# Heating - propane vs. oil



## HomeChef (Jan 14, 2014)

Our oil tank is old (15 years) and will likely need to be replaced at some point in the coming years. We have a large country home (no gas in our area) and are considering replacing it with propane. Would appreciate any thoughts on oil vs. propane. Also if anyone has any tips around how to "shop" for this replacement/conversion for those who have done it before. We have been in our home for 4 years and haven't gone through this before. Thanks!


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Are you concerned about cost?, efficiency?

How old is your current furnace?

Oil produces more heat per unit that propane, but propane is usually cheaper and more efficient ie pollutes less.

Propane would likely be less smelly. With oil, always the risk of contamination.

Is your current tank in ground, above ground, in your house. An overfilled tank in your basement is not pleasant. Ask me how I know. Nor is the task of dealing with selling a home with a buried tank and possible contamination.

If your current furnace is mid efficiency or better and less than 8-10 years old, I would likely replace the tank.

If your furnace is less efficient or older, I would likely lean toward propane assuming you have a location to put the propane tank.

Depending on where you live, I might consider a heat pump with electric backup. But this would depend on number of days below the heat pumps breakeven efficiency and the cost of electricity. You would also get air conditioning.

Good luck.


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## hboy54 (Sep 16, 2016)

Hi:

When I was faced with replacing my furnace a few years back, one considertion dominated: the ongoing aggravation of dealing with insurance companies with respect to oil tanks and oil lines. Go with propane and save yourself the grief. I would not under any circumstances advise anyone anywhere to install an oil furnace. Well maybe far north arctic, but that is it.


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

A 15-year-old tank is just a baby if inside the house. When I lived in Ontario, indoor tanks were permitted and I lived in a few places with tanks about 50 years old, including the home in which I grew up.

In Vancouver, where indoor tanks have not been permitted in my lifetime, buried tanks were in vogue for years. One house I owned had an abandoned (leaky, I suppose) in-ground tank and the tank that replaced it was in the carport. It looked quite rusty, particularly on the bottom. I only discovered the in-ground tank when I hit the filler cap with the lawnmower. But selling houses with buried tanks (I must have sold about half a dozen such houses) was a non-issue until recent years. Now it can be a $200,000 boondoggle. See, for eg.:

A Speedy Solutions Oil Tank Removal Inc. v. Horvath Estate, 2012 BCSC 787

https://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/12/07/2012BCSC0787cor1.htm

But then, here's one that was going to cost no more than a measly $125,000:

Dolinsky v. Wingfield, 2015 BCSC 238

https://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/15/02/2015BCSC0238.htm (see para. 139)

The one in this case was a bargain at $39,000:

Domovitch v. Willows, 2016 BCSC 1068

https://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/16/10/2016BCSC1068cor1.htm

You mention living in the country. If you have no shortage of free firewood close to hand, consider a gasifying wood-fired furnace/boiler. Ours heats radiant in-floor heat. Nice to walk on a warm basement floor in winter. And free wood is cheaper than propane from the fuel boat.


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

I very recently went though this. Here's the thread about it. Here is the thread about it.


Go with propane and be happy with your choice. The advantages to oil are next to nill, and the headaches are plenty and getting worse by the day. I wouldn't consider oil heating, unless I had a source of very cheap oil. It's simply not worth it. Don't be surprised if your insurance company will demand a replacement now, not in a few years. Also don't be surprised by the large costs of getting a decent tank, and building a new pad for it, along with whatever else the code requires now. My furnace was in great shape, and serviced by the oil company every year. It sucked to get rid of such a decent furnace, but it made no sense to keep it. 

The fuel costs between propane and oil are a wash (once you consider price per liter and BTUs, and furnace efficiencies). The house is noticeably more comfortable now, and the propane furnace is much quieter. Once I got rid of the oil tank, my insurance choices went from 3 companies, to over 20. My insurance savings alone made the math very easy. I can go on and on, but propane made a lot of sense for me even with a great furnace with lots of life left in it.

One piece of advice. Oil providers don't like coming to your house to just sell a few liters to get you through, until you switch to propane. They will always want to top up your tank. If you decide to switch, you'll need to get them back to your house to pump out the left over. They'll give you credit for the oil, but at a much reduced price. They also won't give you credit for the first 100 or 200 liters. They label that as sludge, which may or may not be true at all. Once I decided that I was switching to propane, I kept my tank as low as possible. I ended up running out of oil before the heating season was over, but all I had to do was put in about 60 liters of diesel from a gas station. Oil (kerosene) is basically unrefined diesel. Your furnace will actually run better with the diesel. Restarting an oil furnace that runs out of oil, is dead simple. Crack the vent valve to let the air out. Hit the reset switch on the pump, and you're done.


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## fireseeker (Jul 24, 2017)

Mukhang pera said:


> A 15-year-old tank is just a baby if inside the house. When I lived in Ontario, indoor tanks were permitted and I lived in a few places with tanks about 50 years old, including the home in which I grew up.


It's a baby that's about to have its head cut off. 
I have been forced to replace two oil tanks recently (home and cottage) at the 20-year mark by our insurance company. It was either that or not have house insurance -- from anyone. 
Both tanks were in terrific condition. The one at the house was inside, shielded from all elements. 
It's a boondoggle. I don't know how home-heating oil companies will stay in business.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

Mukhang pera said:


> A 15-year-old tank is just a baby if inside the house. When I lived in Ontario, indoor tanks were permitted and I lived in a few places with tanks about 50 years old, including the home in which I grew up...


