not so sure a gas clothes dryer is really a bargain though.
The big things with gas are that it’s always there, since it’s run via gas lines, so there’s no fear of the oil truck getting stuck or being late or whatever. Second, natural gas isn’t as volatile as oil, and it’s primarily domestically produced, so no embargoes or anything like that. Third, it’s environmentally better than oil as far as emissions are concerned.
Natural gas prices are likely to stay low for a long time. In addition to the savings for the fuel gas also works well for forced hot air heating which can be used to heat a home rapidly, so if you’re not home all the time you can set back your thermostat to a very low temperature and get rapid heating when you return. The ducts for hot air can also be used for central air conditioning and humidifying the dry winter air. Oil hot air systems are available also, but usually they are hydronic which increases maintenance costs from broken pumps and leaking pipes, plus the danger of frozen pipes and leaking oil tanks. Oil heating in any form requires more maintenance to replace nozzles and cleaning to remove buildup in the firebox and chimney.
If you have a gas line you should switch to gas heat, I wish there was a gas line on my street.
Adding my voice to the chorus. Natural Gas is the best and cheapest option.
You’ll gain a lot of extra space too. The new N gas units are quite small compared to the 30 year old oil burners. Be sure to get the tank removed too. Its always a leakage risk and they take up a lot of room.
Gas can be a terrific and less expensive choice in the long run, but there a couple of things that can interfere with the savings.
Do you have an active gas line into your house already? If not, you’ll need to have one run, or have the gas company reconnect an inactive line (they sometimes disconnect your line from the main if you’re not an active customer. Both of those things can cost money.
If you have an active gas line do you have sufficient pressure to run a furnace? That’s a real problem in my neighborhood when people add a gas furnace to a line that previously only had to run a stove and/or water heater. The gas company can usually upgrade the line so you get sufficient pressure, but it could cost you money.
i would go with a wood furnace myself.
cheaper and you are using a carbon neutral renewable energy source (if you care about the environment)
Carbon neutral?? You’re taking sequestered carbon and releasing it back into the atmosphere! Not to mention the particulates contribute to smog. Burning wood is a filthy way to heat a home, and should never be encouraged.
Definitely don’t go back to oil. The question is whether to do heat pump or gas. My kerosene furnace was replaced last year with a heat pump, and I’ve been extremely happy with it. They are much quieter than other furnaces, in my experience. As pointed out above, they can run in reverse in summer to provide A/C.
The performance of a heat pump (in terms of how much energy they take to run) will depend on your climate. They operate to their best advantage, energy efficiency-wise, when temps are above freezing. With low temps in the teens/twenties here in December, about $30-$40 got added to my electric bill. (I should mention, though, that I have a small house–1.5 bedrooms–and I keep the thermostat well below 60F in winter, so please don’t take this as a typical value.) Way cheaper for me than oil.
Also, I agree with Nametag above–particulates from wood burning are nasty. Also, strictly speaking wood-burning is not carbon neutral–even if you are using plantation wood that is going to be harvested no matter what, the wood is harvested and transported using (presumably) diesel.
Unless you have your own woodlot, that is.
Now obviously electric-based furnaces (heat pump or otherwise) have their own environmental problems. In my area, electricity is 50% non-carbon-based and 50% coal. (Yuck.) NatGas combusions releases CO2 (although less than the equivalent amount of coal). But methane leakage from NatGas pipelines puts molecules into the atmosphere (methane) that are 7 times as potent as CO2 from a greenhouse perspective, so the environmental advantages of NatGas may be a wash. (This is disputed among environmental scientists, and the conclusions depend on pipeline leakage estimates, which is iffy.)
I think the best solution from an environmental perspective is to invest in home insulation and keep the thermostat set low in winter and pile on the sweaters. Granted, you may end up with your cats sleeping on your head at night to keep warm.
Our heat pump works in conjunction with the gas furnace in winter. If the ambient temp drops below a certain point, the “auxiliary” heat (furnace) kicks on to provide heat. Our furnace is ca 2005, so is not the latest in energy conservation, but our gas bill still dropped like a stone with the heat pump.