HVAC Comparison Electricity Propane Fuel Oil Furnace

Oil Furnace Verses Gas Furnace

The future is here as some heating companies have abandoned servicing oil furnaces because their liability insurance rates had increased substantially, and the quantity of oil furnaces was declining. If you live out in the country, natural gas is probably not available. The option open when you live rurally is to have a propane company install a tank. They will install the tank and supply line for almost nothing, and then regularly give large rebates on your first fill up.

Many years ago, oil was the fuel of choice for people who didn’t have natural gas service; however oil is not a clean burning fuel. If you have an old oil furnace, and you are thinking of switching to gas does yourself a favor; you might remove the back access panel on the oil furnace, and look at quantity of soot in the heat exchanger. You might be surprised at what you find. Take a look at the bottom one-third of the passageways; are they blocked by what looks like yellow bricks? If so, that is actually blocks of sulfur.

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Furnaces from as recently as 20 years ago may offer half of the heat production of today’s more energy efficient models, while releasing significantly more harmful gasses into the atmosphere. You will find that natural gas furnaces emit very little gas making the need for a chimneys are a thing of the past. You can pipe from the basement to the outside as narrow as eight inches is enough for a natural gas furnace to work efficiently. However, with an oil furnace, their exhaust fumes must be heated to a higher temperature in order to rise and escape and this requires that flues be at least 18 inches wide to release harmful gasses properly.

Efficiency

Fuel oil has very high sulfur content. It has been stated that the sulfur content is around 3,000 parts per million, which would be 0.3%. For an impurity, that is a very high concentration. For an impurity, that may be an extremely high concentration. The Gas furnaces runs about 94.1% to 97.0% Efficient and compared to oil burn extremely clean Carbon monoxide levels are extremely low around 18-20 ppm (acceptable levels are anything below 75ppm) if they are properly installed.

Maintenance

Another question is do you as the home-owner want to deal with accumulated sulfur and soot removal with a yearly furnace cleaning? With an oil furnace an once a year cleaning and service call is really obligatory, as the soot must be removed from the heat exchanger. Also, the oil spray nozzle should to be replaced and the air-fuel ratio adjusted to reduce soot buildup. When the soot builds up, it begins to restrict the flow of combustion gases. If this gets bad enough, it could cause the furnace to stop working, or worse, can send combustion or noxious gases into the house.

Gas and propane furnaces do not have the same maintenance needs as oil furnaces. Gas and propane units need the air filter to be replaced monthly, and it’s a good idea to vacuum the dust off the blower every year, but you may find that gas and propane burners can get a small amount of soot buildup, but they can go 10 or 20 years with nothing more than a wisp of ash. The up keep cost on a gas or propane furnace is going to be lower than an oil furnace in you compare the maintenance costs. The maintenance on an oil burner alone could boost your heating costs if it’s done every heating season as recommended.

Furnaces manufactured after 1992 in the U S are required to have AFUE ratings of 78% or more, most furnace models today exceed these minimums. While both oil and natural gas furnaces can now provide significantly more heating power than they could earlier, technological limitations prevent oil furnaces from being able to reach the AFUE scores in the high 90% range that some natural gas furnaces already have. For every percentage point higher the AFUE rating is, the more money you will save over the life of the furnace.

Electric Furnaces

Natural gas is not only considered a clean-burning fossil fuel, but it’s also more efficient than electricity when used for household heating.

Switching from gas to electricity would run counter to many state’s energy efficiency goals because using electricity for heating is about 2 1/2 times less energy efficient than using natural gas, according to Neal Elliott, associate research director at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a Washington nonprofit that promotes efficiency.

"The bottom line for use is fuel switching," said Angela Townsend, spokeswoman for PSNC. "If the ultimate goal is to truly promote energy efficiency, an incentive program wouldn’t allow customers to switch over to electricity." It seems buying or replacing an old furnace, the gas furnace is still the better fuel efficient option.

Upgrade

Upgrading your heating equipment to natural gas will save money you money in the long haul. Making the decision to have a high-efficiency gas furnace installed will provide you with quieter and cleaner burning unit. Since a gallon of liquid propane has less energy than fuel oil (about 92,000 BTUs versus about 130,000 BTUs for oil) the actual annual heating cost may be slightly higher than with fuel oil, but the maintenance costs may even it out. Your home air will be cleaner, and you will not have to smell laden air in your home, which your lungs may thank you for later. Read up indoor air pollution here.

Spend our time doing something you love, and forget about oil furnace maintenance