"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
wrote:
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.


You may be able to do it, but how about the typical homeowner, who
can't?

The typical homeowner *should* be able to do it, however we have as a
whole lost more and more skills over the years. It used to be that the
bulk of people changed the oil in their cars themselves, now most don't
even know how to open the hood, much less check the oil.

The typical homeowner *should* be screwing around with her oil burner innards?
Yeesh.

They *should* have the minimal skills necessary to change an oil burner
nozzle by following instructions. Recall this requires only the skill to
operate two wrenches and is little different from the skill to change a
faucet aerator, couple a garden hose or connect a propane tank to a
grill. Changing a nozzle does not require any knowledge of burner
controls, combustion adjustments or anything else technical.

So since this is so easy, safe, and common, which oil equipment manufacturers recommend
this service as a customer done item, like changing light bulbs? (and lighting pilot
lights in the old days)






Or how about the vacation house where there is no one ready
with another nozzle when it craps out?

If you're having an annual service done they get replaced well before
they would crap out unless you are buying the low grade, nearly crude
fuel oil they run cargo ships on. With most any #2 fuel oil the nozzles
and filters can easily last several years without failure so annual
replacement keeps them well within their life expectancy.


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.

And are you suggesting that the typical homeowner should take a class
too? Or just use gas and avoid all this?

I'm suggesting that the typical homeowner should have at least *some*
knowledge of those hulking monsters in their basement, not total
ignorance. If you want to be ignorant you should be a renter.

Monster? Our gas furnace isn't much bigger than a small filing cabinet. Just
about as noisy as a filing cabinet too.

Monster as in the unknown which historically has scared people. Oil and
gas furnaces are about the same size for the same capacity unit. They
both used to be huge and both have steadily shrunk over the years as
technology (and home insulation) improved.

Noise levels for modern gas or oil furnaces of comparable capacity are
comparable as well. Older units of both types were noisier.

I've never heard an oil furnace, even brand new top of the line, that was even close to
silent. Even thirty years ago natural gas was nearly silent (except the ho hum blower
motor and maybe the click of a relay and gas valve opening).







Using gas avoids nothing at all and indeed using gas can allow your
ignorance to kill you if you don't have annual inspections. You can just
as readily run an oil burner for years without inspections or service,
but in either case, oil or gas, the inspections are necessary for
safety.

I once saw a gas water heater that had the chimney connection completely
fall apart. The homeowner had not noticed it at all while it was pumping
out CO, where if it had been oil fired they would have noticed it in
minutes. They were lucky that it was in a service closet off the garage
and fairly well isolated from the house or they could well have been
killed by CO.



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.

And you can't have a cracked heat exchanger on an oil furnace? The
oil furnace has exactly the same issues, plus more.

Apparently you didn't read what I wrote.

A cracked heat exchanger on a gas furnace is far more likely to go
unnoticed than a cracked heat exchanged on an oil furnace due to the far
more noticeable fumes from an oil burner. Both can pump out CO which can
kill you, but the oil burner has the added safety of being readily
detected. It's the same concept as the odorant they have to add to gas
so you can detect a leak.

Oil furnaces are also less likely to have a cracked heat exchange since
they are generally built more ruggedly than their gas counterparts,
though you can of course find both crap and very high quality in both
types.

"Less likely?" My average gas furnace has a transferable Lifetime Warranty on
its Stainless Steel heat exchanger.

Yes and average oil furnaces are cast iron with similar warrantees. Many
low end gas furnaces are not stainless steel and have much shorter life
expectancies. Only a very few bottom of the barrel oil furnaces use
plain steel heat exchangers.

Cast iron would rust in a high efficiency (condensing) furnace.








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'd say a gas furnace could easily go 3 or 4 years between inspections,
while an oil furnace cannot.

I'd say you are absolutely incorrect. I know of several examples of oil
furnaces that have gone that length of time or longer with no issues and
these include some pretty old units.

As I said the annual inspection is primarily for safety, not out of need
for service. The service is done as a preventative measure since the
parts replaced are very inexpensive and the tech is on-site anyway.

At the very least, it's good to check the fan motor and clean the blower and/or
a/c coil as some amount of dust will inevitably get past a filter and very slowly
accumulate over a season.

Quite correct and with either oil or gas, if there is an A/C unit
incorporated there is a significantly greater need for service since air
(and dirt) is circulated all year instead of just during the heating
season. Without A/C both oil and gas are also comparable in cleaning and
service requirements.







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.

You are in dream land. I live in NJ and have neve had a gas
interruption. I have had plenty of electric interruptions though.
Just last week I was without power for 7 hours. Had gas the whole
time. So, why worriy about gas, when electric is already an order of
magnitude more prone to outage?

First off, it is not "dream land", you can check the news archives to
see the frequency of gas outages in most areas.

Please explain what the frequency is, since you are claiming this is relevant.

In the town I was in and the adjacent towns during the past couple
decades I recall hearing of a gas outage of some duration at least every
few months. This is also an area with relatively sparse gas service,
probably less than 50% coverage of residences in the area. I recall
several times there were multi day outages during the winter where
people had to go to shelters.

What town was that in? If natural gas service was really that unreliable, I'd be
looking at propane.




Second off, *I* have
backup for the electricity so it is not an issue for me. With oil I have
backup for heat and hot water as well.

Our furnace needs (a little with the ECM motor) electricity to operate, but our
water heater and range do not. They operate just as normal without caring if
power is lost, except I have to find matches to light my stove and might have to
reset the clock later.

Your point is? With oil heat / hot water and a generator (it doesn't
have to be a very big generator either) I have heat, hot water, range,
oven, clocks, TV, etc. with little more than a few minutes interruption.
With a diesel generator and the typical 275-300 gal oil tank even at
half full I have enough fuel for heat and generator for at least a week
without outside utilities.






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.

Because it just aint' worth it. Like last week. My power was out from
10pm till 5am. No big deal. And that was one of the longest
interruptions in the last 25 years that I've had. And let me see,
what's easier? Replacing $150 worth of food in the slim chance that it
MIGHT spoil, or putting in a transfer switch, generator, and
maintianing a fuel supply for it? BTW, my fuel of choice would be nat
gas. But since you don't like that, tell us about how you keep a fresh
supply of fuel safely stored? How do you rotate it? Since you're
worried about nat gas exploding, how about the gas for a generator?

Diesel generator. Share the fuel supply with the nice safe reliable oil
furnace. #2 fuel oil and #2 diesel are exactly the same, the only
difference is transportation fuel taxes and a generator is not a
transportation use.

I had a near 72 hour outage during a winter ice storm in the northeast a
few years back. I ran on my diesel generator the whole time and went
about my life normally while people around me had freezing pipes and
freezing butts. At least their food didn't spoil since it was cold.


When you look at the pros and cons, a generator doesn;t make sense for
most people. Now, there are exceptions, like those in hurricane areas.

Hurricane areas, ice storm / snow areas, tornado areas, flood areas,
basically almost every area. Since power plants are few and far between
relative to consumers, a problem a good distance away can leave you
without power even if everything else is ok locally.



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.

BS. Gas outages are very few. If you never had it, how would you even
know? By reading the newspaper about the rare occurance where a
construction crew hits a line? Even then, it;s likely out for a few
hours, not days. Compare that to electric, where a summer storm can
put it out.

I heard of dozens of gas outages in my immediate area over the years
when I had not a single oil outage. As I noted, I am well prepared for
an electric outage, with gas you don't have the option of being prepared
for a gas outage.



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.

Yeah, oil just brings things like $100K environmental disasters when
the tank rots out. Or the insurance company denying coverage. If nat
gas is so unsafe, why do insurance companies that have to pay claims
not have any issue writing policies, while it you have oil they want ot
know how old the tank is, where it's located, etc?

Politics pure and simple. Large gas monopolies have more lobbyists than
the smaller competitive oil dealers. The big energy companies don't care
much either way since they sell both NG and oil.

Huh? Do you think the "smaller competitive" oil dealers are manufacturing oil
somehow? Or do they participate in the global oil market? They can charge
whatever they like, and the only thing the competition does is keep the costs
similar, but the costs will all go up with the price of crude and/or refined
product.

The costs of nat. gas also go up with the cost of other energy
commodities and also with the growth of nat. gas fueled electric
generation "peaking" power plants. Nat. gas is not some fixed cheap
energy source unaffected by the rest of the energy market.

And gee, why is so much electric production being shifted away from oil and to natural
gas?



By the way, we can now "choose" our gas supplier, so if that was
really a concern that issue is moot. Gas distribution is a regulated monopoly
and as such they cannot raise their prices unless their costs increase, and the
price they charge must by law be in line with their costs.

My concern is that they are allowed to charge you even when you do not
use gas. This has no parallel with oil. If I don't use any oil I don't
pay anything. With oil you also have the option of having a larger tank
and purchasing off season to get better prices something you can not do
with gas.






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.

You can say MONOPOLY all you want, but all the data say nat gas and oil
are competitive in price. And they have to be, otherwise people would
switch. The utilities are regulated in terms of prices they can
charge,. just like the water company.

Regulated means little. The fact remains that the gas monopolies are
allowed to charge you even when you are not using any of their product,
which is not the case with oil. That and the other problems with gas
provide solid reasons *not* to use gas.

So you forget to mention that you have solid reasons *not* to use an electric
company.

Excuse me? I have solid reasons to have a generator as backup for the
electric companies outages. Outside of that the electric company can
provide me power at a lower effective rate than I can generate it myself
for since they can keep their generators fully loaded and therefore at
optimum efficiency.

A generator loaded to 25% of it's rated capacity as it would by much of
the time supplying a single home will still consume far more than 25% of
it's full load fuel consumption. If you could maintain a steady load
from the house so that you could match the generator size perfectly then
you could generate at close to utility rates.

So it is most economical to use an electric utility because of the lower
cost and the fact that it is practical and economical to have backup for
that utility. Electricity (like oil) also does not present the hazards
of gas. If the insulation on an electric line fails it does not fill
your home with explosive gas. If an electric line is shorted a circuit
breaker or fuse interrupts the power. Gas services generally do not have
comparable protective devices other than very recent seismic valves in
earthquake areas and those provide no protection from any other faults.

You said you are dislike gas because it is a regulated monopoly utility. You said you
dislike gas because it has nominal fees for minimum usage per month. Electric service
has both of these qualities. Therefore, your arguments are also in opposition to
electric service.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

Martik wrote:

"Robert Gammon" wrote in message
m...
Todd H. wrote:
"Martik" writes:


Are you referring to the chimney for the furnace? Why would anyone put
something in there. Sounds like a good way to murder someone! Luckily we
have 2 CO detectors.

Birds have a nasty habbit of not informing homeowners of their nesting
plans. If only the birds would follow the permit process, by god,
lives would be saved.


Given that the top of the stack is a protected entrance, it will be
DIFFICULT, but not impossible for small birds to get in there. The gap
to my fireplace is a bit larger than my furnace flue, and small birds do
find their way to the fireplace from time to time. In 28 years, never
such an incident in either gas water heater or gas furnace.

A maintenance worker sticking a rag down the flue and forgetting to take
it out seems to be a more likely scenario. such an action is more
likely to occur at the bottom of the stack, at the furnace, rather than on
top of the roof.

Is there a sensor to detect lack of free flow thru the chimney that would
shut off the gas?

There are draft sensors that could detect blockage, but they are not
generally used.

They are just about always used on a modern efficient (greater than 90% AFUE)
furnace that has direct vent.

Correct, however they haven't really found their way into non-direct
vent furnaces yet.


The much more common CO detector would detect such
conditions if properly installed and maintained.

Everyone with an attached garage or interior combustion device should have CO
detectors, at least on every level. They aren't expensive and some states are now
mandating them, just like smoke detectors.

Right and if you have gas you can get the combination explosive gas
(nat. gas or propane) and CO detector. Note that with these you have to
mount them high to detect nat. gas and low to detect propane since nat.
gas rises and collects ceiling down and propane sinks and collects floor
up. I think most states have CO detectors mandated in rental housing
already.




Unfortunately some people install CO detectors right next to the furnace
and then eventually unplug them after too many false alarms due to
momentary back drafts from wind gusts. They need to be installed a
sufficient distance away so those non-threat conditions do not give
false alarms.

Wind gusts? Back drafts? Yikes! Isn't your oil burner using sealed combustion
to prevent inside air from ever touching the combustion chamber of the furnace?
It would be a shame for the furnace to consume heated house air.

Only a small percentage of furnaces oil or gas are sealed combustion at
present. The Riello burners are particularly nice in a sealed combustion
configuration with their pre and post purge cycles.

Oil furnaces are more prevalent in the northern climates where gas
service is spotty and backup more critical.

Exactly where is this spotty gas service that you speak of?

Anywhere outside urban and close suburban areas. There are vast areas
without nat. gas service and many of those areas are also in colder
climates where backup is more critical. There wasn't gas service where I
was in CT and there isn't gas service where I am now either.

Well obviously if there is no nat gas service and propane isn't feasible, oil would be a way
to go in climates too cold for heat pumps to work well. Oil. Cleaner than Coal.




In those areas they are
typically in basements to they are not consuming heated air.

The basement air is sealed from the air upstairs?

To a large extent yes. Warm air also rises so you aren't going to get
warm air from upstairs going downstairs. Indeed waste heat from the
furnace is rejected into the surrounding area and that warmer basement
air will rise and warm the floors above slightly.

Wow! I've never seen a house where the basement air was sealed from the house air. It's
nice to know that the air "consumed" into the oil burner wouldn't need to be made up from
air leaking into the house via window gaps, exhaust fans, cracks etc.

Robert Gammon wrote:

Clark W. Griswold, Jr. wrote:
wrote:


But clearly this whole argument against nat
gas heat is all based on emotion, rather than fact. The price of
heating oil varies. The price of nat gas varies. Over the past, in my
experience, they have been similar enough in their total cost that it's
not a major difference.


There is definitely some regional bias involved. Historically, the US east coast
has used fuel oil for heat, so there tends to be a "this is how we've always
done it, so it must be right" mentality going on.

20+ years ago, oil was substantially more expensive than natural gas. The east
coast didn't have the supply infrastructure to distribute natural gas, so few
could take advantage of that differential.

With all the EPA restrictions on new power plants, utilities built gas fired
plants which sucked up most of the surplus gas and drove natural gas prices up
closer to fuel oil.

ConnocoPhillips has an interesting article with graphics that shows price
differences over the past 5 years:

http://www.conocophillips.com/newsro...eating_oil.htm

This graph is VERY VERY telling.

It says that in all but two of the last 6 heating seasons, it has been
CHEAPER to heat with Natural gas and in the two exception years, they
were very very close to equal cost.

So the choice in heating systems is LARGELY dictated by where you live,
NOT what costs more. Northeast states consume 70% of heating oil.
Choices there are heating oil or electricity with minor contributions
from other sources. But only 1/3 of residences there have oil heat. The
rest of the country, its either gas (natural gas via pipleine, or
propane in tanks on your property) or electricity.

Safety is not the issue, cost is not the issue, its what your neighbors
use and what choices you have for heating fuel. To argue with someone
in Pennsylvania or New York that natural gas is the fuel of choice is
fool hardy.

When I lived in Pennsylvania, the gas heat there worked just as well as anywhere else.
What is your issue with natural gas service in Pennsylvania and New York?

To argue with someone in Kansas that fuel oil is the fuel
of choice is similarly fool hardy. Outside the northeast, the
infrastructure to support fuel oil for heat is lacking. In the
northeast, natural gas distribution is spotty at best.

So this discussion needs to STOP.

These are newsgroups. Discussion happens, and you cannot "STOP" it on demand. Sorry

Each person who is faced with a
decision on a furnace will rely on personal experience, the advice of
one or more HVAC contractors, the advice of friends and neighbors..
What we say here is heavily influenced by where we live and what we are
used to. There is no single RIGHT answer that applies to everyone.

Of course.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

Robert Gammon wrote:

Todd H. wrote:
"Martik" writes:


Are you referring to the chimney for the furnace? Why would anyone put
something in there. Sounds like a good way to murder someone! Luckily we
have 2 CO detectors.


Birds have a nasty habbit of not informing homeowners of their nesting
plans. If only the birds would follow the permit process, by god,
lives would be saved.


Given that the top of the stack is a protected entrance, it will be
DIFFICULT, but not impossible for small birds to get in there. The gap
to my fireplace is a bit larger than my furnace flue, and small birds do
find their way to the fireplace from time to time. In 28 years, never
such an incident in either gas water heater or gas furnace.

A maintenance worker sticking a rag down the flue and forgetting to take
it out seems to be a more likely scenario. such an action is more
likely to occur at the bottom of the stack, at the furnace, rather than
on top of the roof.

A large percentage of chimneys do not have screened caps. Raccoons
nesting in open chimneys are not unheard of.

Chimneys? Modern efficient gas furnaces do not require "chimneys." They use
ordinary piping to bring fresh outside air in (so you're not sending your heated
home air into the combustion chamber to throw away) and remove exhaust.

The same applies to modern efficient oil furnaces though they do not use
PVC pipe for those vents.

What is the efficiency rating (AFUE) for these "modern efficient oil furnaces?" My
natural gas furnace is about 96% efficient (AFUE), meaning that about 96% of the
energy in the gas becomes actual heat in my house. How does your "efficient oil
furnace" compare?

Well, no, it means that the furnace sends 96% of the energy in the gas
to it's output as heat, whether that actually becomes heat in your home
is dependent on other factors. A good oil fired boiler I looked at was
86.8%, I don't have numbers handy for oil furnaces at the moment. Again,
there are multiple reasons to choose oil over nat. gas.

