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Pete C.

wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
The last time I looked (not this year) there were significant
differences in oil supplier costs on the order of $0.15+/gal. They also
give senior discounts that my mother takes advantage of that are another
$0.05/gal and a COD (really 3 day) discount that is a few more cents /
gal.

Do your gas price comparisons include the amount that the gas monopolies
charge you every month even if you use no gas? There is no such thing
with oil companies and maintenance contracts are a separate thing
applicable to both oil and gas.

I've lived with gas for many years in previous houses and we still use it at
work. In all of those years, I've never had an outage, but my oil dealer did
run me out twice. In my lifetime (60 years) the score is Gas 0, Oil 2.

Sorry I don't have 60 years of experience, but in 36 years I have never
experienced a single oil outage. Even if I did have an outage, all it
would mean is a trip to my local gas station for a couple 5gal cans of
diesel which would last several days until a regular oil delivery,
something that is not an option with gas. No need for "emergency
deliveries.

Pete C.

I'd take gas in a minute over oil any day. I've had homes with both
and in my experience, gas is far more reliable.

I've never had any reliability problems with oil burners or oil service.

The core of the
problem is oil has to rely on spraying pressurized oil out of a hole
the size of a human hair. It's common for the nozzle to get fouled and
then the burner won't light.

The nozzles also cost about $6 and take 2 minutes to change. Very DIY
friendly as are the filter at the tank and the filter screen on the
pump. I can do this level of annual service on an oil burner in 15
minutes for $20 and also inspect the condition of the burner, soot
buildup and roughly check the combustion.

Plus, oil requires regular cleaning of
the burner, replacement of the nozzle and fuel filter, etc. In my
current home, I've been here 10 years and have never had to have a
service call on my gas furnace, while it was common with oil heat.

Unless a problem is noted with soot buildup or poor combustion I don't
need to call in anyone for service. When I see a problem I can get a
service call for a hundred dollars or so since I don't have a soot vac
or combustion tester and can't really justify spending the money on
since a service call every few years is pretty cheap.

I did take (and pass with the highest score in the class) an oil burner
service class at a local tech school so I have a pretty good idea of
what I'm looking at when I inspect the burner.

Gas furnaces are not immune to problems and indeed some dangerous
problems like cracked heat exchangers can go unnoticed readily on a gas
furnace and actually kill you from CO buildup where the same problem on
an oil furnace would typically choke you out of the house with
detectable fumes before the CO would get you.

Annual inspections are an important safety requirement, whether you do
them yourself with appropriate training or call someone in. Whether oil
or gas the furnace does not necessarily need any actual service each
year, but since you have a tech there inspecting the filters and nozzle
get changed because they are too inexpensive not to just change
regularly. Unless you get really dirty oil the nozzle and filters can
easily last several years without problems.

I don't know where you live that you are so concerned with nat gas
outage. In 25 years of nat gas service, I've never had it go out for
even an hour.

I was in the northeast. I never had gas service, but I recall hearing
numerous reports on the news over the years of various areas having gas
service interruptions for various causes. In a large city vs. smaller
suburban areas it's probably a less frequent occurrence, but when it
does occur it probably affects more customers.

For the vast majority of folks, they are far more likely
to lose electric power, and they don't have generators, which puts them
out of commission.

Why don't they have generators? Certainly loosing power can be more than
an inconvenience since you can have significant losses from frozen pipes
in cold weather and lost food in hot weather. A small generator is cheap
insurance against those losses.

So, why worry about the far more remote possibility
of a gas outage?

Because they are not "far more remote" unless you are in a large city.

The much higher safety risk of gas is also another reason for oil. I
recall a brief ad campaign by a gas company touting gas as "Clean, Safe,
Dependable" which mysteriously changed to "Clean, Dependable" presumably
after a false advertising lawsuit.

Thousands of gas explosions every year vs. about zero oil explosions
every year certainly calls that "Safe" claim into question. The hundreds
of CO deaths each year are heavy on the gas furnace failure end due to
the lower detectability of the fumes from a gas furnace vs. oil.

The cleanliness claim is also questionable since a modern properly
maintained oil burner is just as clean as a modern properly maintained
gas burner. The clean claim is largely based on the bogus comparison
between a new gas burner and a 50yr old oil burner.

The efficiency claims you also see are also questionable with the
difference between top oil and gas units being only a couple percent.
Unless you have already done every possible thing you can with regards
to insulating, caulking, high R windows and ERVs, that couple percent is
pretty irrelevant and might save you enough to buy a cup of coffee each
year.

And again being locked into a monopoly that charges you every month
whether you use any product or not is the final nail in the gas coffin
for me.

Pete C.