"Pete C." wrote:
John wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:
Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
"Pete C." wrote in message
The problems with gas is you get locked into a monopoly that charges you
even when you aren't using the product, is subject to outages and is far
more dangerous than oil.
With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from, you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages
from a back hoe miles away, and I think you'll find the ratio of peoples
houses that have been destroyed by gas leaks compared to those destroyed
by oil leaks astonishing.
In spite of all your "cons' of gas, if it was available to me tomorrow, I'd
change tomorrow. Do you honestly think oil is competitive in price? The
dealers in this area are doing rather well for themselves and price between
them varies a couple of pennies at best. Gas remains competitive to oil
when priced in therms in most regions.
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.
The price differences between oil suppliers are negligible, as they are all buying
their oil in the same local market from the same common carriers, unless your oil
company also has a terminal to import the middle east crude and refine it. Or
some distributors are jacking up the price. Last year, oil companies jacked up
prices for non contract customers in a hurry and they went down very slowly. Our
NG prices rised a little a few months later and then tapered back significantly
mid way through the winter. Our gas service is still cheaper than the "cheap" oil
companies, and our furnace is a lot more cleaner burning and efficient too.
Price differences are not negligible. During the peak of price gouging
season one small company was about $0.15/gal cheaper than another larger
one and the small company didn't even have their own storage terminal
where the big company did. They also offered more discounts (senior and
COD) than the larger company making the effective difference more like
$0.25/gal. I consider that pretty significant when oil was running
around $0.85/gal.
If you are against regulated monopolies, than your argument is also the same for
opposing electricity service (and maybe water too).
Not at all and not even the same comparison. First off I can choose
between more than a dozen electric suppliers and second off the monopoly
status is only one of the reasons I won't use nat. gas. Also unlike nat.
gas, electricity is far less likely to have periods of no use while
still being charged a service charge. Additionally the last time I
checked you could disconnect and reconnect electricity without large
service charges, unlike 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.
Hope you're around to do that and not on vacation.
If you're leaving for vacation and don't review the house status and
things like turning off the water and looking at the level on the oil
tank then you're an idiot. If I'm getting ready for vacation and the oil
tank is low I just call my supplier and ask them to deliver the next day
(before I leave). Doesn't cost me any extra and is no more effort than
turning off the water or unplugging some appliances.
Oh I always turn off the water too. After all any furnace (including oil with that big
red RESET button) could sense a fault and shut down or the power could fail, or
everything could work perfectly and a pipe breaks etc etc. Someone posted a neat
picture (link in this newsgroup I mean) of a house that had been vacant in the winter
and the oil company had not filled the tanks with the expected amount of oil and the
pipes froze in zero degree F weather. Cool glacier coming down the garage doors.
Oh by the way, if we do have a
power failure, we can still take lots of hot showers and cook on our stove
indefinitely.
Same here. With my diesel generator and oil heat I can go for weeks.
A natural gas generator could keep you going too, offer auto start (and auto charging
the batteries weekly, monthly, whenever you prefer) and burn much cleaner than a diesel
engine.
Oil is a great choice if you have no natural gas service available and your
climate is too cold for heat pumps.
Oil is indeed a great choice under those conditions and it is also a
very good choice under many more conditions, particularly if you are in
a cold area even if gas is available.
By the way, no climate is too cold for geothermal heat pumps, you just
have to get the coils below the frost line where you have a nice
constant temperature.
That would be nice but unfortunately there is more to geo heat pumps than just putting
coils below the frost line.