Not true. Heat that goes up the chimney or out the exhaust is not included in AFUE. It
would make AFUE pretty pointless if the heat being measured in its rating wasn't used to
go into the distribution system. (I am assuming that all heat in the duct system goes to
the house and that you aren't running ducts outside, through an ice cellar, or through a
cold attic).

"The Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) measures the amount of fuel converted to
space heat in proportion to the amount of fuel entering the furnace. This is commonly
expressed as a percentage. Energy Star labeled furnaces must meet or exceed 90% AFUE
energy-efficiency ratings." http://www.waptac.org/sp.asp?id=6841

Pete C. wrote:
But clearly this whole argument against nat
gas heat is all based on emotion, rather than fact. The price of
heating oil varies. The price of nat gas varies. Over the past, in my
experience, they have been similar enough in their total cost that it's
not a major difference.

Completely false. This argument against nat. gas is based on facts about
it's safety, reliability, cleanliness and the service life of the
equipment. I have ignored price per BTU since that is constantly in
flux.


When you provide links or other credible references that show nat gas
is unsafe, unreliable, unclean and has a short service life, then I'll
say it's based on fact, rather than emotion. I've had 25+ years of
nat gas heat and not a single outage do to eqpt failure or lack of nat
gas supply. I've lived in homes with oil burners that failed right
and left over similar time frames. I've also provided you with many
links that completely refute your claims. Other than you own
assertions and observations, you've provided zippo to support any of
your arguments.

I asked before, if nat gas is so damn inferior, why is it that it's
continuing to gain market share vs oil heat and only 4% of new homes
today use oil heat? Is everyone stupid except you?




Price is the only argument made in favor of nat. gas that has even short
term validity. All other arguments in favor of nat. gas have been based
on either myths, or comparisons of brand new gas equipment to 50yr old
oil equipment.

Only according to you of course.







is subject to outages and is far
more dangerous than oil.

With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from,

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in
price.



you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages


No outage here in 35 years.

I've asked several times where Pete lives that he thinks nat gas
interruption is a big concern.

And I've mentioned several times that I'm referring to the northeast.
It's CT in particular where I lived for 36 years before moving a couple
years ago.

It obviously isn't for 95% of us who
use it. I've had nat gas service for 25+ years, that has never gone
out once. I live in central NJ, 50 miles from NYC. But I've sure had
electricity go out.

Indeed I did as well and when it did I simply started my generator and
went back about my normal business without more that a few minutes
interruption.

And it;s the nature of the two systems that's key.
An underground piped system is immune from much of what can halt
electric service. A thrunderstorm, snow storm, car hitting a pole,
all are common electric system weak points, that gas generally is
immune from.

You are ignoring the fact that it is possible and economical to provide
backup for the electricity, something that is not possible with the gas.

Whoppee de do! And what percent of people have requirements that need
a backup generator? Again, in 40+ years, I've never had one or been
in a situation that would justify it. What percentage of homes have
backup generators, that also come with their own whole set of issue?
I'd bet it's less than 1%, so why drag this into it?



Additionally time to repair a damaged electric line is significantly
less than time to repair a damaged gas line in most cases. You also
don't have to spend additional time purging a repaired electric line
before returning it to service as you do with a repaired gas line.

More theoretical BS. In practice, 25+ years and I HAVE NEVER HAD A
SINGLE GAS OUTAGE. You don't even have gas, so how the hell would
you know how reliable it is? And again, where do you live that the
nat gas system is so poor that outage is such a big deal?




Again, when you put this in perspective, the gas outtage
thing is another red herring.

Tell that to the folks who lived within 10 miles of me that had to spend
several days in a shelter due to a gas outage.

Sure it can happen. And with your jaundiced view, I'm sure if there
was a nat gas leak in Croatia, you would take note of it and chalk it
up. While if you neighbors were out of power for 3 days, well that
goes unnoticed. Or better yet, if their oil furnace quit in the middle
of the night.






If oil is so much better, why do only 4% of new homes use oil heat?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.


Yeah, so you do think everyone else but you is stupid. It figures. And
in all my years, I never heard anyone say they are going with nat gas
because it avoids buying foreign oil. They do it because it's either
cheaper or competitevly priced, more reliable, burns cleaner, and
avoids having any oil tank issues or delivery issues.

Note, I'm not saying oil heat isn't a valid choice for some people.
If I didn't have nat gas available, I would probably use it too. But
to claim that nat gas is unsafe or inferior is total BS, unless you'd
like to supply some real world data.



2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising. Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Now it really gets silly. Everyone but you is so stupid they just
fall for nat gas marketing? Or is it that only nat gas companies can
do marketing? I hear plenty of radio commercials promoting oil heat.





I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.

2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.

3) Gas companies market more since they generate more profits from
service charges during the long hot months where they have to supply
minimal gas.

4) The southern states have been having a huge housing boom as a whole
due to lower construction costs and most tract housing gets gas systems
not because they are better in any way, but simply because the cheapest
low service life units available are in gas which means more profits for
the developers and replacement costs for the consumer a short time down
the road.


You can't get away from the fact that despite all this, oil heat is
available virtually everywhere. Anyone with a nat gas line passing
their house can still choose oil if they like. Despite this, only 4%
of new homew opt for oil. Yeah, I know we're all stupid cause we
don;t prefer oil heat.








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.

Yeah, it;s like arguing the size of an ant to the size of a mosquito.
Look at how many people actually die from a fall. It's orders of
magnitude larger. Should we get rid of bathtubs and tile floors too?

Do we have viable alternatives to bathtubs and tile floors? When there
is a viable alternative to a potentially dangerous item it is worthwhile
to consider them.

Yes we do have alternatives: showers and any other floor material.
So everyone that has a tub or tile floor must be stupid too. Or is it
marketing?





In the case of bathtubs and tile floors however there are patches
available such as non slip mats that can overcome their safety issues.
Equivalent safety patches are not available for nat. gas though CO and
explosive gas detectors do help.

Again safety is only one part of the argument against nat. gas.

Pete C.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

wrote:

Pete C. wrote:

In other words the oil furnace burns dirtier and pollutes more.

False. Modern oil and gas furnaces produce comparable amounts of
emissions. The exact composition is different, but the overall pollution
is the same (the EPA and DOE have studies that confirm this if you want
to look).

Now, I'd love to see the supporting data for the claim that modern gas
and oil furnaces produce the same amount of pollution. Why do you
think many cities have replaced diesel bus fleets with ones that run
natural gas if burning oil is just as clean? Natural gas produces only
water and CO2. And nat gas even produces a third less CO2 than
burning oil. Burning oil, in addition to the above, produces
particulates, nitrous oxide, and sulfates.

http://www.tevisoil.com/fuel/compare.asp
http://www.cecarf.org/Programs/Fuels...%209-12-03.pdf

Try looking at the EPA and DOE sites.

Ok. What pages on these sites should we look at?

I don't have specifics handy, but I'm sure you can find them with a
search.

Oh, I thought you knew what you are talking about. Now you want me to go on an egghunt for your
claims.




The poster is right. First, you proclaim the smell produced by burning
oil to be a virtue, because it may save you from dying from CO. . Then
you claim oil heat is as clean as nat gas.

You don't read well do you? I indicated that both are not very
detectable when combustion adjustments are proper and neither produces
much CO under those conditions either. It is when combustion adjustments
are out of whack that a lot of CO is produced and it is also under those
abnormal conditions that oil exhaust is much more detectable than gas
exhaust.

Did you ever see an oil
based appliance of any kind vented into a home? Yet millions of nat
gas kitchen stoves work exactly that way. Gee, I wonder why?

Not for the reasons you apparently think.


A whopping total of 28 people a year die in the US from CO from natural
gas heat systems period. I'd like to see any real world evidence that
oil heat systems are any safer overall.

Indeed they are. CO is not the only way a nat. gas heating system can
kill you. Add in the number of deaths from gas explosions to the CO
deaths and then compare to oil. Then compare the number of injuries from
gas explosions to the number of injuries from oil explosions. Then tell
me which is safer.

What is the number of deaths from natural gas versus oil? Can you show us the numbers or is
this just a FUD campaign?

They are out there on one of the government sites.

Oh you know the numbers are out there. Since you know, which sites did you find them on?

Certainly the ratio
of hundreds of gas explosions to zero oil explosions should be pretty
obvious. Someone was killed in a gas explosion at a motel just a month
ago, and no, I don't count the deliberate gas explosion suicide in NYC.

Zero oil burner explosions? Here's a recent one in New Jersey (nobody was killed in this case,
thank goodness!)

On March 21, 2005 at 8:44 p.m., the Teaneck Fire Department (TFD) responded
to a report of a loud explosion and smoke in the house at 501 Rutland Avenue.
Upon arrival, responding firefighters were guided into the basement to investigate
a problem with the boiler; however they could not find an odor or smoke. The
firefighters, who combined have more than 100 years of experience, began
investigating the area. They found that the emergency switch of the boiler had
been shut off and later learned that the mother living in the home had turned it
off.
The basement of the home was sectioned off to provide for various uses of the
area. There was a large portion that was used for a recreation/family room, an
area that contained two beds that were usually used by the house keeper and
one of the children, and two small rooms; one containing the oil fired boiler, the
other utilized as a laundry room.
After investigating the basement area, the responding firefighters determined that
a “blowback” of the oil burner had caused the reported explosion and smoke.
“Blowback” occurs when an accumulation of vaporized fuel oil in the combustion
chamber suddenly ignites due to a delayed ignition. This causes too much
pressure, which results in a loud bang and the release of smoke.
The firefighters found multiple problems with the boiler, including closed water
valves, a low water level, a non-functional low-water cut-off and a dirty flue pipe.
Fire personnel made the necessary adjustments to restore the boiler to a safe
and operable condition and advised the owner of the problems that were found.
The owner was also directed to have the boiler serviced as soon as possible.








Nat gas continues to increase
in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If
it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.

The amount and proportion of natural gas that is imported to the USA is tiny compared to
oil. Much of the imported natural gas comes from right here in North America, not hostile
areas of the world like the Middle East.

How does it compare to the 50% or so of oil that we import?

The best numbers I have are the US produced 539 cubic meters in 2003, (exported 24.19 cubic
meters) and imported 114.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Compare those ratios.

The general
public seems to think we get 99% of our oil from the middle east which
certainly isn't true.

No it's not, nevertheless middle east oil production has a huge impact on our foreign policy and
national spending.




2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising.

Which supplier are you talking about? What is the definition of "safe?"

It was Connecticut Natural Gas as I recall. I don't know the details
exactly, but their "Clean, Safe, Dependable Natural Gas" campaign only
lasted like six months before mysteriously becoming the "Clean,
Dependable Natural Gas" campaign.

On their web page, I noticed that it is "What can Natural Gas offer over my existing fuel?
Dependability. Versatility. Affordability. Convenience. Efficiency. Plus, it is also
environmentally friendly! "




My definition of safe would be free from threat of catastrophic and
potentially fatal failures i.e. explosions.

So oil heat is not "safe" under your definition.


http://www.newburyfd.org/responding_...er_emergen.htm




Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Service charges? Like the $4/month minimum billing fee that I pay for my natural gas
service? My electric company charges more than that so your argument is opposing electric
service too. Even including that fee (which includes service for my hot water heater, gas
grill, stove, and dryer) I'm still way ahead with gas, and I have a very efficient furnace
too.

Electric service is rarely without some usage. With gas service it is
not uncommon to have periods of zero use. Certainly this is not true in
every case, but again, this is only one of many reasons to not use nat.
gas, not the sole reason.

Well yeah the reason not to use natural gas is to save a few bucks in non usage charges (similar
to what you get with electric service) to save far more in higher efficiency. Besides even in
those "zero use" periods, I'm still making hot water, and if I'm home there is a good chance I'm
eating (using the grill, stove) or doing laundry (dryer.)






I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.

How so?

When the low end gas furnace is only required to operate from November -
February it will clearly have a longer service life than the same unit
required to operate from September to April.

Oh I see. Good thing that same furnace wouldn't be needed for a/c in those climates.




2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.

Huh? What is your source of this claim?

Check with any gas company for the cost of extending gas service to your
street in say CT vs. OK for comparable distances.

You made the claim. Which gas company(ies) did you check with?

When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.

I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?



I've also dug a 650' trench in CT for conduit and an 80' trench in TX
for conduit and I can assure you the TX trench went far faster and
easier per foot and required much smaller equipment than the CT trench.

Well there you go. Irrefutable proof that installing gas lines is always more expensive in
Connecticut than Texas.






3) Gas companies market more since they generate more profits from
service charges during the long hot months where they have to supply
minimal gas.

You said they are a monopoly. Why would they need to market? I hear a lot of advertising
by oil dealers, or the collective oil dealers, operating as one.

They market to get you locked into their nat. gas monopoly. They market
to those that use other energy sources.

So why does that no-colluding oil heat lobby advertise about "today's oil heat" and how hot it is,
blah blah blah. Keep in mind this is not one dealer advertising against other oil dealers, but an
obligarchy of many/all oil dealers.





4) The southern states have been having a huge housing boom as a whole
due to lower construction costs and most tract housing gets gas systems
not because they are better in any way, but simply because the cheapest
low service life units available are in gas which means more profits for
the developers and replacement costs for the consumer a short time down
the road.

What are your numbers for your cost comparison?

No handy online reference, but a low end gas furnace installation is at
least a thousand dollars less than a low end oil furnace installation.
The low end gas unit will also have a service life expectancy about half
of the oil unit. Both will be blow the service life of the average units
in each class, but the oil still last longer there as well though the
ratio is not as extreme.

If you say so.

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:10:29 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:



CO deaths are a result of poor combustion adjustment combined with flue
leakage, both of which have a higher probability with a gas furnace due
to:

1) People believing that a gas furnace does not require annual
inspections / service. This creates a greater probability of the furnace
falling into disrepair and the poor adjustment and leakage forming.


And the average Oil burner in a home that is not serviced properly is
JUST as dangerous.

No disrespect intended, Pete.

This whole thread seams to be diminishing the attention due to oil
burning equipment.

A delayed ignition that has not left the confines of the combustion
chamber may not be an explosion according to some, however it is an
unplanned event.

What you learn in a classroom is fine. It prepares you to go into the
field. Once you've been in the field for 3-4 years, you realize just
how little you knew that first year.

Many things go wrong with oil burners. YOU may know to stop resetting
your protectorelay after the third time, however most DO look at it
like an elevator button.

Most are filthy. Just have a fly on the wall look-see at most HVAC
shops and watch the service techs try to casually avoid the oil
service calls.

Oh, by the way, standing in front of a 750 HP boiler (30,131,000
btu's per hour./ 215 gal. per hour) while it huffs itself out for .5
seconds, and then back into high fire with out shutting off the main
fuel valve will forever makeup ones mind on weather or not an oil
burner can or cannot explode.


-zero



Pete C.

"Pete C." wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
Anyone looking at the complete pictu

Oil *is* safer than gas.

Where can I fins statistics on this?

Good question. There is a government site that I can't recall at the
moment (CDC, HHHS, CPSC or something) that had a nice search able
database where you could generate reports on reported injuries and
deaths sorted all kinds of ways.


Oil *is* more reliable than gas (on site fuel).

Bull ****. I've run out of oil, I've NEVER run out of gas. When power goes
out, oil is useless but if you have a gas stove, you can use the burners to
cook. I've never experinenced a gas outage in 60 years.

I'm afraid it's your bull ****. I've never run out of oil and anyone
with half a brain knows to check the gauge on their tank from time to
time.

When the power goes out oil is quite useful since #2 fuel out runs a
diesel generator perfectly and can even be used in the pump camp stoves.

You're lucky to be in a reliable location, others are not so lucky. A
large number of people within 10mi of where I was living had to spend
several winter days in a shelter during a gas outage about 4 years ago.



Oil *is* more competitive than gas (multiple suppliers).

Sure, you have Exxon, BP, Shell. Wow, what a great selection.

There are a few others in the mix.

Do the local
dealers vary in price by more than a penny or two? Nope, they don't. One
huge cartel.

Yes, they do. I've regularly seen price differences that amount to 25%
of the oil price and this included during a record cold winter price
gouging season.



Oil does *not* have service charges when you aren't using it.

If you cook with gas, you use it all the time. Same with hot water. Not
much of an agrument there.

I know a number of people who only have gas for heat.



Oil equipment *does* on average have a much longer service life than gas
equipment.

Really? I've not seen any big difference. Gas burners are pretty much
maintenance free. Once in a while a thermocouple or valve will need
replacing, sort of like an oil burner that needs a new motor, pump or nozzle
at time. Mechanical things break. In all my years of gas service, I"ve
only had two, maybe three service calls, but with oil, I must have $125
service and cleaning every year.

I said service life, you are indicating service costs and you are also
wrong there as well.

On average oil equipment is built more ruggedly and has a longer service
life than gas equipment. There are of course some real low end and real
high end units in both lines, but the average oil units last longer.

As for service costs, both gas and oil equipment requires annual
inspections for safety, both are capable of operating multiple years
without requiring actual service. The service performed annually on oil
equipment is not really required, but the cost for the parts is so low
that it's cheap insurance to just replace them and it's often the case
that people only call for service every few years at which point those
items should be replaced anyway.


Do you happen to have ties to an oil dealer?

None whatsoever. I work for a bank, the only stock I have is United
Technologies and at the moment since my last move I use neither oil or
nat. gas.

I do have a dual-fuel range that uses propane for the cook top, but this
is fed from a regular 20# BBQ type tank which lasts 8 months or more
between changes and I have multiple vendors to choose from.