I agree with fireseeker. I'm afraid those days of elderly tanks are long gone. Insurance companies are looking for 20 years or less nowadays, because they had to pay too many claims on leaky old tanks.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

HomeChef said:


> ...We have a large country home (no gas in our area) and are considering replacing it with propane. .... Thanks!


The positioning of an above-ground propane tank can sometimes be problematic. But if you have a large country home it should not be too difficult. But check with a propane distributer/installer to be sure before you make your final decision.

How far north do you live? In really cold areas you may need a tank heater. But I'm guessing some of your neighbours have propane, or you wouldn't even be asking.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

Another issue to consider. Condensing gas furnaces (~95% efficiency) are readily available for propane. In fact the old mid-efficiency ones are no longer approved for new installations in most provinces. Oil, on the other hand, is available in both high-efficiency condensing gas (~ 95% AFUE) and mid-efficiency (~85% AFUE). I don't know if they have improved, but the high-efficiency oil furnaces used to have a lot of maintenance problems, because the fuel is not as pure as propane or gas, and the products of combustion are quite corrosive. There is also a price spread issue here; because oil furnaces are still available in mid-efficiency, the high-efficiency ones are seen as a "premium" product that has a higher mark-up.


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## prisoner24601 (May 27, 2018)

A good option may be to go all electric depending on where you are. This is what we did. Depending on age of house and location, you can use heat pumps and solar panels to cost effectively take care of all home energy. The wild card is how good your building is currently. I'd get an energy audit and at least explore the possibility of all-electric.


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## Gruff403 (Jan 30, 2019)

Propane over oil. Friend had tank leak into lake and it was a nightmare to get cleaned up. You can also attach your back up generator to run on the propane when the power goes out.


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

Friend of mine recently replaced his oil furnace with propane. He went into the cost/benefit carefully before he made his choice. I believe he said propane has 65% of the energy of heating oil, you have to take this into account when doing a cost comparison. When I did a similar comparison 20 years ago the cost of a propane furnace was half the cost of an oil furnace. If that holds true then propane is cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. And avoids insurance hassles.


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Friend of mine recently replaced his oil furnace with propane. He went into the cost/benefit carefully before he made his choice. I believe he said propane has 65% of the energy of heating oil, you have to take this into account when doing a cost comparison. When I did a similar comparison 20 years ago the cost of a propane furnace was half the cost of an oil furnace. If that holds true then propane is cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. And avoids insurance hassles.


The fuel costs are pretty much a wash. Oil has more BTUs, but is more expensive, and furnaces aren't as efficient. Oil furnaces also require annual cleaning. I did a lot of math before ditching oil. The numbers and hassles all pointed to switching to propane.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

STech said:


> The fuel costs are pretty much a wash. Oil has more BTUs, but is more expensive, and furnaces aren't as efficient. Oil furnaces also require annual cleaning. I did a lot of math before ditching oil. The numbers and hassles all pointed to switching to propane.


If the fuel choices are between oil and propane, then as suggested earlier, it might be worthwhile looking at electricity. This will depend on just where you live because in some rural areas electricity is more expensive. 

When we talk of electricity, this would be a central heat pump with air handler that takes the place of the oil furnace in a home already fitted with ducts. There are air source heat pumps that will still save energy when outside temperatures are down to -23C. Most conventional heat pumps will not do that. One that will, is the Mitsubishi Zuba. That is what we have. It has capability for a medium size home - about 1500sq.ft or so. It will handle larger homes, but then needs supplemental heat. We previously had baseboard heating and the heat pump cut out hydro bill in half. It did cost about $15k - about double a gas furnace. But this also gave us central A/C which we needed because old unit had failed. So net cost for heating equipment was less - say $10k. For NG or Propane we would have had to buy a separate A/C unit and build a fireproof furnace room somewhere (we didn't have good options). A ground source (geothermal) heat pump would reduce energy usage to about 1/3, but installation quite expensive for a retrofit.

Each case is of course different.


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## HomeChef (Jan 14, 2014)

Thanks for all the replies everyone. From the comments, I feel more comfortable not replacing our system yet as our tank is indoor.



STech said:


> Oil furnaces also require annual cleaning.


 STech - what kind of annual cleaning did you do?


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

HomeChef said:


> STech - what kind of annual cleaning did you do?


The Toronto house in which i grew up had a big coal-burning furnace, converted to oil. Annual cleaning involved a guy coming into the basement with a shop vac. He would open the fire door and vacuum a bit of carbon residue out of the chamber and replace the "nozzle". It was done in minutes and the part cost about a buck.


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## STech (Jun 7, 2016)

HomeChef said:


> Thanks for all the replies everyone. From the comments, I feel more comfortable not replacing our system yet as our tank is indoor.
> 
> STech - what kind of annual cleaning did you do?



TD was giving my neighbour a hard time for his indoor tank. They told him if the whistle on his tank failed, then the driver could easily pump 1000 liters of oil into his basement floor before realizing there was a problem. 

My insurance, Intact, gave me a hard time for my outdoor tank due to rust fears. Needless to say, they want people off of oil. 

The cleaning was mostly collecting the soot, replacing the nozzle and filter. Then measuring the efficiency. $225 everytime. About a 30 minute job.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

Won't be long and no one will have oil furnaces it seems.

Montreal will ban oil furnaces by 2030

ltr


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## HomeChef (Jan 14, 2014)

like_to_retire said:


> Won't be long and no one will have oil furnaces it seems.
> 
> Montreal will ban oil furnaces by 2030
> 
> ltr


Would be happy if we could get natural gas... the closest natural gas lines are just 1km away. Maybe legislation like this will help expand the natural gas lines


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