# Oil to propane heat



## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

I unfortunately don't have natural gas access, so I'm heating with oil currently. The insurance companies are working hard on getting people off oil, and my oil tank being 14 years old, it's getting to that point where I have to make a decision. If I were starting right now, I'd definitely go with propane heating. My furnace and tank are inspected and maintained professionally every year. 14 years later, my furnace is only 0.4% lower efficiency than when it was new.

I'm wondering if anyone has switched to propane here? Have you noticed any savings? Any tips to pass along? 



Thanks in advance.


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

If possible dual wall oil tank kept out of weather in garage is best if sticking with oil. (probably all tanks are dual wall now)


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

lonewolf :) said:


> If possible dual wall oil tank kept out of weather in garage is best if sticking with oil. (probably all tanks are dual wall now)


Yeah either dual wall, or at a minimum dual bottom. Fiberglass is also popular. Mine is outdoors, and my neighbour has his in the basement. We have 2 different insurance companies, and both companies give different conflicting answers to the oil heat surcharge.

I'm not keen on keeping the oil, but if the math makes sense, I might consider replacing the tank. However, so far, it seems just replacing the tank is about at least 50% of the cost of converting to propane.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

You may as well keep what you have as long as it works and if you need to replace, get propane.


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> You may as well keep what you have as long as it works and if you need to replace, get propane.


The problem with oil tank is that it won't give much of a warning, and it'll start leaking and I'll be in quite a hurry to get things done. I think this is the one time where getting ahead of looming failure is a good idea.


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## hboy54 (Sep 16, 2016)

I switched to propane from oil this year. The furnace was over 30 years old and insurer would soon force a new oil tank. I also converted to propane hot water and range. So my situation was pretty clear, dump the oil. It did not make any sense to change the tank at likely $1500 when it was feeding a 30 year old furnace.

Your situation is not as clear. Your best move might be to just do the tank with the assumption that you get another 10 years out of the furnace.

I am very happy to have oil gone. It was 15 years of insurance aggravation. As my furnace is only to back up the wood stove, I actually spent more on capital improvements than fuel over my 15 years with the oil furnace.


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

hboy54 said:


> I am very happy to have oil gone. It was 15 years of insurance aggravation. As my furnace is only to back up the wood stove, I actually spent more on capital improvements than fuel over my 15 years with the oil furnace.


That's a big factor for me as well. My time is much better spent not dealing with stuff. I'll save roughly $300 a year in insurance, plus $100 in oil vs propane furnace servicing. Fuel costs, I should save about $300 a year, and maybe $50 in electricity for the furnace. So I should be saving $750 a year to get rid of the oil, but that's only based on today's oil and propane prices.

I shopped around and found Pembridge Insurance was about $300 a year cheaper. I said great. I filled out the oil tank questionnaire, and sent them service invoices and pictures. They accepted me after jumping through all the hoops. I finally get my policy documents, and holly crap batman, there's a huge paragraph in there saying they don't cover an oil tank spill. Are you kidding me? No thanks. I called them back the next morning and said thanks for making me do all this work for nothing, and you they won't see a dime from me. I called my current broker and he assured me oil leaks are covered. At least I have that in writing.

Back to the topic. I'm thinking of not switching the range, dryer, or water heater just yet. Clearly the Liberals are about to start buying our votes again, and they're gonna lower electricity prices (at the expense of something else).


What furnace did you end up with HBOY? How do you like it so far? And did you buy your propane tank or rent?


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

One other possibility, is an air source heat pump. It will provide both heating and air conditioning so you need to compare year round energy use and cost of installation. Modern heat pumps like the Mitsubishi Zuba will work down to very low temperatures (-23C for example). We heat 1650sq.ft. of our home with a Zuba with no need for supplemental heat except we have baseboard heaters in the bathrooms. At under -20C they are 130% efficient and on average for winter, 200% efficient. (in other words, put out 2kw for every 1kw consumed) For heating season, you could compare cost of propane heating with 1/2 the cost of equivalent amount of energy provided by electricity. They can be fitted with supplementary electric heating or hot water heating (using standard gas/propane hot water boiler or electric) if required for larger home. Unless there are now larger equivalents of the Zuba, that would affect economics.

We had natural gas available at street, but after considering cost of running lines in, installing gas furnace plus an air conditioner, we chose the heat pump. Electricity is of course getting more expensive and natural gas is not. Propane is cheap at the moment, but that has not always been the case and prices could change. So I guess you make your choice and hope for the best!


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

agent99 said:


> So I guess you make your choice and hope for the best!


Yes unfortunately. Energy is a commodity, and what's good today could be a disaster 5 years from now.

Air heat pumps are awesome technology, and so are geothermal. But the way Liberals in Ontario have massively screwed up electricity prices, neither of those technologies have a good payback period. One of my neighbours got geothermal, and after the rebate he ended up paying $30,000 out of pocket. Needles to say he regrets his decision now. I'm not an environmentalist by any means, but I still have enough conscience and willing to pay up to a 20% premiums for so called "green" products. But thanks to the Liberals, they've convinced me to keep on burning fossil fuels for decades to come.

EDIT: 2 technologies that I'm keeping an eye on are PV Solar powered heating and air conditioning. They're very new still, but I really like the concept. Even better is the lack of fuel price spikes and government induced electricity hikes. 

Solar water heating: http://www.thermo-dynamics.com/PV_SB_systems.html
Solar A/C: http://www.hotspotenergy.com/solar-air-conditioner/


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

When we put heat pump in, we were counting on the electricity prices to go up! Payback will be faster  But that is because we had all electric and now we have electric heat pump that saves about 50% of heating energy. Our house did not lend itself well to a gas furnace. It would have had to been in attic. In retrospect, a remote gas fired hot water boiler with hot water or glycol heating coils in an air handler might have worked.


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

On another site a guy from Michigan said in order to get his propane tank filled he had to rent the propane tank from the propane company they would not fill his own tank. He was not happy about it as it really added to the cost. 

If it were me I would stay with the oil & replace the tank. In the future if new type of energy comes out that makes it practical to switch would switch to new type of energy then or when you need to replace furnace maybe go to propane unless the cost of propane sky rockets compared to oil.


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

agent99 said:


> ... But that is because we had all electric and now we have electric heat pump that saves about 50% of heating energy.


Ouch. Yeah I would've done what you did and much sooner.


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