Be careful!! That tank and gas line and range could blow at any moment! Look
out!

wrote:
Pete C. wrote:

But clearly this whole argument against nat
gas heat is all based on emotion, rather than fact. The price of
heating oil varies. The price of nat gas varies. Over the past, in my
experience, they have been similar enough in their total cost that it's
not a major difference.

Completely false. This argument against nat. gas is based on facts about
it's safety, reliability, cleanliness and the service life of the
equipment. I have ignored price per BTU since that is constantly in
flux.



When you provide links or other credible references that show nat gas
is unsafe, unreliable, unclean and has a short service life, then I'll
say it's based on fact, rather than emotion. I've had 25+ years of
nat gas heat and not a single outage do to eqpt failure or lack of nat
gas supply. I've lived in homes with oil burners that failed right
and left over similar time frames. I've also provided you with many
links that completely refute your claims. Other than you own
assertions and observations, you've provided zippo to support any of
your arguments.

I asked before, if nat gas is so damn inferior, why is it that it's
continuing to gain market share vs oil heat and only 4% of new homes
today use oil heat? Is everyone stupid except you?





Price is the only argument made in favor of nat. gas that has even short
term validity. All other arguments in favor of nat. gas have been based
on either myths, or comparisons of brand new gas equipment to 50yr old
oil equipment.


Only according to you of course.




is subject to outages and is far

more dangerous than oil.

With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from,

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in
price.



you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages


No outage here in 35 years.

I've asked several times where Pete lives that he thinks nat gas
interruption is a big concern.

And I've mentioned several times that I'm referring to the northeast.
It's CT in particular where I lived for 36 years before moving a couple
years ago.


It obviously isn't for 95% of us who
use it. I've had nat gas service for 25+ years, that has never gone
out once. I live in central NJ, 50 miles from NYC. But I've sure had
electricity go out.

Indeed I did as well and when it did I simply started my generator and
went back about my normal business without more that a few minutes
interruption.


And it;s the nature of the two systems that's key.
An underground piped system is immune from much of what can halt
electric service. A thrunderstorm, snow storm, car hitting a pole,
all are common electric system weak points, that gas generally is
immune from.

You are ignoring the fact that it is possible and economical to provide
backup for the electricity, something that is not possible with the gas.


Whoppee de do! And what percent of people have requirements that need
a backup generator? Again, in 40+ years, I've never had one or been
in a situation that would justify it. What percentage of homes have
backup generators, that also come with their own whole set of issue?
I'd bet it's less than 1%, so why drag this into it?




Additionally time to repair a damaged electric line is significantly
less than time to repair a damaged gas line in most cases. You also
don't have to spend additional time purging a repaired electric line
before returning it to service as you do with a repaired gas line.


More theoretical BS. In practice, 25+ years and I HAVE NEVER HAD A
SINGLE GAS OUTAGE. You don't even have gas, so how the hell would
you know how reliable it is? And again, where do you live that the
nat gas system is so poor that outage is such a big deal?


in 28 years here in Houston TX, not a single gas outage EVER.
Electricity has failed, several times a year for a few seconds,
occassionally a transformer will blow and we'll be out for a few
hours. Longest service outage came during Hurricane Alicia where the
eye came directly over the top of the house in the first year after it
was built. Power was out for about 9 hours.

Live near a natural gas pipeline, within 500 yards. Live near a
railroad that carries upwards of 30 trains a day (only one or two
passenger trains) and that has had one or two significant derailments in
28 years. Never an evacuation here.

Natural gas is clean, and MORE reliable in delivery HERE than ANY other
heat source!!!! Propane comes a close second. A quick web search turns
up entries for folks that service the refining industry and not a SINGLE
residential heat oil delivery firm. Course this is far from conclusive
so I searched the 1200+ page local yellow pages. Only 9 entries and
checking those out, it will be DIFFICULT to find a reliable supplier of
home hating oil even here in the heart of the Texas refining area!!!!

"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.

wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
But clearly this whole argument against nat
gas heat is all based on emotion, rather than fact. The price of
heating oil varies. The price of nat gas varies. Over the past, in my
experience, they have been similar enough in their total cost that it's
not a major difference.

Completely false. This argument against nat. gas is based on facts about
it's safety, reliability, cleanliness and the service life of the
equipment. I have ignored price per BTU since that is constantly in
flux.


When you provide links or other credible references that show nat gas
is unsafe, unreliable, unclean and has a short service life, then I'll
say it's based on fact, rather than emotion. I've had 25+ years of
nat gas heat and not a single outage do to eqpt failure or lack of nat
gas supply. I've lived in homes with oil burners that failed right
and left over similar time frames. I've also provided you with many
links that completely refute your claims. Other than you own
assertions and observations, you've provided zippo to support any of
your arguments.

I asked before, if nat gas is so damn inferior, why is it that it's
continuing to gain market share vs oil heat and only 4% of new homes
today use oil heat? Is everyone stupid except you?

Price is the only argument made in favor of nat. gas that has even short
term validity. All other arguments in favor of nat. gas have been based
on either myths, or comparisons of brand new gas equipment to 50yr old
oil equipment.

Only according to you of course.






is subject to outages and is far
more dangerous than oil.

With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from,

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in
price.



you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages


No outage here in 35 years.

I've asked several times where Pete lives that he thinks nat gas
interruption is a big concern.

And I've mentioned several times that I'm referring to the northeast.
It's CT in particular where I lived for 36 years before moving a couple
years ago.

It obviously isn't for 95% of us who
use it. I've had nat gas service for 25+ years, that has never gone
out once. I live in central NJ, 50 miles from NYC. But I've sure had
electricity go out.

Indeed I did as well and when it did I simply started my generator and
went back about my normal business without more that a few minutes
interruption.

And it;s the nature of the two systems that's key.
An underground piped system is immune from much of what can halt
electric service. A thrunderstorm, snow storm, car hitting a pole,
all are common electric system weak points, that gas generally is
immune from.

You are ignoring the fact that it is possible and economical to provide
backup for the electricity, something that is not possible with the gas.

Whoppee de do! And what percent of people have requirements that need
a backup generator? Again, in 40+ years, I've never had one or been
in a situation that would justify it. What percentage of homes have
backup generators, that also come with their own whole set of issue?
I'd bet it's less than 1%, so why drag this into it?

Additionally time to repair a damaged electric line is significantly
less than time to repair a damaged gas line in most cases. You also
don't have to spend additional time purging a repaired electric line
before returning it to service as you do with a repaired gas line.

More theoretical BS. In practice, 25+ years and I HAVE NEVER HAD A
SINGLE GAS OUTAGE. You don't even have gas, so how the hell would
you know how reliable it is? And again, where do you live that the
nat gas system is so poor that outage is such a big deal?


Again, when you put this in perspective, the gas outtage
thing is another red herring.

Tell that to the folks who lived within 10 miles of me that had to spend
several days in a shelter due to a gas outage.

Sure it can happen. And with your jaundiced view, I'm sure if there
was a nat gas leak in Croatia, you would take note of it and chalk it
up. While if you neighbors were out of power for 3 days, well that
goes unnoticed. Or better yet, if their oil furnace quit in the middle
of the night.



If oil is so much better, why do only 4% of new homes use oil heat?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.

Yeah, so you do think everyone else but you is stupid. It figures. And
in all my years, I never heard anyone say they are going with nat gas
because it avoids buying foreign oil. They do it because it's either
cheaper or competitevly priced, more reliable, burns cleaner, and
avoids having any oil tank issues or delivery issues.

Note, I'm not saying oil heat isn't a valid choice for some people.
If I didn't have nat gas available, I would probably use it too. But
to claim that nat gas is unsafe or inferior is total BS, unless you'd
like to supply some real world data.


2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising. Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Now it really gets silly. Everyone but you is so stupid they just
fall for nat gas marketing? Or is it that only nat gas companies can
do marketing? I hear plenty of radio commercials promoting oil heat.

Not just oil heat of course, but "Today's Oil Heat." "Heat is Warm. And
inviting...Blah blah"

As if a 70 degree warm house heated by one source would be any less warm than a 70
degree warm house heated by another...

Perhaps "cheap" is a relative term. I paid $750.00 CDN for the
installation of my indoor tank four years ago and this was a
discounted price that required a minimum one-year commitment with my
fuel oil supplier (Scotia Fuels).

More to the point, good friends of mine own a ski chalet in northern
Nova Scotia. Their oil tank was located outside and two years ago
someone had been stealing their heating oil by disconnecting the
bottom feed line. Unfortunately, they didn't properly reconnect it
and some 500 to 900 litres of heating oil leaked into the ground and
contaminated a number of neighbouring wells. And as luck would have
it, they also stole from the church next door, with the exaxt same
consequences.

So, the long and the short is that they were sued and the insurance
company covered only part of their legal and clean-up costs and now
they can't buy homeowners insurance. Moreover, they're can't sell
their home because there's still evidence of ground contamination
(which might very well be from the neighbouring church). Needless to
say, you don't discuss "the high cost of home heating oil" in their
presence.

For more information on heating oil tanks and the potential risk of
oil spills, see:

http://www.oilyeller.com/images/COHA_Nov_Dec%2002.pdf

http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/HomeHeatSafety.pdf

http://www.gov.ns.ca/enla/petroleum/...lTankGuide.pdf

Cheers,
Paul

Tanks are cheap (at least indoor ones), and indoor ones do not require
periodic replacement, nor do newly installed double wall underground
tanks.

John wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:


John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:


wrote:

Pete C. wrote:


In other words the oil furnace burns dirtier and pollutes more.

False. Modern oil and gas furnaces produce comparable amounts of
emissions. The exact composition is different, but the overall pollution
is the same (the EPA and DOE have studies that confirm this if you want
to look).

Now, I'd love to see the supporting data for the claim that modern gas
and oil furnaces produce the same amount of pollution. Why do you
think many cities have replaced diesel bus fleets with ones that run
natural gas if burning oil is just as clean? Natural gas produces only
water and CO2. And nat gas even produces a third less CO2 than
burning oil. Burning oil, in addition to the above, produces
particulates, nitrous oxide, and sulfates.

http://www.tevisoil.com/fuel/compare.asp
http://www.cecarf.org/Programs/Fuels...%209-12-03.pdf

Try looking at the EPA and DOE sites.

Ok. What pages on these sites should we look at?

I don't have specifics handy, but I'm sure you can find them with a
search.


Oh, I thought you knew what you are talking about. Now you want me to go on an egghunt for your
claims.



The poster is right. First, you proclaim the smell produced by burning
oil to be a virtue, because it may save you from dying from CO. . Then
you claim oil heat is as clean as nat gas.

You don't read well do you? I indicated that both are not very
detectable when combustion adjustments are proper and neither produces
much CO under those conditions either. It is when combustion adjustments
are out of whack that a lot of CO is produced and it is also under those
abnormal conditions that oil exhaust is much more detectable than gas
exhaust.


Did you ever see an oil
based appliance of any kind vented into a home? Yet millions of nat
gas kitchen stoves work exactly that way. Gee, I wonder why?

Not for the reasons you apparently think.


A whopping total of 28 people a year die in the US from CO from natural
gas heat systems period. I'd like to see any real world evidence that
oil heat systems are any safer overall.

Indeed they are. CO is not the only way a nat. gas heating system can
kill you. Add in the number of deaths from gas explosions to the CO
deaths and then compare to oil. Then compare the number of injuries from
gas explosions to the number of injuries from oil explosions. Then tell
me which is safer.

What is the number of deaths from natural gas versus oil? Can you show us the numbers or is
this just a FUD campaign?

They are out there on one of the government sites.


Oh you know the numbers are out there. Since you know, which sites did you find them on?


Certainly the ratio
of hundreds of gas explosions to zero oil explosions should be pretty
obvious. Someone was killed in a gas explosion at a motel just a month
ago, and no, I don't count the deliberate gas explosion suicide in NYC.


Zero oil burner explosions? Here's a recent one in New Jersey (nobody was killed in this case,
thank goodness!)

On March 21, 2005 at 8:44 p.m., the Teaneck Fire Department (TFD) responded
to a report of a loud explosion and smoke in the house at 501 Rutland Avenue.
Upon arrival, responding firefighters were guided into the basement to investigate
a problem with the boiler; however they could not find an odor or smoke. The
firefighters, who combined have more than 100 years of experience, began
investigating the area. They found that the emergency switch of the boiler had
been shut off and later learned that the mother living in the home had turned it
off.
The basement of the home was sectioned off to provide for various uses of the
area. There was a large portion that was used for a recreation/family room, an
area that contained two beds that were usually used by the house keeper and
one of the children, and two small rooms; one containing the oil fired boiler, the
other utilized as a laundry room.
After investigating the basement area, the responding firefighters determined that
a “blowback” of the oil burner had caused the reported explosion and smoke.
“Blowback” occurs when an accumulation of vaporized fuel oil in the combustion
chamber suddenly ignites due to a delayed ignition. This causes too much
pressure, which results in a loud bang and the release of smoke.
The firefighters found multiple problems with the boiler, including closed water
valves, a low water level, a non-functional low-water cut-off and a dirty flue pipe.
Fire personnel made the necessary adjustments to restore the boiler to a safe
and operable condition and advised the owner of the problems that were found.
The owner was also directed to have the boiler serviced as soon as possible.






Nat gas continues to increase
in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If
it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.

The amount and proportion of natural gas that is imported to the USA is tiny compared to
oil. Much of the imported natural gas comes from right here in North America, not hostile
areas of the world like the Middle East.

How does it compare to the 50% or so of oil that we import?


The best numbers I have are the US produced 539 cubic meters in 2003, (exported 24.19 cubic
meters) and imported 114.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Compare those ratios.


The general
public seems to think we get 99% of our oil from the middle east which
certainly isn't true.


No it's not, nevertheless middle east oil production has a huge impact on our foreign policy and
national spending.



2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising.

Which supplier are you talking about? What is the definition of "safe?"

It was Connecticut Natural Gas as I recall. I don't know the details
exactly, but their "Clean, Safe, Dependable Natural Gas" campaign only
lasted like six months before mysteriously becoming the "Clean,
Dependable Natural Gas" campaign.


On their web page, I noticed that it is "What can Natural Gas offer over my existing fuel?
Dependability. Versatility. Affordability. Convenience. Efficiency. Plus, it is also
environmentally friendly! "



My definition of safe would be free from threat of catastrophic and
potentially fatal failures i.e. explosions.


So oil heat is not "safe" under your definition.


http://www.newburyfd.org/responding_...er_emergen.htm



Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Service charges? Like the $4/month minimum billing fee that I pay for my natural gas
service? My electric company charges more than that so your argument is opposing electric
service too. Even including that fee (which includes service for my hot water heater, gas
grill, stove, and dryer) I'm still way ahead with gas, and I have a very efficient furnace
too.

Electric service is rarely without some usage. With gas service it is
not uncommon to have periods of zero use. Certainly this is not true in
every case, but again, this is only one of many reasons to not use nat.
gas, not the sole reason.


Well yeah the reason not to use natural gas is to save a few bucks in non usage charges (similar
to what you get with electric service) to save far more in higher efficiency. Besides even in
those "zero use" periods, I'm still making hot water, and if I'm home there is a good chance I'm
eating (using the grill, stove) or doing laundry (dryer.)



I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.

How so?

When the low end gas furnace is only required to operate from November -
February it will clearly have a longer service life than the same unit
required to operate from September to April.


Oh I see. Good thing that same furnace wouldn't be needed for a/c in those climates.



2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.

Huh? What is your source of this claim?

Check with any gas company for the cost of extending gas service to your
street in say CT vs. OK for comparable distances.


You made the claim. Which gas company(ies) did you check with?


When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.


I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?



Blasting IS required in the Hill Country of texas where rock is
frequently only a few feet below the top soil.

Natural gas here in Nova Scotia is available to probably less than
1,000 homes at this time (virtually all of the natural gas produced in
this province is shipped off to New England, which is kind of a sore
point for many Nova Scotians).

Be that as it may, according to Heritage Gas, our local distributor,
natural gas currently costs $11.31 per GJ. On a heat content basis,
that's said to be the equivalent of paying $0.43 per litre for fuel
oil, $0.29 per litre for propane and $0.0407 per kWh for electricity.

Source: http://www.heritagegas.com/converting/Home/h_rates.asp

On Friday, my heating oil supplier (Scotia Fuels) quoted me $0.819 per
litre, which puts the relative cost of home heating oil at nearly
twice that natural gas. As of my last propane delivery this past
January, I paid Superior Propane $1.009 per litre, which places
propane at roughly 3.5 times the cost of natural gas. Lastly, Nova
Scotia Power charges $0.1013 per kWh, so electricity works out to be
about 2.5 times more costly (conversion efficiency aside).

Cheers,
Paul

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed


They *should* have the minimal skills necessary to change an oil burner
nozzle by following instructions. Recall this requires only the skill to
operate two wrenches and is little different from the skill to change a
faucet aerator, couple a garden hose or connect a propane tank to a
grill. Changing a nozzle does not require any knowledge of burner
controls, combustion adjustments or anything else technical.

So since this is so easy, safe, and common, which oil equipment manufacturers recommend
this service as a customer done item, like changing light bulbs? (and lighting pilot
lights in the old days)

None that I know of since as I indicated the population as a whole has
lost a lot of skills and common sense over the years.


trimmed

Noise levels for modern gas or oil furnaces of comparable capacity are
comparable as well. Older units of both types were noisier.

I've never heard an oil furnace, even brand new top of the line, that was even close to
silent. Even thirty years ago natural gas was nearly silent (except the ho hum blower
motor and maybe the click of a relay and gas valve opening).

