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Anyone switch from oil to natural gas?

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Yes that's why I buy it in the summer when the price is lower. However I was not commenting on the price of fuel. What I was trying to say is that if someone wants to but a high efficiency unit, like 96% efficient almost all the units run off propane to get that efficiency.

 

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We made the switch last year. Went with new hot water heater, too. Last year NJ had some pretty serious rebates on whole house upgrades with insulation. Our insulation upgrades were extensive and almost free after the rebates. The state also had some incentives for the conversion itself, but I cannot remember the details.

 

NJNG offered us 10 year 0% loan for the remaining amount. They charged us a small amount to bring the line and a meter to the house.

 

Our monthly oil budget payment was atrocious, even spread out over 11 months. Our monthly payment on the gas loan is 1/3 the cost of what our oil was.

 

Last month was pretty mild, but we only used $50 in gas. My wife likes a warm house.

 

Hurry up and see if there are any rebates about to expire Dec. 31. You may have just enough time to lock in a contract to qualify.

 

I dragged my feet for years because our oil equipment was rock solid. As soon as it started acting up, we switched. Smartest thing I ever did.

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Damn I need to get NJ Natural gas to run a line on our street. My oil bill for last month was almost $200 for my 968 sq ft home. :facepalm:

I feel your pain. When we first moved onto our very large, very old, very drafty house when fuel prices were high we approached $1500/mo in the cold months. Gas company wanted $15k to run a gas line back to us, so we've relied on aggressively insulating and weatherstripping while keeping oil as the fuel source.

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Yes that's why I buy it in the summer when the price is lower. However I was not commenting on the price of fuel. What I was trying to say is that if someone wants to but a high efficiency unit, like 96% efficient almost all the units run off propane to get that efficiency.

 

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That's only equipment flame efficiency brother. System efficiency is a whole different story. Flame efficiency basically means nothing in the overall scope of a heating system.

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That's only equipment flame efficiency brother. System efficiency is a whole different story. Flame efficiency basically means nothing in the overall scope of a heating system.Well I will

Well I will admit that it has been many years since I was involved in this stuff, but how are you measuring efficiency.  If you measure CO, excess O2 and stack temperature what else is there you are talking about?

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Well I will admit that it has been many years since I was involved in this stuff, but how are you measuring efficiency. If you measure CO, excess O2 and stack temperature what else is there you are talking about?

That's how you get flame efficiency readings. Which only relate to the flame itself. Now it's what your doing with that heat you're producing that really counts. That's when we get into heat loss calculations, delta T, manual J. All overall system efficiency. I have an oil fired furnace in my house I get 85% flame efficiency. I have customers with the same size house as mine, with 95%+ flame efficient gas fired units. I pay less in fuel than they do, and oil costs more. Why? Because the rest of my system is up to par, sized properly insulated and sealed correctly, ductwork locations are sized in accordance with my room sizes, window ratings, and ceiling Heights. That's overall system efficiency. That's what actually matters in the scope of things.
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Back in 2008 my propane bills were $1200+ a month to heat 2000 sqft house with attached 1000 sqft in law apartment and 24 x 40 pole barn in concrete radiant heat. 2 forced hot air heaters, water heater and another water heater for pole barn. Couldn't take it so I installed myself an outdoor wood boiler. System paid for itself in about 2 years. Burned 30 cords a year to heat house, pole barn, hot tub, ingrown pool.  lots of work but kinda enjoy it. Never bought a piece of wood. All cut by me or donated from tree services. 2013 gas comes right by my house finally!!!! Never even flinched. Stopped burning wood in winter. Changed regulators and drilled jets for natural gas.  Gas bills are averaging $250 to $300 (might sound high to some but not to me) a month. Now I only heat my pool with wood. Love the gas...... life is good. I would never ever tell someone to put in propane! Biggest fuel rip off going

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That's how you get flame efficiency readings. Which only relate to the flame itself. Now it's what your doing with that heat you're producing that really counts. That's when we get into heat loss calculations, delta T, manual J. All overall system efficiency. I have an oil fired furnace in my house I get 85% flame efficiency. I have customers with the same size house as mine, with 95%+ flame efficient gas fired units. I pay less in fuel than they do, and oil costs more. Why? Because the rest of my system is up to par, sized properly insulated and sealed correctly, ductwork locations are sized in accordance with my room sizes, window ratings, and ceiling Heights. That's overall system efficiency. That's what actually matters in the scope of things.

But wait a second.  If I burn 100 units of energy, and 4% of it goes out the flue as waste, then I only lost 4%.  If I draw a box around my home that other 96% of heat went into my home, did it not?  I understand the heat exchanger could be fouled and all of that heat may not go into the air that the blower is circulating but it all in fact goes into the house.

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But wait a second. If I burn 100 units of energy, and 4% of it goes out the flue as waste, then I only lost 4%. If I draw a box around my home that other 96% of heat went into my home, did it not? I understand the heat exchanger could be fouled and all of that heat may not go into the air that the blower is circulating but it all in fact goes into the house.

Or out of the house, through loose construction or poor insulation. or all into one area of the house no where near the thermostat, which never seems to satisfy. Due to inadequate sizing, on the ductwork. Or improper balancing. Oversized equipment, causing short cycling, still has a flame efficiency of whatever the unit is rated to. But if it turns on and off 30 times in an hour, there goes your fuel economy.

