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Thread: Anyone convert from oil to natural gas heat?

  1. #1
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    Anyone convert from oil to natural gas heat?

    Anyone convert from oil to natural gas heat?

    With heating oil close to $4 gal I need to do something. I live in a brick home built in the 50's. Just brick with lath and plaster. No insulation in the walls and no place to put it.

    I do have natural gas by the house. I know this may be hard to answer but will natural gas save me money? Interested in anyone who may have converted from oil to gas and what Kind of savings (If any) they saw.
    "Remember back in the day, when things were made by hand, and people took pride in their work?"
    - Rick Dale

  2. #2
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    Simple answer is in most cases; probably! I have all electric and would like to go to gas. Am waiting for an answer from the gas company about connecting possibilities.
    You need to know how many BTU's you require and compare that to what you are paying for oil and what the price is for natural gas where you are. You also have to account for efficiencies of the furnace(s) and the relative costs/BTU of the fuels. I figure I can save about $500/yr switching to natural gas from electric. I suspect it will take about ten years to break even, but I'm not planning on moving. There are sites that will compare cost/BTU, you'll have to search for that info. I don't have one bookmarked.

  3. #3
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    Back in the late 70s I did just that and yes it did save money even back then. I got a conversion burner and used the same furnace.

  4. #4
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    You have to remember that natural gas is currently at a ten year low for prices. Will you still save money if natural gas prices go up to the highs of 2008? Many people are now looking to natural gas to replace oil so I expect natural gas prices will go up as demand increases.

    Natural gas prices were tracking the price of oil, but the supply has increased so much in recent years that this is no longer the case.

  5. #5
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    I am not an expert but I have two houses -- one a rental, one a vacation house, close to each other. One has oil, the other propane gas. Bear in mind propane is more expensive than natural gas. The propane system runs cheaper. I believe that the reason is that the gas furnace is very high efficiency, the flue is a PVC pipe, that's how little heat goes up the chimney. The oil furnace has a brick chimney and the exhaust is quite warm. I don't know if there are oil burners with that level of efficiency but if not then gas may be a winner. Please let us know how this pans out for you -- it's an important topic. The cost of the conversion is obviously an important factor. BTW we have lots of domestic natural gas. Are you on a forced air system or do you have radiators?
    Last edited by Joel Goodman; 03-09-2012 at 3:56 PM.

  6. #6
    Download this link. Input the local prices for what you want to compare. This will give you an idea of comparison prices.

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

  7. #7
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    We have a boiler that heats our domestic hot water and heats hot water to heat our living space. For the past 10 years we have used about 1200 gallons of oil per year. When we moved into our house in 2002 the heating oil was $1.00 per gallon. This year oil is selling for $4.00 per gallon.

    So we treated ourselves to a coal stove. Burning the coal has cut our oil use in half. And the coal costs a bit less than half the cost of oil.

    The coal comes from PA, and the stove is American made in PA. We are extremely happy with the decision to put the coal stove in. The payback period for the stove is less than two heating seasons.

    The nice thing about using coal or natural gas is they both are energy sources that come from North America, whereas the oil is likely from the middle east.

    There is a wealth of information about burning coal here: http://nepacrossroads.com/

    And if you do want to see a good coal stove: http://www.harmanstoves.com

    I now have a good source of coal in CT and I don't think we will ever regret firing up the coal stove. btw we also have a wood stove and have 5 full cords of oak, maple, hickory and beech seasoned and ready to burn. But the nice thing about coal versus oil is the coal fire burns hot all night long so you don't need to get up and add fuel.

    Good luck with your decision.

  8. #8
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    Heck yes! We converted an 80 year old house in upstate NY with absolutely no insulation except layers of old newspaper in the attic. $1,200 a month to heat on oil...now 200 a month. We did insulate the attic though

  9. #9
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    Thanks for all the info. Will give it some thought. Need to figure out how much it would cost to get gas lines run etc.....
    "Remember back in the day, when things were made by hand, and people took pride in their work?"
    - Rick Dale

  10. #10
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    Kinda veering off topic, but can anyone explain why much of the northeast uses fuel oil and much of the midwest uses natural gas? Was it because oil was first discovered in the northeast and fuel oil/diesel used to be dirt cheap? I perhaps incorrectly assumed there aren't natural gas lines in the street/boulevard so people can't get natural gas at all. I know that locally the gas utility doesn't charge to hook up to natural gas because they want to sell you the gas naturally.