Perhaps the comparison is better between gas and oil boilers which I
have more experience with. Even so, with current oil furnaces the
difference isn't that significant. Old units were certainly louder.


trimmed

Yes and average oil furnaces are cast iron with similar warrantees. Many
low end gas furnaces are not stainless steel and have much shorter life
expectancies. Only a very few bottom of the barrel oil furnaces use
plain steel heat exchangers.

Cast iron would rust in a high efficiency (condensing) furnace.

Yes, it would. Oil furnaces don't do the condensing thing (yet) due to
cost factors mostly. If a fair increase in upfront cost would be
tolerated by the market they could bump the efficiency up further that
way with more expensive materials.


trimmed

In the town I was in and the adjacent towns during the past couple
decades I recall hearing of a gas outage of some duration at least every
few months. This is also an area with relatively sparse gas service,
probably less than 50% coverage of residences in the area. I recall
several times there were multi day outages during the winter where
people had to go to shelters.

What town was that in? If natural gas service was really that unreliable, I'd be
looking at propane.

Look to the northwest corner of CT.


trimmed

The costs of nat. gas also go up with the cost of other energy
commodities and also with the growth of nat. gas fueled electric
generation "peaking" power plants. Nat. gas is not some fixed cheap
energy source unaffected by the rest of the energy market.

And gee, why is so much electric production being shifted away from oil and to natural
gas?

Because it hasn't? Very little electric production was ever oil. It's
gone to nat. gas from coal and of course nuclear because of both
political and economic reasons. Nat. gas used to be a lot cheaper before
those peaking plants were built, which is one reason they were built to
begin with. The siting and permitting for the relatively small nat. gas
peaking plants was also easier which also led to the increase.


trimmed

Excuse me? I have solid reasons to have a generator as backup for the
electric companies outages. Outside of that the electric company can
provide me power at a lower effective rate than I can generate it myself
for since they can keep their generators fully loaded and therefore at
optimum efficiency.

A generator loaded to 25% of it's rated capacity as it would by much of
the time supplying a single home will still consume far more than 25% of
it's full load fuel consumption. If you could maintain a steady load
from the house so that you could match the generator size perfectly then
you could generate at close to utility rates.

So it is most economical to use an electric utility because of the lower
cost and the fact that it is practical and economical to have backup for
that utility. Electricity (like oil) also does not present the hazards
of gas. If the insulation on an electric line fails it does not fill
your home with explosive gas. If an electric line is shorted a circuit
breaker or fuse interrupts the power. Gas services generally do not have
comparable protective devices other than very recent seismic valves in
earthquake areas and those provide no protection from any other faults.

You said you are dislike gas because it is a regulated monopoly utility. You said you
dislike gas because it has nominal fees for minimum usage per month. Electric service
has both of these qualities. Therefore, your arguments are also in opposition to
electric service.

I *also* said nat. gas is less safe and less reliable than oil. All
those factors combine to give more than adequate reason to avoid nat.
gas.

You are also incorrect with your electric service analogy. I have more
than a dozen electric suppliers I can choose from, only the distribution
is a monopoly. Electric also is practical to provide backup for during
outages where nat. gas is not.

Pete C.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed

Exactly where is this spotty gas service that you speak of?

Anywhere outside urban and close suburban areas. There are vast areas
without nat. gas service and many of those areas are also in colder
climates where backup is more critical. There wasn't gas service where I
was in CT and there isn't gas service where I am now either.

Well obviously if there is no nat gas service and propane isn't feasible, oil would be a way
to go in climates too cold for heat pumps to work well. Oil. Cleaner than Coal.

Propane is even more dangerous than nat. gas. Because it is heavier than
air it is even less likely to dissipate from a leak in a house. Because
it is not a pipeline service you have to store a large quantity on-site
in a tank that you can't smoke/grill/whatever around and that has to be
outside where it is exposed to the weather and more likely to rust than
an oil tank in a basement.





In those areas they are
typically in basements to they are not consuming heated air.

The basement air is sealed from the air upstairs?

To a large extent yes. Warm air also rises so you aren't going to get
warm air from upstairs going downstairs. Indeed waste heat from the
furnace is rejected into the surrounding area and that warmer basement
air will rise and warm the floors above slightly.

Wow! I've never seen a house where the basement air was sealed from the house air. It's
nice to know that the air "consumed" into the oil burner wouldn't need to be made up from
air leaking into the house via window gaps, exhaust fans, cracks etc.

Air typically leaks into basements just fine through garage doors which
are damn near impossible to seal, utility penetrations, dryer vents and
other basement openings. You won't generally see a draft sucking under
the gap at the bottom of the one basement door.

Pete C.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed

What is the efficiency rating (AFUE) for these "modern efficient oil furnaces?" My
natural gas furnace is about 96% efficient (AFUE), meaning that about 96% of the
energy in the gas becomes actual heat in my house. How does your "efficient oil
furnace" compare?

Well, no, it means that the furnace sends 96% of the energy in the gas
to it's output as heat, whether that actually becomes heat in your home
is dependent on other factors. A good oil fired boiler I looked at was
86.8%, I don't have numbers handy for oil furnaces at the moment. Again,
there are multiple reasons to choose oil over nat. gas.

Not true. Heat that goes up the chimney or out the exhaust is not included in AFUE. It
would make AFUE pretty pointless if the heat being measured in its rating wasn't used to
go into the distribution system. (I am assuming that all heat in the duct system goes to
the house and that you aren't running ducts outside, through an ice cellar, or through a
cold attic).

I was referring to the losses after the furnaces heat output, not the
stack.

Bad assumptions as well since a large percentage of furnaces and related
duct work travel through unconditioned space. Horizontal configuration
gas furnaces in particular often end up in cold attics.


"The Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) measures the amount of fuel converted to
space heat in proportion to the amount of fuel entering the furnace. This is commonly
expressed as a percentage. Energy Star labeled furnaces must meet or exceed 90% AFUE
energy-efficiency ratings." http://www.waptac.org/sp.asp?id=6841

Yes? And? As I said there are a lot of losses after the furnace output
and gas furnaces often end up in icy attics where oil furnaces almost
never do.

Pete C.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed

What is the efficiency rating (AFUE) for these "modern efficient oil furnaces?" My
natural gas furnace is about 96% efficient (AFUE), meaning that about 96% of the
energy in the gas becomes actual heat in my house. How does your "efficient oil
furnace" compare?

Well, no, it means that the furnace sends 96% of the energy in the gas
to it's output as heat, whether that actually becomes heat in your home
is dependent on other factors. A good oil fired boiler I looked at was
86.8%, I don't have numbers handy for oil furnaces at the moment. Again,
there are multiple reasons to choose oil over nat. gas.

Not true. Heat that goes up the chimney or out the exhaust is not included in AFUE. It
would make AFUE pretty pointless if the heat being measured in its rating wasn't used to
go into the distribution system. (I am assuming that all heat in the duct system goes to
the house and that you aren't running ducts outside, through an ice cellar, or through a
cold attic).

I was referring to the losses after the furnaces heat output, not the
stack.

So what? You keep claiming that oil is so efficient. I say again, my average condensing
furnace is about 96 AFUE. Which oil furnaces come close to that again?




Bad assumptions as well since a large percentage of furnaces and related
duct work travel through unconditioned space. Horizontal configuration
gas furnaces in particular often end up in cold attics.


"The Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) measures the amount of fuel converted to
space heat in proportion to the amount of fuel entering the furnace. This is commonly
expressed as a percentage. Energy Star labeled furnaces must meet or exceed 90% AFUE
energy-efficiency ratings." http://www.waptac.org/sp.asp?id=6841

Yes? And? As I said there are a lot of losses after the furnace output
and gas furnaces often end up in icy attics where oil furnaces almost
never do.

So if you need to put a furnace unit in an attic, you are out of luck with oil again. Oh yeah,
insulate those ducts.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed

Exactly where is this spotty gas service that you speak of?

Anywhere outside urban and close suburban areas. There are vast areas
without nat. gas service and many of those areas are also in colder
climates where backup is more critical. There wasn't gas service where I
was in CT and there isn't gas service where I am now either.

Well obviously if there is no nat gas service and propane isn't feasible, oil would be a way
to go in climates too cold for heat pumps to work well. Oil. Cleaner than Coal.

Propane is even more dangerous than nat. gas. Because it is heavier than
air it is even less likely to dissipate from a leak in a house. Because
it is not a pipeline service you have to store a large quantity on-site
in a tank that you can't smoke/grill/whatever around and that has to be
outside where it is exposed to the weather and more likely to rust than
an oil tank in a basement.

Wow! You can't grill near a natural gas tank! I think you just ruined a lot Labor day parties.
Nice going.








In those areas they are
typically in basements to they are not consuming heated air.

The basement air is sealed from the air upstairs?

To a large extent yes. Warm air also rises so you aren't going to get
warm air from upstairs going downstairs. Indeed waste heat from the
furnace is rejected into the surrounding area and that warmer basement
air will rise and warm the floors above slightly.

Wow! I've never seen a house where the basement air was sealed from the house air. It's
nice to know that the air "consumed" into the oil burner wouldn't need to be made up from
air leaking into the house via window gaps, exhaust fans, cracks etc.

Air typically leaks into basements just fine through garage doors which
are damn near impossible to seal, utility penetrations, dryer vents and
other basement openings. You won't generally see a draft sucking under
the gap at the bottom of the one basement door.

Well my garage IS quite sealed from my basement, with a tight fireproof door with lots of weather
stripping. Of course it's a moot point for the furnace discussion,since the natural gas furnace
uses outside temperature air (colder air contains more oxygen too which it brings directly
inside for its use.

its natural gas that could be cleaned up futher for regular use,
supposedly it isnt cost effective...

on the gas vs oil heat consider this.

A electric outage costs the power company little other than fixing what
broke......

a natural gas outage costs a lot to the provider, turn off EVERY
effected home then go back and turn every signle home back on, winter
break in or pay for frozen pipe damage.

gas has a BIG incentive to maintain its infrastructruture well,
electric doesnt really have that same $$ reason.

around here duquesne light historically waits till the transformer
blows, resetting it thermal protection over and over to save a buck.

gas goes around replacing lines thruout their service area.

longest gas outage we ever had ZERO I am 49

Longest electric outage about 4 days after major storm, average outage
6 to 8 hours.. several times a year. mini outages nearly every day of a
few minutes long. I gave up on my microwaves digital clock for this
reason and keep my satellite DVR AKA TIVO on a UPS since it takes my
DVR a couple minutes to reboot and its basically a computer...

Gas CARES electric doesnt although just recently duquesne light having
drawn attention for unreliable service has promised to do better and
raise our rates

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed


They *should* have the minimal skills necessary to change an oil burner
nozzle by following instructions. Recall this requires only the skill to
operate two wrenches and is little different from the skill to change a
faucet aerator, couple a garden hose or connect a propane tank to a
grill. Changing a nozzle does not require any knowledge of burner
controls, combustion adjustments or anything else technical.

So since this is so easy, safe, and common, which oil equipment manufacturers recommend
this service as a customer done item, like changing light bulbs? (and lighting pilot
lights in the old days)

None that I know of since as I indicated the population as a whole has
lost a lot of skills and common sense over the years.

trimmed

Noise levels for modern gas or oil furnaces of comparable capacity are
comparable as well. Older units of both types were noisier.

I've never heard an oil furnace, even brand new top of the line, that was even close to
silent. Even thirty years ago natural gas was nearly silent (except the ho hum blower
motor and maybe the click of a relay and gas valve opening).

Perhaps the comparison is better between gas and oil boilers which I
have more experience with. Even so, with current oil furnaces the
difference isn't that significant. Old units were certainly louder.

trimmed

Yes and average oil furnaces are cast iron with similar warrantees. Many
low end gas furnaces are not stainless steel and have much shorter life
expectancies. Only a very few bottom of the barrel oil furnaces use
plain steel heat exchangers.

Cast iron would rust in a high efficiency (condensing) furnace.

Yes, it would. Oil furnaces don't do the condensing thing (yet) due to
cost factors mostly. If a fair increase in upfront cost would be
tolerated by the market they could bump the efficiency up further that
way with more expensive materials.

And what is causing the aforementioned "cost factors???"



(dirty exhaust, sulfer, soot, acids....)

trimmed

In the town I was in and the adjacent towns during the past couple
decades I recall hearing of a gas outage of some duration at least every
few months. This is also an area with relatively sparse gas service,
probably less than 50% coverage of residences in the area. I recall
several times there were multi day outages during the winter where
people had to go to shelters.

What town was that in? If natural gas service was really that unreliable, I'd be
looking at propane.

Look to the northwest corner of CT.

trimmed

Where should I look there?



The costs of nat. gas also go up with the cost of other energy
commodities and also with the growth of nat. gas fueled electric
generation "peaking" power plants. Nat. gas is not some fixed cheap
energy source unaffected by the rest of the energy market.

And gee, why is so much electric production being shifted away from oil and to natural
gas?

Because it hasn't?

Nope.

Very little electric production was ever oil.

Oh really?

"At the time of the 1973 oil embargo, about 17 percent of U.S. electricity was generated by
burning oil, and about five percent from nuclear energy. But, twenty-five years later, oil
represents only about three percent of U.S. electricity production, while nuclear energy
supplies almost twenty percent."
http://www.house.gov/science/ee_charter_072500.htm



It's
gone to nat. gas from coal and of course nuclear because of both
political and economic reasons. Nat. gas used to be a lot cheaper before
those peaking plants were built, which is one reason they were built to
begin with. The siting and permitting for the relatively small nat. gas
peaking plants was also easier which also led to the increase.

By the way, a number of larger power plants have been outfitted to burn either oil OR gas.
Yet they are burning gas predominantly nowadays. Why?

And why would permitting and siting be so much easier for those natural gas plants? Seems
that it would be lot more harder. You know, they must be blowing up and exploding on a
regular basis.



trimmed

Excuse me? I have solid reasons to have a generator as backup for the
electric companies outages. Outside of that the electric company can
provide me power at a lower effective rate than I can generate it myself
for since they can keep their generators fully loaded and therefore at
optimum efficiency.

A generator loaded to 25% of it's rated capacity as it would by much of
the time supplying a single home will still consume far more than 25% of
it's full load fuel consumption. If you could maintain a steady load
from the house so that you could match the generator size perfectly then
you could generate at close to utility rates.

So it is most economical to use an electric utility because of the lower
cost and the fact that it is practical and economical to have backup for
that utility. Electricity (like oil) also does not present the hazards
of gas. If the insulation on an electric line fails it does not fill
your home with explosive gas. If an electric line is shorted a circuit
breaker or fuse interrupts the power. Gas services generally do not have
comparable protective devices other than very recent seismic valves in
earthquake areas and those provide no protection from any other faults.

You said you are dislike gas because it is a regulated monopoly utility. You said you
dislike gas because it has nominal fees for minimum usage per month. Electric service
has both of these qualities. Therefore, your arguments are also in opposition to
electric service.

I *also* said nat. gas is less safe and less reliable than oil. All
those factors combine to give more than adequate reason to avoid nat.
gas.

And I *also* said that I disagree with your hypothesis.



You are also incorrect with your electric service analogy.

Too bad you snipped it out, because you missed the point. You were all hot and bothered
about gas because a gas bill contains a minimum billing charge. I pointed out that
electricity utilities have the same deal, and also the savings from gas makes up for that
nominal fee in spades.


I have more
than a dozen electric suppliers I can choose from, only the distribution
is a monopoly.

Umm, that's no different than gas supplier choice. You were all upset about the gas utility
"monopoly" so I pointed out that electricity is a monopoly too. Both for the distribution
portions. You appear to be located in Texas with a incumbent distributor of TXU and "choice"
options range from about 13.4 cents to 16 cents per kW/hr. So some "choice" but a very
minor spread between the highest and lowest, with most options very close together in
between, all with varying terms.

Electric also is practical to provide backup for during
outages where nat. gas is not.


Absolutely false. Natural gas generators are a wonderful thing, and do not require tanks,
fuel storage, deliveries, etc. They also burn much cleaner than say, a diesel fuel.
Extremely practical.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed

Try looking at the EPA and DOE sites.

Ok. What pages on these sites should we look at?

I don't have specifics handy, but I'm sure you can find them with a
search.

Oh, I thought you knew what you are talking about. Now you want me to go on an egghunt for your
claims.

Spend some time there, you might learn something.


trimmed

What is the number of deaths from natural gas versus oil? Can you show us the numbers or is
this just a FUD campaign?

They are out there on one of the government sites.

Oh you know the numbers are out there. Since you know, which sites did you find them on?

I'm not sure at the moment, I have too many bookmarks to find it easily.
Suppose that rather defeats the purpose of bookmarks.


Certainly the ratio
of hundreds of gas explosions to zero oil explosions should be pretty
obvious. Someone was killed in a gas explosion at a motel just a month
ago, and no, I don't count the deliberate gas explosion suicide in NYC.

Zero oil burner explosions? Here's a recent one in New Jersey (nobody was killed in this case,
thank goodness!)

On March 21, 2005 at 8:44 p.m., the Teaneck Fire Department (TFD) responded
to a report of a loud explosion and smoke in the house at 501 Rutland Avenue.
Upon arrival, responding firefighters were guided into the basement to investigate
a problem with the boiler; however they could not find an odor or smoke. The
firefighters, who combined have more than 100 years of experience, began
investigating the area. They found that the emergency switch of the boiler had
been shut off and later learned that the mother living in the home had turned it
off.
The basement of the home was sectioned off to provide for various uses of the
area. There was a large portion that was used for a recreation/family room, an
area that contained two beds that were usually used by the house keeper and
one of the children, and two small rooms; one containing the oil fired boiler, the
other utilized as a laundry room.
After investigating the basement area, the responding firefighters determined that
a “blowback” of the oil burner had caused the reported explosion and smoke.
“Blowback” occurs when an accumulation of vaporized fuel oil in the combustion
chamber suddenly ignites due to a delayed ignition. This causes too much
pressure, which results in a loud bang and the release of smoke.
The firefighters found multiple problems with the boiler, including closed water
valves, a low water level, a non-functional low-water cut-off and a dirty flue pipe.
Fire personnel made the necessary adjustments to restore the boiler to a safe
and operable condition and advised the owner of the problems that were found.
The owner was also directed to have the boiler serviced as soon as possible.