 

All those things contribute to higher fuel bills.

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But wait a second. If I burn 100 units of energy, and 4% of it goes out the flue as waste, then I only lost 4%. If I draw a box around my home that other 96% of heat went into my home, did it not? I understand the heat exchanger could be fouled and all of that heat may not go into the air that the blower is circulating but it all in fact goes into the house.

It's not so simple, and different systems will have different factors. You can loose efficiency in just the heat delivery system. If you need two vents in a room or two basebaord runs, but only have one.... It will take twice as long to heat, and your furnace will eat the same amount of fuel in the same amount of time. So your furnace would run over twice as long to heat the same space....Burning twice the amount of fuel.

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Or out of the house, through loose construction or poor insulation. or all into one area of the house no where near the thermostat, which never seems to satisfy. Due to inadequate sizing, on the ductwork. Or improper balancing. All those things contribute to higher fuel bills.

That is a different story.  What you are talking about is having a nice balanced system that heats every room equally which is different that thermal efficiency.

 

As for what JackDaWack is saying that is on the same lines.  If the furnace runs twice as long it is still dumping that heat into the house somewhere.  Even if it is not going exactly where you want it over time it somewhat equals out.  Sure there is more heat loss from a room that is hot to an outside wall as well but some of that also radiates inwards.  I am not disagreeing with what you are saying about having an effective distribution of heat, but I do disagree with regard to thermal efficiency which looks at home many BTU's you get out for each BTU you put in.

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We use that basis to heat the basement. The heat never kicks on down there, but furnace still heats the roughly 800sqft room. I just went through the attic and filled in some insualtiona and sealed up the door and house fan... The basement got colder...lol

 

I knew something was up because the rooms upstairs are toasty but the hallway was much colder... All the heat was going up in the attic access points in the hallway. New house problems...

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Damn I need to get NJ Natural gas to run a line on our street. My oil bill for last month was almost $200 for my 968 sq ft home. :facepalm:

 

Put that Frost King plastic on your windows unless they are new.   Before I replaced every window in my house, we used to spend October doing that.  Of course, at the time I heated 90% with firewood and you could see daylight between the window and frame.   Even so, what a difference.

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I did the switch several years ago. Gas line was in front of my house, I had to pay gas company to run it to the house and hang the meter. Most of the cost was for permits. They sent me a form asking what I was going to be running. My plumber told me to put down everything on the form, if the gas company doesn't think you'll use enough gas, they may charge extra to run the line.

 

I had my plumber run the gas line in the house and switch out burner for my baseboard heat boiler. Only had the boiler hooked up to gas line until I installed my standby generator, gas company had to swap out the meter for higher flow unit, no charge. Then when electric water heater melted its brain I replaced it with a gas fired unit. Will likely do the same with clothes dryer and stove once they reach end of life.

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Fishnets efficiency is btu( potential)per unit volume.

 

I.e. Oak per cord has more btu/per than pine.

 

Now,cough, dollar per btu? We are the Saudi Arabia of ng. If you can, switch. The price will fluctuate differently ( most likely more stable)

 

Home efficiency is another animal. Insulation, penetrations, glazing etc.

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Just made the switch this fall. The chimney serving the gas hot water heater and furnace was falling down and unsafe. It was either 12k to rebuild the chimney or 16 to tear it down and replace the equipment. Since the furnace was 25 years old, AC was 15 it made more sense to get everything replace. Will be getting around 2k in rebates.

 

Would love to get home efficiency looked at. The house is almost 300 years old and pretty drafty.

 

 

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Switched from oil to ng about 4 years ago. But f it. It doesnt matter. My whole house is heated by wood burning stove. 72-74 during the day. 65-68 at night. Loving it. The ng is is soo much more efficient when i need it. It does take time to split the wood and feed the stove. But. My 6k jotul stove has already paid for its self. I have about 2500 sq ft to heat.

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I did it a long time ago. Back then, they installed the line and meter for free since we were going to use it with a new stove and gas dryer. We only had to pay to get a plumber to come out and run all the gas lines inside the house. Best thing we ever did! Every time the filled the oil tank, they had to come out to change the filter because they kicked up the sediment from years of dirty oil. It is so much cheaper to heat with gas, it's not even funny (in my very old leaky house). At the time, we just had the oil burner changed to a gas burner in the same furnace. We have since replaced the whole furnace with a gas model. If you think you will be in that house for a long time and can afford it, I'd say go for it! Down the road you could even get a nat-gas generator for power failures.

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I dunno about everyone else, but I had nothing but trouble with gas.  They finally ran the line thru, because would only do it if they got enough customers.  I figured I would convert over, so I paid the $100 or so for them to hook me up. But.....before I had even connected, they sent me a bill for $600...estimated.  Understand...the meter reads 000.  There was no gas drawn, because it was the middle of winter; I was waiting for spring (and burn-off my oil tank).  Plus, I was going to start with the water heater and dryer, then the stove, then the furnace in the spring.  But...when I called to protest, they told me they would 'take care of it'....and sent me a bill for $300!  

 

If that's how the gas company will "take care of me" before I've even drawn a whiff of their gas.....I will never connect.

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