    I couldn't imagine spending $1,200 a month on heat. I probably spend right around $1,200 a YEAR to heat my 2,700 square foot home here in Minneapolis. It helps that my house was built in 2001 and is heavily insulated and sealed against air leaks.

  11. #11
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    Brian,
    The house we converted was my MIL's. She was deathly afraid that gas would blow her house up. It took years for us to convince her it was a safe fuel. When i was a kid my dad was a volunteer fireman and I'd ride along sometimes. One time we went to a house that had been blown apart by a propane leak. All four walls were flat out on the ground and the roof had dropped straight down. It was not an uncommon occurrence and it didn't take many of those to make folks think twice about "gas".

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Lehnert View Post
    A
    I do have natural gas by the house. I know this may be hard to answer but will natural gas save me money? Interested in anyone who may have converted from oil to gas and what Kind of savings (If any) they saw.
    I would convert without a doubt unless the cost to convert was super sky high.

    Natural gas is very unlikely to be high cost at any point in the near to mid-term unless somoene bans hydraulic fracking, and even then, I think the capacity is there (people are threatening to shut down producing wells, which makes no sense to me, but whatever) to keep the price low for a long time.

    I don't see anything that suggests oil will be cheap any time in the near to mid term, either. Maybe not ever again.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Ted Calver View Post
    Brian,
    The house we converted was my MIL's. She was deathly afraid that gas would blow her house up. It took years for us to convince her it was a safe fuel. When i was a kid my dad was a volunteer fireman and I'd ride along sometimes. One time we went to a house that had been blown apart by a propane leak. All four walls were flat out on the ground and the roof had dropped straight down. It was not an uncommon occurrence and it didn't take many of those to make folks think twice about "gas".
    It's pretty hard to not notice the odor of gas. Does propane not have that in it? The worst thing I've seen recently was the gas line that blew up in california a couple of years ago, without warning.

    But the only explosions I've ever heard of around here (in a region with a few million people who almost universally use gas) were one abandoned house, and a guy committing (or trying to commit) suicide.

    I'd imagine far more people die from carbon monoxide poisoning from cracked heat exchangers, etc.

    I think maybe "town gas" explosions weren't quite as uncommon when the gas was unscented. Someone blew up an ice cream place around here back in the 50s, and i think it was an issue of improper maintenance and no scent added to the gas.

    (but ftr, my mother and grandmother - who also heated with oil, wood and electric also think everything with gas is going to blow up, i guess as a consequence of having never been around it and hearing the story of it happening. they are deathly afraid of the idea of having a gas stove in a kitchen, probably because they've seen too many movies where the killer turns the stove on to intentionally blow up a house).

  14. #14
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    If your oil tank is underground, be careful about avoiding oil leaks. We converted in 1978 (this was in New York) and were told to leave the oil in the tank. Twenty five years later, we were told we had to remove the oil tank before we could sell the house. We hired a company to remove the tank - and they, of course, found an oil leak. To this day, I think they spilled some oil on the ground to 'simulate a leak' - especially since they wanted to "make the problem go away" for $300.00. Anyway, we had the tank removed and the cleanup done (at a cost of $5,000). Insurance wouldn't cover the cost because the leak didn't affect the ground water. Two and a half years later, we're living happily in North Carolina. One day we get mail from the insurance company along with a check for $5,000. They said a standard review of our claim was done and it was determined that we should have been covered for the spill. Bottom line - get some good advice about what to do with your unused oil and tank.

    By the way, the gas was much cheaper than oil - probably still is.
    "A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths."
    -Steven Wright.

  15. #15
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    It makes sense to shut down a producing well if there is little or no profit at today's prices. The gas in the ground doesn't go bad or anything like that. The price is bound to go up at some point and it might make sense to hold onto the gas until the price increases. Unless we develop a good alternative to fossil fuels we will run low on fossil fuels some day. That day may be in 20 years or 200 years. Nobody really knows.

    We have probably a few hundred thousand buildings locally with natural gas and we have maybe one explosion a year.

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