That is / was *not* an explosion, not even close. I don't think a
blowback on a residential boiler has ever injured anyone, much less
killed them. Certainly it will scare the **** out of them and perhaps
teach them not to keep messing with the thing if they don't know what
they are doing.

Oil burners do *not* have blowbacks on their own, they have had the
safety devices to prevent that for decades. Blowbacks occur when someone
keeps pressing the reset button ignoring the warning not to press it
more than once. Oil burner controls from the last couple decades have
incorporated a "three strikes and you're out" lockout to prevent this.







Nat gas continues to increase
in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If
it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.

The amount and proportion of natural gas that is imported to the USA is tiny compared to
oil. Much of the imported natural gas comes from right here in North America, not hostile
areas of the world like the Middle East.

How does it compare to the 50% or so of oil that we import?

The best numbers I have are the US produced 539 cubic meters in 2003, (exported 24.19 cubic
meters) and imported 114.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Compare those ratios.

I'm assuming you forgot a billion on the US numbers. So importing
something like 18% nat. gas vs. 50% oil. Not that drastic a difference
and given the current trends the gap is likely to close further.


The general
public seems to think we get 99% of our oil from the middle east which
certainly isn't true.

No it's not, nevertheless middle east oil production has a huge impact on our foreign policy and
national spending.

Our perpetually inept middle east foreign policy has less to do with oil
than the anti war folks claim. There are serious issues there that we
need to deal with that have nothing to do with oil. Those issues did
come largely as a result of oil, but not directly from US actions.

The sudden appearance of the oil wealth in the middle east contributed
to the downfall of their other economic sectors and the rise of their
corrupt / oppressive governments and the resulting collapse of most of
their civilization.

If we had not been in the market for oil when it was discovered there,
if there culture had advanced more and stabilized before oil was
discovered there, or if the Brits hadn't been meddling over there the
problems would likely have been avoided.





2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising.

Which supplier are you talking about? What is the definition of "safe?"

It was Connecticut Natural Gas as I recall. I don't know the details
exactly, but their "Clean, Safe, Dependable Natural Gas" campaign only
lasted like six months before mysteriously becoming the "Clean,
Dependable Natural Gas" campaign.

On their web page, I noticed that it is "What can Natural Gas offer over my existing fuel?
Dependability. Versatility. Affordability. Convenience. Efficiency. Plus, it is also
environmentally friendly! "

That campaign was a while back. Notice that safety is not included in
their current campaign either. Their claim that it is environmentally
friendly is more or less true, the implication that other options are
not is however untrue.




My definition of safe would be free from threat of catastrophic and
potentially fatal failures i.e. explosions.

So oil heat is not "safe" under your definition.

http://www.newburyfd.org/responding_...er_emergen.htm

That is an interesting link however you probably didn't read it
thoroughly:

"There are many possible causes of oil burner emergencies and fires.
Fortunately, despite human error and poor maintenance practices, the
millions of oil burners in use today function without a mishap year
after year. When they do malfunction, the fire department is called and
usually remedies the situation with little effort. But never forget that
these seemingly harmless emergencies can and sometimes do turn deadly,
whether it be from fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide poisoning, and
you must be ever on guard against such instances."

Additionally most of the failure modes they indicate are all but
impossible with burners and controls manufactured in the last couple
decades. Most are very unlikely with burners or controls even older. Due
to the longevity of oil equipment there are however some really old
units out there.

This other bit:

"Fuel oil comes in several grades, number 1 to 5 grade oil, and has the
following general fire hazard properties: a flashpoint of 1007F to
1507F, a flammable (explosive) range of 0.7 to 5 percent when mixed with
air, and an ignition temperature of 4947F."

should give a bit of a reminder on just how difficult it is to get oil
to burn and the near impossibility of igniting oil spilled from a tank
leak.





Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Service charges? Like the $4/month minimum billing fee that I pay for my natural gas
service? My electric company charges more than that so your argument is opposing electric
service too. Even including that fee (which includes service for my hot water heater, gas
grill, stove, and dryer) I'm still way ahead with gas, and I have a very efficient furnace
too.

Electric service is rarely without some usage. With gas service it is
not uncommon to have periods of zero use. Certainly this is not true in
every case, but again, this is only one of many reasons to not use nat.
gas, not the sole reason.

Well yeah the reason not to use natural gas is to save a few bucks in non usage charges (similar
to what you get with electric service) to save far more in higher efficiency. Besides even in
those "zero use" periods, I'm still making hot water, and if I'm home there is a good chance I'm
eating (using the grill, stove) or doing laundry (dryer.)

A 10% efficiency difference during a period when you were only heating
hot water (to keep the comparison fair) would amount to about $5 with
today's high prices.







I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.

How so?

When the low end gas furnace is only required to operate from November -
February it will clearly have a longer service life than the same unit
required to operate from September to April.

Oh I see. Good thing that same furnace wouldn't be needed for a/c in those climates.

A/C operation only affects the blower. There is no stress on the burner
or heat exchanger. Unless of course the POS unit leaks condensate into
the heat exchanger and it's rusted out by the time heating season rolls
around.





2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.

Huh? What is your source of this claim?

Check with any gas company for the cost of extending gas service to your
street in say CT vs. OK for comparable distances.

You made the claim. Which gas company(ies) did you check with?

I didn't because I don't use gas. I base that on construction knowledge.


When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.

I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

This was a small storm drain on a road with a significant grade. No
issues with gravity flow, no excessively deep installation.


So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?

No, not really. An individual town may be an anomaly, but the regions in
general have notably different underground utility construction costs.
This is changing a bit with some scary new trenchers able to cut through
granite without blasting and leave nice cuttings to back fill with.




I've also dug a 650' trench in CT for conduit and an 80' trench in TX
for conduit and I can assure you the TX trench went far faster and
easier per foot and required much smaller equipment than the CT trench.

Well there you go. Irrefutable proof that installing gas lines is always more expensive in
Connecticut than Texas.

Find me any part of CT away from the shore where you don't have
significant boulders and ledge to deal with.







3) Gas companies market more since they generate more profits from
service charges during the long hot months where they have to supply
minimal gas.

You said they are a monopoly. Why would they need to market? I hear a lot of advertising
by oil dealers, or the collective oil dealers, operating as one.

They market to get you locked into their nat. gas monopoly. They market
to those that use other energy sources.

So why does that no-colluding oil heat lobby advertise about "today's oil heat" and how hot it is,
blah blah blah. Keep in mind this is not one dealer advertising against other oil dealers, but an
obligarchy of many/all oil dealers.

A cooperative advertising arrangement is not in any was a monopoly and
indeed it's the only way many of the small oil dealers could get
advertising outside local newspapers and direct mail. They little local
oil dealers don't have the deep pockets of the big state wide nat. gas
monopolies.





4) The southern states have been having a huge housing boom as a whole
due to lower construction costs and most tract housing gets gas systems
not because they are better in any way, but simply because the cheapest
low service life units available are in gas which means more profits for
the developers and replacement costs for the consumer a short time down
the road.

What are your numbers for your cost comparison?

No handy online reference, but a low end gas furnace installation is at
least a thousand dollars less than a low end oil furnace installation.
The low end gas unit will also have a service life expectancy about half
of the oil unit. Both will be blow the service life of the average units
in each class, but the oil still last longer there as well though the
ratio is not as extreme.

If you say so.

I do.

Pete C.

Robert Gammon wrote:

John wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:


John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:


wrote:

Pete C. wrote:


In other words the oil furnace burns dirtier and pollutes more.

False. Modern oil and gas furnaces produce comparable amounts of
emissions. The exact composition is different, but the overall pollution
is the same (the EPA and DOE have studies that confirm this if you want
to look).

Now, I'd love to see the supporting data for the claim that modern gas
and oil furnaces produce the same amount of pollution. Why do you
think many cities have replaced diesel bus fleets with ones that run
natural gas if burning oil is just as clean? Natural gas produces only
water and CO2. And nat gas even produces a third less CO2 than
burning oil. Burning oil, in addition to the above, produces
particulates, nitrous oxide, and sulfates.

http://www.tevisoil.com/fuel/compare.asp
http://www.cecarf.org/Programs/Fuels...%209-12-03.pdf

Try looking at the EPA and DOE sites.

Ok. What pages on these sites should we look at?

I don't have specifics handy, but I'm sure you can find them with a
search.


Oh, I thought you knew what you are talking about. Now you want me to go on an egghunt for your
claims.



The poster is right. First, you proclaim the smell produced by burning
oil to be a virtue, because it may save you from dying from CO. . Then
you claim oil heat is as clean as nat gas.

You don't read well do you? I indicated that both are not very
detectable when combustion adjustments are proper and neither produces
much CO under those conditions either. It is when combustion adjustments
are out of whack that a lot of CO is produced and it is also under those
abnormal conditions that oil exhaust is much more detectable than gas
exhaust.


Did you ever see an oil
based appliance of any kind vented into a home? Yet millions of nat
gas kitchen stoves work exactly that way. Gee, I wonder why?

Not for the reasons you apparently think.


A whopping total of 28 people a year die in the US from CO from natural
gas heat systems period. I'd like to see any real world evidence that
oil heat systems are any safer overall.

Indeed they are. CO is not the only way a nat. gas heating system can
kill you. Add in the number of deaths from gas explosions to the CO
deaths and then compare to oil. Then compare the number of injuries from
gas explosions to the number of injuries from oil explosions. Then tell
me which is safer.

What is the number of deaths from natural gas versus oil? Can you show us the numbers or is
this just a FUD campaign?

They are out there on one of the government sites.


Oh you know the numbers are out there. Since you know, which sites did you find them on?


Certainly the ratio
of hundreds of gas explosions to zero oil explosions should be pretty
obvious. Someone was killed in a gas explosion at a motel just a month
ago, and no, I don't count the deliberate gas explosion suicide in NYC.


Zero oil burner explosions? Here's a recent one in New Jersey (nobody was killed in this case,
thank goodness!)

On March 21, 2005 at 8:44 p.m., the Teaneck Fire Department (TFD) responded
to a report of a loud explosion and smoke in the house at 501 Rutland Avenue.
Upon arrival, responding firefighters were guided into the basement to investigate
a problem with the boiler; however they could not find an odor or smoke. The
firefighters, who combined have more than 100 years of experience, began
investigating the area. They found that the emergency switch of the boiler had
been shut off and later learned that the mother living in the home had turned it
off.
The basement of the home was sectioned off to provide for various uses of the
area. There was a large portion that was used for a recreation/family room, an
area that contained two beds that were usually used by the house keeper and
one of the children, and two small rooms; one containing the oil fired boiler, the
other utilized as a laundry room.
After investigating the basement area, the responding firefighters determined that
a “blowback” of the oil burner had caused the reported explosion and smoke.
“Blowback” occurs when an accumulation of vaporized fuel oil in the combustion
chamber suddenly ignites due to a delayed ignition. This causes too much
pressure, which results in a loud bang and the release of smoke.
The firefighters found multiple problems with the boiler, including closed water
valves, a low water level, a non-functional low-water cut-off and a dirty flue pipe.
Fire personnel made the necessary adjustments to restore the boiler to a safe
and operable condition and advised the owner of the problems that were found.
The owner was also directed to have the boiler serviced as soon as possible.






Nat gas continues to increase
in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If
it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.

The amount and proportion of natural gas that is imported to the USA is tiny compared to
oil. Much of the imported natural gas comes from right here in North America, not hostile
areas of the world like the Middle East.

How does it compare to the 50% or so of oil that we import?


The best numbers I have are the US produced 539 cubic meters in 2003, (exported 24.19 cubic
meters) and imported 114.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Compare those ratios.


The general
public seems to think we get 99% of our oil from the middle east which
certainly isn't true.


No it's not, nevertheless middle east oil production has a huge impact on our foreign policy and
national spending.



2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising.

Which supplier are you talking about? What is the definition of "safe?"

It was Connecticut Natural Gas as I recall. I don't know the details
exactly, but their "Clean, Safe, Dependable Natural Gas" campaign only
lasted like six months before mysteriously becoming the "Clean,
Dependable Natural Gas" campaign.


On their web page, I noticed that it is "What can Natural Gas offer over my existing fuel?
Dependability. Versatility. Affordability. Convenience. Efficiency. Plus, it is also
environmentally friendly! "



My definition of safe would be free from threat of catastrophic and
potentially fatal failures i.e. explosions.


So oil heat is not "safe" under your definition.


http://www.newburyfd.org/responding_...er_emergen.htm



Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Service charges? Like the $4/month minimum billing fee that I pay for my natural gas
service? My electric company charges more than that so your argument is opposing electric
service too. Even including that fee (which includes service for my hot water heater, gas
grill, stove, and dryer) I'm still way ahead with gas, and I have a very efficient furnace
too.

Electric service is rarely without some usage. With gas service it is
not uncommon to have periods of zero use. Certainly this is not true in
every case, but again, this is only one of many reasons to not use nat.
gas, not the sole reason.


Well yeah the reason not to use natural gas is to save a few bucks in non usage charges (similar
to what you get with electric service) to save far more in higher efficiency. Besides even in
those "zero use" periods, I'm still making hot water, and if I'm home there is a good chance I'm
eating (using the grill, stove) or doing laundry (dryer.)



I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.

How so?

When the low end gas furnace is only required to operate from November -
February it will clearly have a longer service life than the same unit
required to operate from September to April.


Oh I see. Good thing that same furnace wouldn't be needed for a/c in those climates.



2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.

Huh? What is your source of this claim?

Check with any gas company for the cost of extending gas service to your
street in say CT vs. OK for comparable distances.


You made the claim. Which gas company(ies) did you check with?


When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.


I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?



Blasting IS required in the Hill Country of texas where rock is
frequently only a few feet below the top soil.

Right. Is that where the big housing boom is? The DFW area sure is
growing fast.

Pete C.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
Anyone looking at the complete pictu

Oil *is* safer than gas.

Where can I fins statistics on this?

Good question. There is a government site that I can't recall at the
moment (CDC, HHHS, CPSC or something) that had a nice search able
database where you could generate reports on reported injuries and
deaths sorted all kinds of ways.


Oil *is* more reliable than gas (on site fuel).

Bull ****. I've run out of oil, I've NEVER run out of gas. When power goes
out, oil is useless but if you have a gas stove, you can use the burners to
cook. I've never experinenced a gas outage in 60 years.

I'm afraid it's your bull ****. I've never run out of oil and anyone
with half a brain knows to check the gauge on their tank from time to
time.

When the power goes out oil is quite useful since #2 fuel out runs a
diesel generator perfectly and can even be used in the pump camp stoves.

You're lucky to be in a reliable location, others are not so lucky. A
large number of people within 10mi of where I was living had to spend
several winter days in a shelter during a gas outage about 4 years ago.



Oil *is* more competitive than gas (multiple suppliers).

Sure, you have Exxon, BP, Shell. Wow, what a great selection.

There are a few others in the mix.

Do the local
dealers vary in price by more than a penny or two? Nope, they don't. One
huge cartel.

Yes, they do. I've regularly seen price differences that amount to 25%
of the oil price and this included during a record cold winter price
gouging season.



Oil does *not* have service charges when you aren't using it.

If you cook with gas, you use it all the time. Same with hot water. Not
much of an agrument there.

I know a number of people who only have gas for heat.



Oil equipment *does* on average have a much longer service life than gas
equipment.

Really? I've not seen any big difference. Gas burners are pretty much
maintenance free. Once in a while a thermocouple or valve will need
replacing, sort of like an oil burner that needs a new motor, pump or nozzle
at time. Mechanical things break. In all my years of gas service, I"ve
only had two, maybe three service calls, but with oil, I must have $125
service and cleaning every year.

I said service life, you are indicating service costs and you are also
wrong there as well.

On average oil equipment is built more ruggedly and has a longer service
life than gas equipment. There are of course some real low end and real
high end units in both lines, but the average oil units last longer.

As for service costs, both gas and oil equipment requires annual
inspections for safety, both are capable of operating multiple years
without requiring actual service. The service performed annually on oil
equipment is not really required, but the cost for the parts is so low
that it's cheap insurance to just replace them and it's often the case
that people only call for service every few years at which point those
items should be replaced anyway.


Do you happen to have ties to an oil dealer?

None whatsoever. I work for a bank, the only stock I have is United
Technologies and at the moment since my last move I use neither oil or
nat. gas.

I do have a dual-fuel range that uses propane for the cook top, but this
is fed from a regular 20# BBQ type tank which lasts 8 months or more
between changes and I have multiple vendors to choose from.

Be careful!! That tank and gas line and range could blow at any moment! Look
out!

I am careful. The tank is located where if it did explode it would be
fairly contained and is not located near any windows that could create
shrapnel. The range I just have to hope for the best.

Pete C.

zero wrote:

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:10:29 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:


CO deaths are a result of poor combustion adjustment combined with flue
leakage, both of which have a higher probability with a gas furnace due
to:

1) People believing that a gas furnace does not require annual
inspections / service. This creates a greater probability of the furnace
falling into disrepair and the poor adjustment and leakage forming.

And the average Oil burner in a home that is not serviced properly is
JUST as dangerous.

