Robert Gammon wrote:
Pete C. wrote:
John wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:
John wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:
trimmed
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.
That picture was attributed to not turning off the water before going on
vacation when it got very cold and a pipe froze and burst in the ceiling
over the unheated garage. I've never seen any reference to the type of
heating system in the house or a fault with it.
No kidding, except it wasn't a "vacation" and if you did you see you'd know it wasn't just
the garage. If you read what I wrote above, you would also know that I was discussing
generally why it was a good idea to shut off your water when you're away in the winter
because I wrote, "furnace could sense a fault and shut down or the power could fail, or
everything could work perfectly and a pipe breaks etc."
Right and that situation can occur with both gas and oil and even
electric for that matter.
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. 
Diesel generators offer auto start, exercise cycles etc. as well. As for
burning cleaner that depends on the particular engine. Larger and more
expensive units will be cleaner than small inexpensive ones. Run it on
biodiesel or WVO and you have yet another comparison.
I'm glad you have room for a diesel generator. No way it can burn as cleanly as a natural
gas engine can, and that doesn't require stored fuel either.
Room? A diesel generator doesn't require any more room than any other
type of generator.
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.
Such as? A properly sized and installed geothermal heat pump will
operate just fine in most any environment.
Yes, but that "properly sized" part can be a show stopper if you don't have a bunch of land,
or a pond nearby, or can use wells.
Not really. Vertical loop is workable most everywhere, "wells" typically
refers to the old style open loop geothermal which is rarely done these
days. The newer trenched vertical coil also doesn't require a lot of
area.
Pete C.
One contractor here in Houston TX recently completed a project for a
RESIDENCE that used SIXTY FIVE wells, 300 feet deep. The contractor
sizes the project at one well per ton of installed capacity so this was
65 tons of HVAC. Considering that most of us can get by with a ground
source heat pump in the 3 ton to 6 ton range, one wonders just how big
this house is.
65 tons certainly is a huge house, a commercial building or a deep
freeze.
The contractor has a 3000sq ft house deep inside the city limits and
uses geothermal himself. Lot sizes are small so clearance to neighbor's
property line is only a few feet in many cases. One of the wells for
his house is under the slab!! He keeps the house at 65F year round and
has cooling bills of under $175 Heat in Houston is just not a big
concern as there are so few days a year that the temps fall below 40F
and almost never get below 25F. What we worry about is keeping cool.
I'm north of Dallas and currently all electric. When I look to replace
the older A/C in a year or two I will likely go with a geothermal heat
pump. I've got a few acres so the newer trenched vertical "slinky" loop
configuration will probably be most economical given the modest ~3 ton
requirement.
Pete C.