If you were getting a new furnace

138,500 btu per gallon of furnace oil
91,330 btu per gallon of propane


less cost to install a new oil furnace!

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àigeach carnaid
chaora dhubh
"Don't raise your voice, improve your argument."

cruachan

Ford is right there's alot more heat in a gallon of heating oil. I've been installing the Adams oil fired condensing furnaces. 95% efficiency like the gas furnaces, vents out plastic pipes the same too. Pricey devils but cheap to operate. Think 4-5k for a new Adams plus instalation. Regular mid eff. furnaces run 1100-1600 of a higher eff with an ecm blower (same oil consumption just saves electricity) just over 2k. I like oil better, propane requires a propane truck oil furnaces run on diesel just fine if you run out.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

Check an Adams out http://www.adamsmanufacturing.com/world.html

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

We have a propane furnace with a heat pump. It's great. The wonderful thing about it is that we can set it as the prices change. When electricity is less expensive we use more electricity. When propane is cheaper we can use it more than the electricity.

I doubt that you could heat entirely with a heat pump in NY. We're in IL and could not.

I am very pleased with our furnace/heat pump. Saying that, if I had the choice I'd use natural gas with our heat pump any day. I'd never want oil because of the liability/clean up difficulty associated with a possible leak.

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Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD

Your supplier or service co should be certifying it and backing it with insurance. I have 2 million on every job I do. One could buy a Roth tank or additional secondary containment systems

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup........

We have propane. I don't want oil and it wouldn't be readily available in our area.

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Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD

Those prices actually favor oil by quite a bit because a gallon of oil has a much higher heat content than a gallon of proplane.
A gallon of propane has a heat content of 92,000 BTU
A gallon of oil is about 130,000 BTU.

Using your $2.69 for oil and $2.79 for propane:
Oil cost per 100,000 BTU is $2.37
Propane cost per 100,000 BTU is $3.57

So, with your prices per gallon, propane about 50% more expensive.

The $2.79 a gallon for propane seems kind of high -- we have been paying just over $2 per gallon. But, it does vary a lot around the country.

Fuel cost calculator here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Referenc...uelCompare.htm

One other factor is that condensing (90+% efficient) furnaces for propane are readily availabe -- don't think thats true for oil, but I may be wrong. But, oil is still likely to be cheaper with your fuel prices.

Insulate and seal! -- best way to save fuel dollars.

Gary

I'm prejudiced... I'd have to recommend gas.

Now is a great time for adding alternative energy systems and other home energy type work done... quite a few federal tax breaks.

It'd be a hands down winner, if you had access to natural gas... if there were ever a social disorder type breakdown, some natural gas would still flow, even though there might not be anyone to collect bills. If 'disorder' breaks out, both propane and oil deliveries would cease.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

We live in upstate NY and have an oil furnace- oil tends to be cheaper here than propane. The only maintenance we've had to do (in 20 years) is a once-a-year furnace cleaning/checkup- they change the oil filter. We take care of changing the furnace filter. When oil prices were so high a few years ago(2006,) we looked into getting a geothermal heat pump (tubes are buried 6 feet underground). The company doing our energy audit/proposal estimated the cost at about $16,000 (before any rebates/credits) They estimated our yearly heating costs as follows:

Dry wood- 6 face cord $600 year.
No. 2 oil 681 gallons $1800. year
Geothermal pump: 5909 KWH $900 year
Propane : 833 gallons $1750 year. (It's more per gallon now- at least where I live)
Geothermal= Savings of about $900 year, cost of installation $16,000.
That's not counting the insulation upgrades we needed- we've done many of those ourselves (Blown-in insulation in attic, etc)
Added benefit is air conditioning in the summer. (We really don't need it here.)

With our furnace, we have never used more than 600 gallons oil, usually 550 or less (we keep the house cool). Geothermal was just too expensive with too long of a payoff time. When we need to replace, we will probably get a higher efficiency oil furnace. BUT--- a wood furnace is tempting, based on the savings on fuel.
Costs may be lower now- I know there's more companies doing geothermal. If the estimate had come in $10,000 or less, we probably would have gone for it.

I remember too well when I lived in PA (1996-2001) and the cost of heating oil tripled for one season. It cost me over $500 for half a tank !!

If I had the choice, I'd go for that dual designed furnace..AND a 100gal propane tank hooked up to a wall heater.

If you cannot have a woodstove inside, how about a wood furnace outside?

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