That has been my point when people keep claiming that gas burners don't
need service. The fact is that any combustion appliance is dangerous if
it's not serviced properly.


No disrespect intended, Pete.

This whole thread seams to be diminishing the attention due to oil
burning equipment.

A delayed ignition that has not left the confines of the combustion
chamber may not be an explosion according to some, however it is an
unplanned event.

It also rarely occurs without human intervention not heeding the
warnings on the unit. New units take the human factor into account as
well with lockout modes.


What you learn in a classroom is fine. It prepares you to go into the
field. Once you've been in the field for 3-4 years, you realize just
how little you knew that first year.

Many things go wrong with oil burners. YOU may know to stop resetting
your protectorelay after the third time, however most DO look at it
like an elevator button.

Right, but that is not the fault of the oil burner and newer oil burners
prevent that as well.


Most are filthy. Just have a fly on the wall look-see at most HVAC
shops and watch the service techs try to casually avoid the oil
service calls.

Because most do not get their annual service. No annual service for a
few years and nozzles begin to clog causing the combustion to go out of
adjustment, soot to form and efficiency to plummet until finally someone
calls for service. If they were serviced even every other year they
would be nice and clean.


Oh, by the way, standing in front of a 750 HP boiler (30,131,000
btu's per hour./ 215 gal. per hour) while it huffs itself out for .5
seconds, and then back into high fire with out shutting off the main
fuel valve will forever makeup ones mind on weather or not an oil
burner can or cannot explode.

Yea, large commercial / industrial boilers of either gas or oil can do
interesting things. Recall one story of a fairly small nat. gas
commercial boiler on about the 20th floor of a building that had it's
own little blowback and blew the boiler door off barely missing the
service guys before it went through the wall and fell the 20 stories to
the street below.

Pete C.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

" wrote:

Gas being lighter than air normally dissapates if it leaks.

That only works to a limited extent and less and less as homes get
"tighter". If windows and doors are closed well nat. gas will just
accumulate from the ceiling down. LP gas is heavier and will accumulate
from the floor up. In either case unless the home is quite drafty /
leaky it will continue to accumulate until it finds an ignition source.

There shouldn't be any gas at all outside the furnace or plumbing.

There shouldn't, if pipes, regulators, valves and controls were all 100%
reliable. As can plainly be seen from all the gas explosions that occur,
that is not the case.

How many explosions is "all the gas explosions?" Or people that awake to find
their home and its contents are destroyed by oil or that their basement is now an
oil spill site?

Relative to the total number of units? Very few. Relative to each other
there is a significant difference.








Oil pools and settles , causing a possible safety clean up issue with
guys in moon suits hauling away contaminated soil

This is *not* a safety issue, it is an over hyped environmental issue.

When your house is not inhabitable due to heavy oil contamination and fumes,
it *is* a safety issue. "Over hyped" environmental issue? Yeah right, unless
you consider oil contaminated earth and pollution as part of your
environment.

First off, uninhabitable meaning you have to leave during cleanup, and
uninhabitable because it collapsed after the gas explosion are vastly
different things. If you are home when the oil leaks you simply leave,
safe and sound. If you are home when the gas leaks you can easily end up
dead.

As for the environmental part, yes, it is over hyped. Cleanup of even
300 gal of fuel oil that leaks in a concrete basement is pretty minor if
it's done reasonably soon.

Cite? I know it is a lot more than that because a house near me had exactly that
happen to it, and the house was condemned during the cleanup last year.

Yes, well it can be overblown if you let yourself be taken in by the
hype. Even then it still pales in comparison to rebuilding from the
crater the gas explosion left, or paying for the funeral.


Cleanup of oil leaked from an underground
tank is a different matter since until the advent of the double wall
tanks with monitoring you aren't likely to detect the leak for months or
years. That is why we replace 50 yr old underground tanks with indoor
tanks or new double wall underground tanks.

I'm suspicious of underground tanks for residential use. And who is doing all of
the required monitoring? If the inner tank breaks, why can't the outer tank break
too? If the outer tank is already corroded when the inner tank breaks, what good
is it (or the monitoring system?)

The outer tanks are poly or fiberglass and they have leak detectors
between the inner and outer walls that will trigger an alarm mounted in
the house. Basically just a smaller version of the tanks they now use at
gas stations.

Not particularly cheap, but if you need the capacity and don't have the
room for several conventional 300 gal indoor tanks they are a good
option.


Gas station tanks have caused enough horrors (at least 7 spill sites from leaking
tanks in my town alone), and they supposedly are tightly regulated and inspected
regularly. Recall that the MTBE fiasco is caused primarily from gasoline leaking
from underground tanks!

Old tanks certainly caused problems, new tanks generally do not.

The MTBE fiasco was caused primarily by eco-nuts pressing for something
to be done without adequate research. The problem was not just from
leaking tanks and those tanks were likely old tanks, not new. The
problem that the MTBE lowered mileage enough to cause more gas to be
consumed to offset any pollution reduction was an even bigger problem
resulting from the knee jerk nonsense. So not only was no pollution
reduced from the tailpipe, additional pollution from the additive was
generated, all of which could have been avoided with a year of research
and testing.






Fuel oil has a strong smell and is very likely to be noticed before much
leaks. Even when a lot leaks, most undamaged concrete floors contain it
pretty well if it's discovered and cleaned in a day or two.

I guess if your concrete floors are watertight and sealed (so the oil doesn't
soak into them) and you don't have any drains or perimeter drains. Oh and if
you don't mind everything saturated in #2 oil.

Concrete floors are fairly water tight if they are in good condition.
Oil will eventually soak through, but at a pretty slow rate. Not that
many basements actually have drains either.

Well just about every house around me has a perimeter drain. Prevents any concerns
of water in the basement. I didn't realize that basement floors and walls were
supposed to be petroleum spill containment systems.

Actually, per building codes, they are. There is supposed to be a
concrete or block containment wall around tanks of sufficient height to
contain the contents of the largest single tank in the space. I don't
have the codes handy, but I think it should have a sealer applied to the
wall and floor as well. Fairly recent code.




As for saturated in #2, I'd vastly prefer that over a smoldering crater
where my house used to be. The oil can be readily pumped and vacuumed up
from the surface and the concrete if it's saturated can be removed and
replaced with far less expense than rebuilding the whole house after the
gas explosion (if I survived the explosion).

Gas just doesn't blow up a house unless something goes really wrong, like a backhoe
out front hitting a pipe. Even then the smell of the gas is pretty obvious before
it reaches an explosive ratio with oxygen. In that case it doesn't matter if your
particular house has gas service if the gas follows a water or sewer or electrical
conduit into your basment instead of following the outside of a gas line.

Well, I keep hearing of people killed in gas explosions in their houses.
Many are elderly which may be a result of reduced ability to smell the
leaking gas, not remembering warnings to not turn on lights and get out
if they smell gas, forgetfulness in having the equipment serviced
regularly, very old equipment, or a combination of all of those.








Thats why homeownerts insurance is requiring oil tank replacement based
on age of tank.

And that is why new underground oil tanks are double wall construction,
just like new tanks at gas stations. Some new indoor tanks are double
wall as well though most are still single wall since there is minimal
risk. Just because a 50 year old single wall underground tank is no
longer viable in no way means that oil heat is no longer viable.
Technology changes and advances and the current high velocity flame
retention burners and controls with pre and post purge cycles are a far
cry from the old burners as well.

Yeah, technology changes, like inducer motors that shut everything down if
there is an exhaust blockage in gas furnaces (very very rare).

Current oil furnaces have the same feature available.

But as you pointed out, CO for oil furnaces isn't a concern for you since you can
just smell the dirtier oil furnace fumes.

When they are out of adjustment and producing a lot of CO, yes. When
they are operating properly they produce little CO and little fumes.





So, what oil company do you work for? Typical new high efficency gas
furnaces get about 94-96% efficiency (AFUE) My neighbor has the exact same
house as I do and he has oil heat. I keep my house a little warmer and last
winter's bill was less than 2/3 of his. After comparing numbers, he's very
interested in switching too. What is the AFUE of your oil furnace?

I work for a bank.

How old are each of your furnaces? Where in the model range is each one?
Both make a big difference. New vs. 30yr old isn't a fair comparison and
neither is new high end vs. new low end.

About five years old. Fine, let's compare it with a four or even a brand new oil
furnace. What AFUE rating



Also since both nat. gas costs and oil costs fluctuate it's difficult to
make a really valid comparison based on cost, particularly when someone
buying their oil off season can get lower prices than someone buying
just month to month. Rate lock-ins are also more frequently available
for oil service.

The last furnace I just had installed at my mothers house this spring
(Weil-McLain WTGO4 with a Becket burner) is 85% AFUE, but it is not a
high end unit. If I was going for high end it would be a Buderus boiler
with a Riello burner. The house needs a lot more insulation so the
burner efficiency is a small factor at present.

What oil furnaces can do 92%-96% AFUE?

Ones that presently cost too much for residential use.

Pete C.

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.




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.





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.

Pete C.

"Paul M. Eldridge" wrote:

Perhaps "cheap" is a relative term. I paid $750.00 CDN for the
installation of my indoor tank four years ago and this was a
discounted price that required a minimum one-year commitment with my
fuel oil supplier (Scotia Fuels).

More to the point, good friends of mine own a ski chalet in northern
Nova Scotia. Their oil tank was located outside and two years ago
someone had been stealing their heating oil by disconnecting the
bottom feed line. Unfortunately, they didn't properly reconnect it
and some 500 to 900 litres of heating oil leaked into the ground and
contaminated a number of neighbouring wells. And as luck would have
it, they also stole from the church next door, with the exaxt same
consequences.

So, the long and the short is that they were sued and the insurance
company covered only part of their legal and clean-up costs and now
they can't buy homeowners insurance. Moreover, they're can't sell
their home because there's still evidence of ground contamination
(which might very well be from the neighbouring church). Needless to
say, you don't discuss "the high cost of home heating oil" in their
presence.

For more information on heating oil tanks and the potential risk of
oil spills, see:

http://www.oilyeller.com/images/COHA_Nov_Dec%2002.pdf

http://www.gov.pe.ca/photos/original/HomeHeatSafety.pdf

http://www.gov.ns.ca/enla/petroleum/...lTankGuide.pdf

Cheers,
Paul

Tanks are cheap (at least indoor ones), and indoor ones do not require
periodic replacement, nor do newly installed double wall underground
tanks.

I'm not sure you can conclude much of anything from an incident that
resulted from criminal activity.

Pete C.

"Paul M. Eldridge" wrote:

Natural gas here in Nova Scotia is available to probably less than
1,000 homes at this time (virtually all of the natural gas produced in
this province is shipped off to New England, which is kind of a sore
point for many Nova Scotians).

Be that as it may, according to Heritage Gas, our local distributor,
natural gas currently costs $11.31 per GJ. On a heat content basis,
that's said to be the equivalent of paying $0.43 per litre for fuel
oil, $0.29 per litre for propane and $0.0407 per kWh for electricity.

Source: http://www.heritagegas.com/converting/Home/h_rates.asp

On Friday, my heating oil supplier (Scotia Fuels) quoted me $0.819 per
litre, which puts the relative cost of home heating oil at nearly
twice that natural gas. As of my last propane delivery this past
January, I paid Superior Propane $1.009 per litre, which places
propane at roughly 3.5 times the cost of natural gas. Lastly, Nova
Scotia Power charges $0.1013 per kWh, so electricity works out to be
about 2.5 times more costly (conversion efficiency aside).

Cheers,
Paul

Ok, but I've said nothing of the relative cost between the fuels. I've
remarked on the relative safety and reliability of the fuels.

Pete C.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:


trimmed

Completely false. This argument against nat. gas is based on facts about
it's safety, reliability, cleanliness and the service life of the
equipment.

Yeah. Decades of living with natural gas and never one service interuption. Real
unreliable. Houses are just blowing up all over the place that have natural gas
too. I guess everyone is keeping that a big secret from the home insurance
companies. Service life? My furnace has a lifetime warranty on the heat
exchanger. How many oil furnaces have that? The blower of course will die sooner,
but I believe oil furnaces have a blower too.

A lifetime warrantee on one component is not necessarily a good thing if
you keep replacing the components around it.

That mid range Weil-McLain WTGO4 boiler I just had installed in my
mother's place has a comparable warrantee:

"Limited Lifetime Warranty
Covers cast iron sections. "


I have ignored price per BTU since that is constantly in
flux.

You mean your argument. A FUD one at that.



Price is the only argument made in favor of nat. gas that has even short
term validity. All other arguments in favor of nat. gas have been based
on either myths, or comparisons of brand new gas equipment to 50yr old
oil equipment.

That's nonsense. Where do you come up with this crap, now you are claiming "50 yr
old oil equipment" comparisons. Compare an average highest efficiency gas furnace
with an average highest effiency oil furnace. Which is more efficient and wastes
the least amount of energy so that it can heat your house instead?

Efficiency isn't everything. If the 8% more efficient gas furnace saves
me $200 in fuel during a heavy heating season, but subjects me to a gas
outage that I have no way to provide backup for which cause $1,000 in
damage due to frozen pipes (neglecting the fact that I know to drain the
pipes, most people don't).








is subject to outages and is far
more dangerous than oil.

With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from,

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in
price.



you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages


No outage here in 35 years.

I've asked several times where Pete lives that he thinks nat gas
interruption is a big concern.

And I've mentioned several times that I'm referring to the northeast.
It's CT in particular where I lived for 36 years before moving a couple
years ago.

How many gas interruptions did your neighorhood have in Connecticut?

My immediate neighborhood did not have gas service, guess the gas
company didn't want to spend months of blasting to install lines.

The neighborhoods within 10 miles of me that did have gas service had at
least a couple outages per year that I heard of and since I was not
there to personally count them probably several more per year that got
little press. Multiply that times 36 years and compare to the same 36
years of flawless oil service.



It obviously isn't for 95% of us who
use it. I've had nat gas service for 25+ years, that has never gone
out once. I live in central NJ, 50 miles from NYC. But I've sure had
electricity go out.

Indeed I did as well and when it did I simply started my generator and
went back about my normal business without more that a few minutes
interruption.

Good for you.

Yep. Better to be prepared than screwed. Almost like a boy scout, except
I was never a scout.




And it;s the nature of the two systems that's key.
An underground piped system is immune from much of what can halt
electric service. A thrunderstorm, snow storm, car hitting a pole,
all are common electric system weak points, that gas generally is
immune from.

You are ignoring the fact that it is possible and economical to provide
backup for the electricity, something that is not possible with the gas.

Are you nuts? You have never heard of automatic standby generators connected to a
gas line? If your electric service is crappy enough to warrant it, that's the way
to go. No fuel to have to worry about storing and engines last a long time with
nat. gas, maintenance is very low too.

You misread that statement. I said it is possible and practical to
provide backup for electric service. It is not possible or practical to
provide backup for gas service.

Providing backup for gas service in a residential setting would require
a redundant backup furnace or boiler fired by an alternate fuel like oil
or electricity.

Wood fired boilers are becoming popular in the northeast, but as primary
sources, not backup for the most part. Some commercial sized burners are
available in dual fuel (oil / gas) though and can switch between fuels
at any time.



Additionally time to repair a damaged electric line is significantly
less than time to repair a damaged gas line in most cases. You also
don't have to spend additional time purging a repaired electric line
before returning it to service as you do with a repaired gas line.

Purging a gas line takes seconds or minutes.

For lines inside a home, not for the distribution lines in a
neighborhood.




Again, when you put this in perspective, the gas outtage
thing is another red herring.

Tell that to the folks who lived within 10 miles of me that had to spend
several days in a shelter due to a gas outage.

When was that? Where was that? What was the cause?

Somewhere between 5 and 10 years ago. In CT, I believe in the Avon /
Simsbury area. I think it was a gas line rupture, not a dig up or
anything. Should be somewhere in the Hartford Courant archives if you
want to look.

Pete C.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

trimmed

Try looking at the EPA and DOE sites.

Ok. What pages on these sites should we look at?

I don't have specifics handy, but I'm sure you can find them with a
search.

Oh, I thought you knew what you are talking about. Now you want me to go on an egghunt for your
claims.

Spend some time there, you might learn something.

WHERE is this "THERE" you speak of?



trimmed

What is the number of deaths from natural gas versus oil? Can you show us the numbers or is
this just a FUD campaign?

They are out there on one of the government sites.

Oh you know the numbers are out there. Since you know, which sites did you find them on?

I'm not sure at the moment, I have too many bookmarks to find it easily.
Suppose that rather defeats the purpose of bookmarks.

Yes, how convenient.




Certainly the ratio
of hundreds of gas explosions to zero oil explosions should be pretty
obvious. Someone was killed in a gas explosion at a motel just a month
ago, and no, I don't count the deliberate gas explosion suicide in NYC.

Zero oil burner explosions? Here's a recent one in New Jersey (nobody was killed in this case,
thank goodness!)

On March 21, 2005 at 8:44 p.m., the Teaneck Fire Department (TFD) responded
to a report of a loud explosion and smoke in the house at 501 Rutland Avenue.
Upon arrival, responding firefighters were guided into the basement to investigate
a problem with the boiler; however they could not find an odor or smoke. The
firefighters, who combined have more than 100 years of experience, began
investigating the area. They found that the emergency switch of the boiler had
been shut off and later learned that the mother living in the home had turned it
off.
The basement of the home was sectioned off to provide for various uses of the
area. There was a large portion that was used for a recreation/family room, an
area that contained two beds that were usually used by the house keeper and
one of the children, and two small rooms; one containing the oil fired boiler, the
other utilized as a laundry room.
After investigating the basement area, the responding firefighters determined that
a “blowback” of the oil burner had caused the reported explosion and smoke.
“Blowback” occurs when an accumulation of vaporized fuel oil in the combustion
chamber suddenly ignites due to a delayed ignition. This causes too much
pressure, which results in a loud bang and the release of smoke.
The firefighters found multiple problems with the boiler, including closed water
valves, a low water level, a non-functional low-water cut-off and a dirty flue pipe.
Fire personnel made the necessary adjustments to restore the boiler to a safe
and operable condition and advised the owner of the problems that were found.
The owner was also directed to have the boiler serviced as soon as possible.

