I’m living in NJ but I’m originally from GA. One of the most noticeable differences between up here from down there is that people use oil to heat their homes in the north. The whole concept is foreign down south, where they use natural gas. Why isn’t natural gas used up here? Is it because oil burns “hotter” or something?
My understanding is that oil is an older technology. Heating oil was the standard, and then natural gas was introduced.
It is debatable which is cheaper / safer / more efficient, but even if a person would prefer gas in theory, the expense of changing from one to the other is a big disincentive.
You may notice that the houses which use oil tend to be older than the ones that use gas.
Not much petrolium production there
I think its the economics of transporting the oil vs. the gas
Of course, central heating first took hold in the colder climates. Setting up the truck distribution system for oil was much easier than laying pipeline to every residence. Therefore, oil took hold first. When it was realized that there was a huge demand for gas, the regulated distribution monopolies were formed.
Age has a lot to do with it, in more ways than one.
You have to remember, in the earliest days of gas distribution, there were a lot of explosions that took out entire apartment blocks. This all occurred in the more heavily populated colder areas at the turn of the twentieth century, which means the Northeast.
I think these explosions motivated a lot of people to stick with oil at a crucial development time, with the result that many smaller streets in some towns don’t even have a convenient gas main nearby to hook up to.
The gas company in the Boston suburb where I grew up would have loved to have customers on our street. I recall my father rejecting it at the cellular level.
And rest assured that natural gas will be displacing heating oil as time passes by.
At my old house, we used LP. The area didn’t have any gas lines. Everyone used LP. Then they came through with gas and we switched (about 1992). So not all areas have gas lines yet.
Most of the older buildings around here (Boston) originally had coal heat. The conversion of a boiler from coal to oil was a relatively simple task, remove the fire box door and replace it with a mounting plate for the burner, do a little sealing add am oil tank and you’re done. The house I grew up in was this way as were most in our neighborhood. As a kid I remember some still receiving coal deliveries.
Most of NYC uses natural gas heat.
Oil is going to be more popular in suburban and rural areas where it’s less economical to construct gas pipes.
Nobody has mentioned air conditioning.
From my understanding the boom in housing in the south didn’t really take off till a/c became available to the masses. So the south wasn’t that popular to move to because it was just too darn hot. Sure you had some people, but with big properties and the like. When demand increased (along with property value) the big estates subdivided and housing developments sprung up at the same time as the national gas pipeline system was being expanded. It is much easier to bring natural gas to a new development then to a existing one.
I’ll second the “no gas lines” theory. There aren’t gas lines (no cable, either) in my rural subdivision and I doubt if it would ever be profitable for the gas company to install them. Most people use LP or electric.
Recent years have seen a lot of growth in gas pipeline capacity in the U.S. In 2000, 6,983 MMcfpd were added, in 2001 9,262 MMcfpd were added, 12,848 MMcfpd were added in 2002 and 2003 should see a 12,937 MMcfpd increase in capacity. If you go here you can see that much new pipeline construction is in the northeast (warning - it’s on page 4 of an Acrobat document and it takes forever to load). The pipeline business is anticipating a slowdown, though, both because of the economic slowdown and because the gas trading business is a mess (remember Enron?).
Well, I’ll tell you why I use heating oil: I am afraid of gas lines. I grant you it’s very rare, but every once in a while you hear of an explosion from leaking gas. Heating oil doesn’t explode. I have an above-ground tank, so I don’t have to worry about leakage and pollution; if the thing began to leak, we’d know about it very quickly. When my house was built, there were no gas lines here, and the closest one even now is some distance away. Even if I wanted to, it would cost megabucks to convert to gas.
There is a lot of fuel oil used in NYC. Many buildings use only oil or are able to use both and convert between the two depending on price and/or their contract with the gas company. For instance, a building might have a contract the states that if the temp. drops below 10 degrees they will convert to oil and thereby get a better contract price on the gas. The gas company benefits by reducing some of the demand when it is highest.
I’ve gone by the new, huge building at Mt. Sinai hospital on a cold winter day and seen three large oil tank trucks waiting to deliver their supply. I was suprised that a new building like that would be using oil and not gas.
The biggest problem with oil is the storage tanks. A lot of these tanks were buried over the years and are considered an environmental hazard. A lot of homeowners have had to spend some serious coin to have them dug up, cleaned up and removed.
If you have a house with average oil usage, how often do you need to get a refill? And how much is it? Just curious how much I would have to pay if I were blessed with a house in this glorious state o’ mine.
In calendar year 2002, I spent just over $1000 on heating oil. I had the tank filled four times. This is an older 2-story Cape Cod house, not as tightly sealed as it should be. Obviously, with a smaller and/or better-insulated house, the cost would be less.
Three weeks ago a natural gas explosion blew an entire strip mall to smithereens just blocks from my house. Seven people were blown to bits. Gas has its drawbacks.
If you don’t have a pipeline in place, natural gas is expensive to transport–hence the deplorable (but, sadly, economically necessary) practice of simply burning off natural gas at many oil wells.
Why is heating oil used up north?
Just a guess, but maybe because it’s cold?