My home here in Nova Scotia is heated with oil. The boiler when I
purchased this home four years ago was then thirty-four years old (so
too the separate oil-fired hot water tank) and I suspect neither were
all that efficient. If natural gas were available, I would have
switched immediately, without a second thought. Since that wasn't an
option, I installed a high-efficiency oil-fired Slant Fin boiler, a
SuperStor Ultra indirect hot water tank and a Tekmar boiler control
system. I chose this particular boiler because it can be easily
converted to natural gas when that happy day comes (it's certified to
operate on either fuel).

Last year, with the addition of a small ductless heat pump, I was able
to cut my fuel oil consumption by more than half (from 1,973 litres to
828 litres). Of the remaining 828 litres, I'm guessing roughly 500
litres or so are related to domestic hot water production (an average
of 1.4 l/day x 365 days/yr). Given the relatively modest space
heating demand, if I had to do it all over again I would have
installed an electric boiler as a backup to the heat pump and
eliminated oil altogether. With heating oil and electricity here in
Nova Scotia running at about par, there would be little or no economic
penalty to going with electric and I could eliminate the need to store
fuel oil on my property.

I should add that the previous homeowners used 5,700 litres of heating
oil in the year prior to my purchase (and that happened to be a fairly
mild winter). By upgrading the heating and DHW systems, careful air
sealing, window and door replacement and adding more insulation (e.g.,
the attic went from R6 to R60 and the walls from R6 to R22), I was
able to reduce my fuel oil consumption by 65 per cent. With the
ductless heat pump, I've been able to cut that by more than half
again. At current prices, I'm now saving over $4,000.00 a year on my
heating and DHW costs.

Cheers,
Paul

On 6 Aug 2006 06:14:41 -0700, wrote:

Funny isn't it how any incidents involving oil just get dismissed,
while anything bad that happens with nat gas gets carefully logged as a
matter of great significance?

In addition to the story of outside tanks leaking and causing big
problems, every so often I see news reports of the old wrong delivery
address incident. This happened again last winter on Long Island, NY.
The oil company delivered oil to the wrong address. Turns out where
they delivered it the home once had oil heat, removed the basement
tank, but did not remove the fill tube. So, they pumped a couple
hundred gallons of oil into the wrong home's basement. On TV they
showed the huge cleanup underway, the family was forced to leave the
home for an indefinite period until the house was declared safe again,
etc.

Now, this can be traced to stupidity. I wouldn't say it makes oil
unsafe, or a bad choice, depending on the other options available, etc.
But the difference is, I see this and put it in perspective. While
Pete sees anything go wrong with nat gas, and it's suddenly a big
issue, blown out of proportion, while oil gets a free pass.