That is / was *not* an explosion, not even close. I don't think a
blowback on a residential boiler has ever injured anyone, much less
killed them. Certainly it will scare the **** out of them and perhaps
teach them not to keep messing with the thing if they don't know what
they are doing.

Oil burners do *not* have blowbacks on their own, they have had the
safety devices to prevent that for decades. Blowbacks occur when someone
keeps pressing the reset button ignoring the warning not to press it
more than once. Oil burner controls from the last couple decades have
incorporated a "three strikes and you're out" lockout to prevent this.

Yet it didn't work in this one case.









Nat gas continues to increase
in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If
it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?

1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.

The amount and proportion of natural gas that is imported to the USA is tiny compared to
oil. Much of the imported natural gas comes from right here in North America, not hostile
areas of the world like the Middle East.

How does it compare to the 50% or so of oil that we import?

The best numbers I have are the US produced 539 cubic meters in 2003, (exported 24.19 cubic
meters) and imported 114.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Compare those ratios.

I'm assuming you forgot a billion on the US numbers. So importing
something like 18% nat. gas vs. 50% oil. Not that drastic a difference
and given the current trends the gap is likely to close further.

Yes all numbers are in billions sq meters. It's a huge difference in terms of energy, as total gas
imports was estimated at 114.1 billion cubic meters total for the year. Oil imports were 13.15 million
barrels per DAY average or 4.790 billion barrels .

To compare, 1 cubic meter of natural gas contains about 36 409.2241 BTUs, 1 barrel of oil contains about
5 800 000 BTUs.

(calculations by the Department of Energy website
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfa...alculator.html)

4154293 billion BTUs natural gas imports
27782000 billion BTUs oil imports

Or to put it in another way, natural gas was about 1/7 of oil imports.






The general
public seems to think we get 99% of our oil from the middle east which
certainly isn't true.

No it's not, nevertheless middle east oil production has a huge impact on our foreign policy and
national spending.

Our perpetually inept middle east foreign policy has less to do with oil
than the anti war folks claim. There are serious issues there that we
need to deal with that have nothing to do with oil. Those issues did
come largely as a result of oil, but not directly from US actions.

Please. I'm not an "anti war folk" but get real. The United States will spare no expense to keep the
Straits of Hormuz open and flowing.



The sudden appearance of the oil wealth in the middle east contributed
to the downfall of their other economic sectors and the rise of their
corrupt / oppressive governments and the resulting collapse of most of
their civilization.

Which civilization was "collapsed" by oil? Saudi Arabia (formerly wandering nomads?)



If we had not been in the market for oil when it was discovered there,
if there culture had advanced more and stabilized before oil was
discovered there, or if the Brits hadn't been meddling over there the
problems would likely have been avoided.

Uh huh.







2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising.

Which supplier are you talking about? What is the definition of "safe?"

It was Connecticut Natural Gas as I recall. I don't know the details
exactly, but their "Clean, Safe, Dependable Natural Gas" campaign only
lasted like six months before mysteriously becoming the "Clean,
Dependable Natural Gas" campaign.

On their web page, I noticed that it is "What can Natural Gas offer over my existing fuel?
Dependability. Versatility. Affordability. Convenience. Efficiency. Plus, it is also
environmentally friendly! "

That campaign was a while back. Notice that safety is not included in
their current campaign either. Their claim that it is environmentally
friendly is more or less true, the implication that other options are
not is however untrue.

Natural gas burns much cleaner than oil. Don't take my word for it, super efficient condensing furnaces
are common with natural gas but oil doesn't even burn clean enough for a condensing application, all the
soot and sulfur and crap makes it a show-stopper. New electric plants are favored to be gas because it
burns cleaner and has lower emissions, which is now important. Transit agencies are even starting to
buy clean "natural gas" buses for the simple reason that they have so much less emissions than #2 oil
(aka Diesel fuel)






My definition of safe would be free from threat of catastrophic and
potentially fatal failures i.e. explosions.

So oil heat is not "safe" under your definition.

http://www.newburyfd.org/responding_...er_emergen.htm

That is an interesting link however you probably didn't read it
thoroughly:

"There are many possible causes of oil burner emergencies and fires.
Fortunately, despite human error and poor maintenance practices, the
millions of oil burners in use today function without a mishap year
after year. When they do malfunction, the fire department is called and
usually remedies the situation with little effort. But never forget that
these seemingly harmless emergencies can and sometimes do turn deadly,
whether it be from fire, explosion, or carbon monoxide poisoning, and
you must be ever on guard against such instances."

Additionally most of the failure modes they indicate are all but
impossible with burners and controls manufactured in the last couple
decades. Most are very unlikely with burners or controls even older. Due
to the longevity of oil equipment there are however some really old
units out there.

This other bit:

"Fuel oil comes in several grades, number 1 to 5 grade oil, and has the
following general fire hazard properties: a flashpoint of 1007F to
1507F, a flammable (explosive) range of 0.7 to 5 percent when mixed with
air, and an ignition temperature of 4947F."

should give a bit of a reminder on just how difficult it is to get oil
to burn and the near impossibility of igniting oil spilled from a tank
leak.

No oil will generally not go boom, unless it is atomized, but that doesn't mean that an oil burner
malfunction can't fill your house with soot or burn it down.

In Eastern Massachusetts last winter, a home had to be abandoned due to an oil leak causing heavy fumes
and making the home uninhabitable. The family wasn't going home anytime soon, and the last I heard
about it they were talking of demolishing the structure.







Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.

Service charges? Like the $4/month minimum billing fee that I pay for my natural gas
service? My electric company charges more than that so your argument is opposing electric
service too. Even including that fee (which includes service for my hot water heater, gas
grill, stove, and dryer) I'm still way ahead with gas, and I have a very efficient furnace
too.

Electric service is rarely without some usage. With gas service it is
not uncommon to have periods of zero use. Certainly this is not true in
every case, but again, this is only one of many reasons to not use nat.
gas, not the sole reason.

Well yeah the reason not to use natural gas is to save a few bucks in non usage charges (similar
to what you get with electric service) to save far more in higher efficiency. Besides even in
those "zero use" periods, I'm still making hot water, and if I'm home there is a good chance I'm
eating (using the grill, stove) or doing laundry (dryer.)

A 10% efficiency difference

Efficiency difference? Read again, I was referring to your complaints about "service charges" during
non-use periods (summer).

during a period when you were only heating
hot water (to keep the comparison fair) would amount to about $5 with
today's high prices.

Yeah, except the main consumption of natural gas and reason for using it is heating the HOUSE.









I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.

How so?

When the low end gas furnace is only required to operate from November -
February it will clearly have a longer service life than the same unit
required to operate from September to April.

Oh I see. Good thing that same furnace wouldn't be needed for a/c in those climates.

A/C operation only affects the blower. There is no stress on the burner
or heat exchanger. Unless of course the POS unit leaks condensate into
the heat exchanger and it's rusted out by the time heating season rolls
around.

Yeah it only affects that "cheap" blower, remember???









2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.

Huh? What is your source of this claim?

Check with any gas company for the cost of extending gas service to your
street in say CT vs. OK for comparable distances.

You made the claim. Which gas company(ies) did you check with?

I didn't because I don't use gas.

But you're making claims about gas, which is what we're discussing.

I base that on construction knowledge.

What construction knowledge? And using that construction knowledge of yours, please show the numbers.




When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.

I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

This was a small storm drain on a road with a significant grade. No
issues with gravity flow, no excessively deep installation.

Uh huh. So what does that have to do with natural gas?




So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?

No, not really. An individual town may be an anomaly, but the regions in
general have notably different underground utility construction costs.
This is changing a bit with some scary new trenchers able to cut through
granite without blasting and leave nice cuttings to back fill with.

Good thing natural gas is the only underground utility, right? And natural gas is so expensive that
nobody can afford to install it, right? Good thing sending huge heavy trucks with people driving them
around to everyone's house is so cheap and efficient.






I've also dug a 650' trench in CT for conduit and an 80' trench in TX
for conduit and I can assure you the TX trench went far faster and
easier per foot and required much smaller equipment than the CT trench.

Well there you go. Irrefutable proof that installing gas lines is always more expensive in
Connecticut than Texas.

Find me any part of CT away from the shore where you don't have
significant boulders and ledge to deal with.

If you're talking about new construction on an apples to apples comparison, it is possible you might
need to do some blasting to install some utilities. However that also includes sewer pipe (which is
generally a lot more deep than nat gas), water, maybe electric, telephone in newer subdivisions, etc.
Big deal.









3) Gas companies market more since they generate more profits from
service charges during the long hot months where they have to supply
minimal gas.

You said they are a monopoly. Why would they need to market? I hear a lot of advertising
by oil dealers, or the collective oil dealers, operating as one.

They market to get you locked into their nat. gas monopoly. They market
to those that use other energy sources.

So why does that no-colluding oil heat lobby advertise about "today's oil heat" and how hot it is,
blah blah blah. Keep in mind this is not one dealer advertising against other oil dealers, but an
obligarchy of many/all oil dealers.

A cooperative advertising arrangement is not in any was a monopoly and
indeed it's the only way many of the small oil dealers could get
advertising outside local newspapers and direct mail. They little local
oil dealers don't have the deep pockets of the big state wide nat. gas
monopolies.

So to rectify that they collude together. Big deal.







4) The southern states have been having a huge housing boom as a whole
due to lower construction costs and most tract housing gets gas systems
not because they are better in any way, but simply because the cheapest
low service life units available are in gas which means more profits for
the developers and replacement costs for the consumer a short time down
the road.

What are your numbers for your cost comparison?

No handy online reference, but a low end gas furnace installation is at
least a thousand dollars less than a low end oil furnace installation.
The low end gas unit will also have a service life expectancy about half
of the oil unit. Both will be blow the service life of the average units
in each class, but the oil still last longer there as well though the
ratio is not as extreme.

If you say so.

I do.

But you don't provide any reference for you claim, so it is just rambling.

"Pete C." wrote:

Robert Gammon wrote:

John wrote:
"Pete C." wrote:


When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.


I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?



Blasting IS required in the Hill Country of texas where rock is
frequently only a few feet below the top soil.

Right. Is that where the big housing boom is? The DFW area sure is
growing fast.

I thought it was where all of those natural gas heated houses going up in flames were.

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

George wrote:

Pete C. wrote:


The problems with gas is you get locked into a monopoly that charges you
even when you aren't using the product,

Explain how big oil isn't a monopopy. They are all in lock step with
each other.

First there is no such thing as "big oil", those are big *energy*
companies that are involved in nat. gas as well. The producers all have
similar costs so logically the products they produce have similar costs.
It is not some sort of collusion.

Energy prices are also high at the moment due not only to the middle
east nonsense, but also due to the significant losses and costs
associated with rebuilding the offshore oil rigs and the refineries
severely damaged by Katrina. These are real costs that have to be
recovered.

Too bad gas service doesn't involve refineries.

You don't think it does? You think you just stick a pipe in the ground
and run it to your furnace?

Think again, nat. gas does indeed get refined to remove a bunch of nasty
impurities in the gas. If it didn't need refining to be useable offshore
oil platforms would use the nat. gas they separate to power their
generators instead of just flaring it off.




Most people who use gas tend to use it for hot water,
cooking and clothes drying so you tend to use it year round.

I think many is more accurate, not "most". I know quite a few people who
only use gas for heating.


is subject to outages and is far
more dangerous than oil.

With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from,

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in
price.

I've found price differences of better than $0.20/gal during record cold
winters when the overall price was around $0.85/gal. I consider that to
be a significant difference. You nat. gas suppliers also have to buy
from the same source.


you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages

No outage here in 35 years.

You're lucky. I've had no oil outage in 36 years and others within about
a 10 mile radius have had to go to shelters during a multi day gas
outage in the winter.


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.

Also if you want to be "green" you can burn biodiesel and/or waste veg.
oil in your oil furnace as well, something you can't do with a gas
furnace.


A natural gas furnace is already "green" since it isn't a petroleum product.

Good grief! You actually believe that?

Why do you think that so much electric production is being shifted from OIL to
GAS? Hint: Price, Cleanliness, Reliability.

The points are that you think natural gas is not a petroleum related
product and that there was a significant amount of oil based electric
production in this country.

Electricity production has been shifting from coal (not oil) to nat. gas
due to price (until they built all those generating plants and drove up
the price) and political issues making it easier to build small nat. gas
generating plants.


Nat. gas is indeed a petroleum
related product. Those gas flares you see off the side of oil rigs are
nat. gas that has been separated from the oil.

No, that is waste gas from oil production and is not the same cleanliness that you
will find in a natural gas system plumbed to a house.

Um, it's the same gas, before the refining done to clean it up enough to
be plumbed to your house.

Pete C.

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

" wrote:

Gas being lighter than air normally dissapates if it leaks.

That only works to a limited extent and less and less as homes get
"tighter". If windows and doors are closed well nat. gas will just
accumulate from the ceiling down. LP gas is heavier and will accumulate
from the floor up. In either case unless the home is quite drafty /
leaky it will continue to accumulate until it finds an ignition source.

There shouldn't be any gas at all outside the furnace or plumbing.

There shouldn't, if pipes, regulators, valves and controls were all 100%
reliable. As can plainly be seen from all the gas explosions that occur,
that is not the case.

How many explosions is "all the gas explosions?" Or people that awake to find
their home and its contents are destroyed by oil or that their basement is now an
oil spill site?

Relative to the total number of units? Very few. Relative to each other
there is a significant difference.

In numbers, what is the "significant difference" that you claim?










Oil pools and settles , causing a possible safety clean up issue with
guys in moon suits hauling away contaminated soil

This is *not* a safety issue, it is an over hyped environmental issue.

When your house is not inhabitable due to heavy oil contamination and fumes,
it *is* a safety issue. "Over hyped" environmental issue? Yeah right, unless
you consider oil contaminated earth and pollution as part of your
environment.

First off, uninhabitable meaning you have to leave during cleanup, and
uninhabitable because it collapsed after the gas explosion are vastly
different things. If you are home when the oil leaks you simply leave,
safe and sound. If you are home when the gas leaks you can easily end up
dead.

As for the environmental part, yes, it is over hyped. Cleanup of even
300 gal of fuel oil that leaks in a concrete basement is pretty minor if
it's done reasonably soon.

Cite? I know it is a lot more than that because a house near me had exactly that
happen to it, and the house was condemned during the cleanup last year.

Yes, well it can be overblown if you let yourself be taken in by the
hype. Even then it still pales in comparison to rebuilding from the

crater the gas explosion left, or paying for the funeral.

Yeah an oil spill into the ground causing environmental damage to the ground, not to
mention the damage to the house and its contents and/or making the house uninhabitable is
just "hype." I don't think there is a difference in funeral costs from people dying in
burning houses caused by oil, gas, or whatever. If oil is so much safer, which
insurance companies give the oil heat discount or gas heat surcharge?




Cleanup of oil leaked from an underground
tank is a different matter since until the advent of the double wall
tanks with monitoring you aren't likely to detect the leak for months or
years. That is why we replace 50 yr old underground tanks with indoor
tanks or new double wall underground tanks.

I'm suspicious of underground tanks for residential use. And who is doing all of
the required monitoring? If the inner tank breaks, why can't the outer tank break
too? If the outer tank is already corroded when the inner tank breaks, what good
is it (or the monitoring system?)

The outer tanks are poly or fiberglass and they have leak detectors
between the inner and outer walls that will trigger an alarm mounted in
the house. Basically just a smaller version of the tanks they now use at
gas stations.

Great. So this residential detector needs to be working properly in a decade or two or
three when the tank starts leaking. How common is this?



Not particularly cheap, but if you need the capacity and don't have the
room for several conventional 300 gal indoor tanks they are a good
option.


Gas station tanks have caused enough horrors (at least 7 spill sites from leaking
tanks in my town alone), and they supposedly are tightly regulated and inspected
regularly. Recall that the MTBE fiasco is caused primarily from gasoline leaking
from underground tanks!

Old tanks certainly caused problems, new tanks generally do not.

The MTBE fiasco was caused primarily by eco-nuts pressing for something
to be done without adequate research. The problem was not just from
leaking tanks and those tanks were likely old tanks, not new.

What are they putting in your Texas water? The problem with MTBE is that it gets into
the water and travels. It travels much farther than the leaking gasoline/petroleum mess
in service station leaking tanks disasters.

The
problem that the MTBE lowered mileage enough to cause more gas to be
consumed to offset any pollution reduction was an even bigger problem
resulting from the knee jerk nonsense. So not only was no pollution
reduced from the tailpipe,

That's false. MTBE actually did help meet clean air goals, which is the reason it was
used. The oil companies weren't buying it for nothing. In the cylinder, this ether is
an oxygenate.

additional pollution from the additive was
generated, all of which could have been avoided with a year of research
and testing.

Yeah, it's all the "eco-nuts" fault. Like President Bush, who just eliminated federal
protections for oil companies for MTBE lawsuits. Funny how all of the oil companies
phased out their MBTE faster than they could lift up a price changing pole. The fed
government didn't ban MTBE by the way; several states have.











Fuel oil has a strong smell and is very likely to be noticed before much
leaks. Even when a lot leaks, most undamaged concrete floors contain it
pretty well if it's discovered and cleaned in a day or two.

I guess if your concrete floors are watertight and sealed (so the oil doesn't
soak into them) and you don't have any drains or perimeter drains. Oh and if
you don't mind everything saturated in #2 oil.

Concrete floors are fairly water tight if they are in good condition.
Oil will eventually soak through, but at a pretty slow rate. Not that
many basements actually have drains either.

Well just about every house around me has a perimeter drain. Prevents any concerns
of water in the basement. I didn't realize that basement floors and walls were
supposed to be petroleum spill containment systems.

Actually, per building codes, they are. There is supposed to be a
concrete or block containment wall around tanks of sufficient height to
contain the contents of the largest single tank in the space. I don't
have the codes handy, but I think it should have a sealer applied to the
wall and floor as well. Fairly recent code.

I have never seen that, even in brand spanking new houses finished two months ago.
Which building code are you talking about?






As for saturated in #2, I'd vastly prefer that over a smoldering crater
where my house used to be. The oil can be readily pumped and vacuumed up
from the surface and the concrete if it's saturated can be removed and
replaced with far less expense than rebuilding the whole house after the
gas explosion (if I survived the explosion).

Gas just doesn't blow up a house unless something goes really wrong, like a backhoe
out front hitting a pipe. Even then the smell of the gas is pretty obvious before
it reaches an explosive ratio with oxygen. In that case it doesn't matter if your
particular house has gas service if the gas follows a water or sewer or electrical
conduit into your basment instead of following the outside of a gas line.

Well, I keep hearing of people killed in gas explosions in their houses.
Many are elderly which may be a result of reduced ability to smell the
leaking gas, not remembering warnings to not turn on lights and get out
if they smell gas, forgetfulness in having the equipment serviced
regularly, very old equipment, or a combination of all of those.

Yeah, it's so common now, the news doesn't even bother covering it anymore.











Thats why homeownerts insurance is requiring oil tank replacement based
on age of tank.

And that is why new underground oil tanks are double wall construction,
just like new tanks at gas stations. Some new indoor tanks are double
wall as well though most are still single wall since there is minimal
risk. Just because a 50 year old single wall underground tank is no
longer viable in no way means that oil heat is no longer viable.
Technology changes and advances and the current high velocity flame
retention burners and controls with pre and post purge cycles are a far
cry from the old burners as well.

Yeah, technology changes, like inducer motors that shut everything down if
there is an exhaust blockage in gas furnaces (very very rare).

Current oil furnaces have the same feature available.

But as you pointed out, CO for oil furnaces isn't a concern for you since you can
just smell the dirtier oil furnace fumes.

When they are out of adjustment and producing a lot of CO, yes. When
they are operating properly they produce little CO and little fumes.

You keep changing your topics. My comment was directed at your complaints that natural
gas burns too cleanly for someone to smell the fumes if somehow they come into the house,
unlike oil, thus CO would be more likely to kill. Even if that was true, it's moot with
CO detectors, which everyone should have anyway.







So, what oil company do you work for? Typical new high efficency gas
furnaces get about 94-96% efficiency (AFUE) My neighbor has the exact same
house as I do and he has oil heat. I keep my house a little warmer and last
winter's bill was less than 2/3 of his. After comparing numbers, he's very
interested in switching too. What is the AFUE of your oil furnace?

I work for a bank.

How old are each of your furnaces? Where in the model range is each one?
Both make a big difference. New vs. 30yr old isn't a fair comparison and
neither is new high end vs. new low end.

About five years old. Fine, let's compare it with a four or even a brand new oil
furnace. What AFUE rating



Also since both nat. gas costs and oil costs fluctuate it's difficult to
make a really valid comparison based on cost, particularly when someone
buying their oil off season can get lower prices than someone buying
just month to month. Rate lock-ins are also more frequently available
for oil service.

The last furnace I just had installed at my mothers house this spring
(Weil-McLain WTGO4 with a Becket burner) is 85% AFUE, but it is not a
high end unit. If I was going for high end it would be a Buderus boiler
with a Riello burner. The house needs a lot more insulation so the
burner efficiency is a small factor at present.

What oil furnaces can do 92%-96% AFUE?

Ones that presently cost too much for residential use.

And which ones are those ? With that huge residential oil market, why would it cost so
much to make a high efficient furnace from a such a superior product like oil, when
they've been around for years with natural gas? Maybe the natural gas market is just so
much larger due to the need to keep replacing the furnaces when the house keeps blowing
up.

"Pete C." wrote:

zero wrote:

On Fri, 04 Aug 2006 21:10:29 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:


CO deaths are a result of poor combustion adjustment combined with flue
leakage, both of which have a higher probability with a gas furnace due
to:

1) People believing that a gas furnace does not require annual
inspections / service. This creates a greater probability of the furnace
falling into disrepair and the poor adjustment and leakage forming.

And the average Oil burner in a home that is not serviced properly is
JUST as dangerous.

That has been my point when people keep claiming that gas burners don't
need service. The fact is that any combustion appliance is dangerous if
it's not serviced properly.

Who was claiming that gas burners don't need service, let alone "keeps
claiming" that?





No disrespect intended, Pete.

This whole thread seams to be diminishing the attention due to oil
burning equipment.

A delayed ignition that has not left the confines of the combustion
chamber may not be an explosion according to some, however it is an
unplanned event.

It also rarely occurs without human intervention not heeding the
warnings on the unit. New units take the human factor into account as
well with lockout modes.


What you learn in a classroom is fine. It prepares you to go into the
field. Once you've been in the field for 3-4 years, you realize just
how little you knew that first year.

Many things go wrong with oil burners. YOU may know to stop resetting
your protectorelay after the third time, however most DO look at it
like an elevator button.

Right, but that is not the fault of the oil burner and newer oil burners
prevent that as well.


Most are filthy. Just have a fly on the wall look-see at most HVAC
shops and watch the service techs try to casually avoid the oil
service calls.

Because most do not get their annual service. No annual service for a
few years and nozzles begin to clog causing the combustion to go out of
adjustment, soot to form and efficiency to plummet until finally someone
calls for service. If they were serviced even every other year they
would be nice and clean.

Same with a natural gas furnace. Of course I'd rather have a nat gas furnace
that hasn't been serviced in years than an oil furnace.




Oh, by the way, standing in front of a 750 HP boiler (30,131,000
btu's per hour./ 215 gal. per hour) while it huffs itself out for .5
seconds, and then back into high fire with out shutting off the main
fuel valve will forever makeup ones mind on weather or not an oil
burner can or cannot explode.

Yea, large commercial / industrial boilers of either gas or oil can do
interesting things. Recall one story of a fairly small nat. gas
commercial boiler on about the 20th floor of a building that had it's
own little blowback and blew the boiler door off barely missing the
service guys before it went through the wall and fell the 20 stories to
the street below.

Blowback? Who puts a boiler on the 20th floor? (I could understand a
furnace).

Well, if the theft of heating oil could expose me to this kind of
liability it would certainly be of concern to me. My friends are now
estranged from their neighbours (it didn't do much for their own
marriage either), their property and that of their neighbours has been
torn-up to remove the contaminated soil, they're out of pocket a
considerable amount of money, they can no longer get homeowner's
insurance and they can't sell this property because the Department of
Environment won't sign off on the clean-up (apparently they're still
detecting traces of oil). It's just one big mess.

Be it related to theft as in this case, a leaking tank or falling ice
damaging the supply line, the consequences of a fuel oil spill are
pretty grim no matter how you look at it.

Generally speaking, an inside tank is your best choice. That said,
thirty years ago, my mother's oil tank, which was in located inside a
finished basement, began leaking while she was away on holidays. The
stench when she returned was unbelievable and all the carpets on the
lower level had to be replaced. They brought in big fans to try to
clear the smell but it lingered on for months; when you walked through
the door, you just wanted to gag.

My home is Toronto is all gas (heat, hot water, cooktop, wall ovens,
fireplaces, dryer, patio heater and BBQ) and, quiet honestly, if
natural gas were available here in Halifax, I would be pushing my way
to the front of the line.

Cheers,
Paul

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 22:56:45 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:

I'm not sure you can conclude much of anything from an incident that
resulted from criminal activity.

Pete C.

"Pete C." wrote:

"Paul M. Eldridge" wrote:

Natural gas here in Nova Scotia is available to probably less than
1,000 homes at this time (virtually all of the natural gas produced in
this province is shipped off to New England, which is kind of a sore
point for many Nova Scotians).

Be that as it may, according to Heritage Gas, our local distributor,
natural gas currently costs $11.31 per GJ. On a heat content basis,
that's said to be the equivalent of paying $0.43 per litre for fuel
oil, $0.29 per litre for propane and $0.0407 per kWh for electricity.

Source: http://www.heritagegas.com/converting/Home/h_rates.asp

On Friday, my heating oil supplier (Scotia Fuels) quoted me $0.819 per
litre, which puts the relative cost of home heating oil at nearly
twice that natural gas. As of my last propane delivery this past
January, I paid Superior Propane $1.009 per litre, which places
propane at roughly 3.5 times the cost of natural gas. Lastly, Nova
Scotia Power charges $0.1013 per kWh, so electricity works out to be
about 2.5 times more costly (conversion efficiency aside).

Cheers,
Paul

Ok, but I've said nothing of the relative cost between the fuels. I've
remarked on the relative safety and reliability of the fuels.

Funny, I could have sworn you were complaining about the "monopoly" of the
local natural gas distribution company, as opposed to all of those price
choices you get with oil. What good is a monopoly if you're not jacking up
the price, right?

Pete C. wrote:
Robert Gammon wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:



John wrote:


"Pete C." wrote:



wrote:


Pete C. wrote:



In other words the oil furnace burns dirtier and pollutes more.


False. Modern oil and gas furnaces produce comparable amounts of
emissions. The exact composition is different, but the overall pollution
is the same (the EPA and DOE have studies that confirm this if you want
to look).


Now, I'd love to see the supporting data for the claim that modern gas
and oil furnaces produce the same amount of pollution. Why do you
think many cities have replaced diesel bus fleets with ones that run
natural gas if burning oil is just as clean? Natural gas produces only
water and CO2. And nat gas even produces a third less CO2 than
burning oil. Burning oil, in addition to the above, produces
particulates, nitrous oxide, and sulfates.

http://www.tevisoil.com/fuel/compare.asp
http://www.cecarf.org/Programs/Fuels...%209-12-03.pdf


Try looking at the EPA and DOE sites.


Ok. What pages on these sites should we look at?


I don't have specifics handy, but I'm sure you can find them with a
search.


Oh, I thought you knew what you are talking about. Now you want me to go on an egghunt for your
claims.



The poster is right. First, you proclaim the smell produced by burning
oil to be a virtue, because it may save you from dying from CO. . Then
you claim oil heat is as clean as nat gas.


You don't read well do you? I indicated that both are not very
detectable when combustion adjustments are proper and neither produces
much CO under those conditions either. It is when combustion adjustments
are out of whack that a lot of CO is produced and it is also under those
abnormal conditions that oil exhaust is much more detectable than gas
exhaust.



Did you ever see an oil
based appliance of any kind vented into a home? Yet millions of nat
gas kitchen stoves work exactly that way. Gee, I wonder why?


Not for the reasons you apparently think.



A whopping total of 28 people a year die in the US from CO from natural
gas heat systems period. I'd like to see any real world evidence that
oil heat systems are any safer overall.


Indeed they are. CO is not the only way a nat. gas heating system can
kill you. Add in the number of deaths from gas explosions to the CO
deaths and then compare to oil. Then compare the number of injuries from
gas explosions to the number of injuries from oil explosions. Then tell
me which is safer.


What is the number of deaths from natural gas versus oil? Can you show us the numbers or is
this just a FUD campaign?


They are out there on one of the government sites.


Oh you know the numbers are out there. Since you know, which sites did you find them on?



Certainly the ratio
of hundreds of gas explosions to zero oil explosions should be pretty
obvious. Someone was killed in a gas explosion at a motel just a month
ago, and no, I don't count the deliberate gas explosion suicide in NYC.


Zero oil burner explosions? Here's a recent one in New Jersey (nobody was killed in this case,
thank goodness!)

On March 21, 2005 at 8:44 p.m., the Teaneck Fire Department (TFD) responded
to a report of a loud explosion and smoke in the house at 501 Rutland Avenue.
Upon arrival, responding firefighters were guided into the basement to investigate
a problem with the boiler; however they could not find an odor or smoke. The
firefighters, who combined have more than 100 years of experience, began
investigating the area. They found that the emergency switch of the boiler had
been shut off and later learned that the mother living in the home had turned it
off.
The basement of the home was sectioned off to provide for various uses of the
area. There was a large portion that was used for a recreation/family room, an
area that contained two beds that were usually used by the house keeper and
one of the children, and two small rooms; one containing the oil fired boiler, the
other utilized as a laundry room.
After investigating the basement area, the responding firefighters determined that
a “blowback” of the oil burner had caused the reported explosion and smoke.
“Blowback” occurs when an accumulation of vaporized fuel oil in the combustion
chamber suddenly ignites due to a delayed ignition. This causes too much
pressure, which results in a loud bang and the release of smoke.
The firefighters found multiple problems with the boiler, including closed water
valves, a low water level, a non-functional low-water cut-off and a dirty flue pipe.
Fire personnel made the necessary adjustments to restore the boiler to a safe
and operable condition and advised the owner of the problems that were found.
The owner was also directed to have the boiler serviced as soon as possible.





Nat gas continues to increase
in market share, while oil heat is now down to 4% of new homes. If
it's so unsafe and unreliable, why is that?


1) Consumer ignorance - Believing nat. gas somehow avoids buying foreign
energy. They apparently are not aware of the LNG super tankers
delivering foreign LNG just like oil tankers delivering foreign oil.
Both nat. gas and oil are produced in the US and both are also imported
from foreign sources.


The amount and proportion of natural gas that is imported to the USA is tiny compared to
oil. Much of the imported natural gas comes from right here in North America, not hostile
areas of the world like the Middle East.


How does it compare to the 50% or so of oil that we import?


The best numbers I have are the US produced 539 cubic meters in 2003, (exported 24.19 cubic
meters) and imported 114.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Compare those ratios.



The general
public seems to think we get 99% of our oil from the middle east which
certainly isn't true.


No it's not, nevertheless middle east oil production has a huge impact on our foreign policy and
national spending.



2) Marketing - Some deceptive as in the case of the short lived "safe"
in one gas suppliers advertising.


Which supplier are you talking about? What is the definition of "safe?"


It was Connecticut Natural Gas as I recall. I don't know the details
exactly, but their "Clean, Safe, Dependable Natural Gas" campaign only
lasted like six months before mysteriously becoming the "Clean,
Dependable Natural Gas" campaign.


On their web page, I noticed that it is "What can Natural Gas offer over my existing fuel?
Dependability. Versatility. Affordability. Convenience. Efficiency. Plus, it is also
environmentally friendly! "




My definition of safe would be free from threat of catastrophic and
potentially fatal failures i.e. explosions.


So oil heat is not "safe" under your definition.


http://www.newburyfd.org/responding_...er_emergen.htm



Deceptive price comparisons that do
not account for service charges during periods of no use. Deceptive
claims of reliability of oil fired equipment. Deceptive claims about the
cleanliness of oil burners. Deceptive comparisons of "upgrade" costs to
low end gas equipment with service lives in single digit years.


Service charges? Like the $4/month minimum billing fee that I pay for my natural gas
service? My electric company charges more than that so your argument is opposing electric
service too. Even including that fee (which includes service for my hot water heater, gas
grill, stove, and dryer) I'm still way ahead with gas, and I have a very efficient furnace
too.


Electric service is rarely without some usage. With gas service it is
not uncommon to have periods of zero use. Certainly this is not true in
every case, but again, this is only one of many reasons to not use nat.
gas, not the sole reason.


Well yeah the reason not to use natural gas is to save a few bucks in non usage charges (similar
to what you get with electric service) to save far more in higher efficiency. Besides even in
those "zero use" periods, I'm still making hot water, and if I'm home there is a good chance I'm
eating (using the grill, stove) or doing laundry (dryer.)



I'll also note that that market share is rather slanted to southern
states whe

1) There are minimal heating requirements which means consumers can get
low end gas systems to last longer.


How so?


When the low end gas furnace is only required to operate from November -
February it will clearly have a longer service life than the same unit
required to operate from September to April.


Oh I see. Good thing that same furnace wouldn't be needed for a/c in those climates.



2) Gas companies cover larger service areas in large part due to lower
installation costs vs. the northern states with more rock to cut and
blast through.


Huh? What is your source of this claim?


Check with any gas company for the cost of extending gas service to your
street in say CT vs. OK for comparable distances.


You made the claim. Which gas company(ies) did you check with?



When I was in CT I watched the town blast for three days just in the few
hundred foot stretch in front of my house to install storm drains. I
also watched weeks of blasting when widening the main road down the
street. I've watched major construction in my new location in TX as well
and there was no blasting required.


I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing natural gas lines, not huge storm drains, which often have
to be buried much deeper for gravity flow reasons anyway.

So if I could find an area in Texas where blasting WAS required, and some other area in
Connecticut where blasting was NOT required, that would pretty much "proove" the opposite,
wouldn't it?



Blasting IS required in the Hill Country of texas where rock is
frequently only a few feet below the top soil.


Right. Is that where the big housing boom is? The DFW area sure is
growing fast.

Pete C.

Way south of DFW, Try Austin TX and the 200 miles of radius from it.

"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."






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.








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.