HEATING YOUR HOME - What Fuel is more efficient?
This is a Watchdog in Action webpage:

Oil

OR

Natural Gas

This is an excellent question and the most asked question we receive on Heating.
Unfortunately the answer is not that simple. It depends on several variables...

If you ask someone who is associated with Oil heating in any way, shape, or form, the answer is Oil.

If you ask someone who is associated with Gas heating in any way, shape, or form, the answer is Gas.

Both "someones" are leaving out important details and information so immediate justification for their fuel can be given.

The question now becomes: Who is correct?
Here is the TRUE answer:

Depending upon several different circumstances either answer can be correct!
The reason for this is because it ALSO depends on what type of Heating Unit is in use and HOW Heat is being Delivered throughout your house.

The question now becomes:
What are those circumstances and how do YOU know what is the most efficient Fuel for YOU?

With OIL, the fact is more BTUs are produced by Oil as compared to Gas, thus making Oil the more efficient FUEL at face value. HOWEVER, some Gas Heating Units offer the highest efficiency rates. Thus by using Gas as a Fuel in tandem with a higher efficiency Gas Heating Unit and a more efficient system of delivering the heat throughout your house, GAS becomes the more efficient FUEL.

BTU stands for British Thermal Unit. This is an approximation for the amount of energy needed to heat up one pound
of water one (1) additional degree in the Fahrenheit scale.

Start to break down the circumstances...

First thing to realize is that there are numerous steps to improving and making all the components contributing to heating your house far more efficient. Even if you finally do decide to get a new heating unit, gas or oil fired, all the additional steps throughout our web site must be looked at, considered, evaluated and implemented when necessary for maximum energy savings.

I now use oil to heat my house, the heating unit is almost seven years old and I have gas in the house. Currently natural gas is cheaper than oil. Do I make the switch from oil to gas?

Whenever the above details are true, the answer is no. This is because the cost to switch (an average of $5,000) has a long payback period of up to 7 years and over the years the cost for oil and gas will follow historical trends making one fuel more expensive than the other from one year to the next. In addition, the way you deliver the heat throughout your house needs to be one of the more efficient designs, thus adding to the savings - not subtracting. To pay the cost to change the way heat is delivered throughout your house will wipe out all savings and then some.

What is or how do you rate the way heat is delivered throughout the house?

At EHW, we believe the following is true:

Most efficient delivery method to send heat around your house: Hot Water Radiant Floor Heat
(Pex tubing on floor before completion)
Second best delivery method to send heat around your house: Hot Water Base Board

Then comes methods such as:
Forced Hot Air; Hot Water Radiators; Steam Radiators / Pipes; etc.
but not necessarily in that order.

Also please note these delivery methods of heat throughout your house become less efficient with additional variables.
For example: Forced Hot Air coming out of one set of vents on the wall where the vents are up by the ceilings. This (less expensive to install) "single vent" system, is more expensive in energy cost for the homeowner due to a lower efficiency with delivering heat. To understand why, due to basic laws of physics stating that Hot Air Rises, please spend the necessary time at our Heating Section found behind this page. Also learn about many other steps and details for running a top efficient oil heating system.

I now use oil to heat my house, the heating unit is very old and a new one is needed. I have gas in the house. Currently natural gas is cheaper than oil. Do I make the switch from oil to gas?

The answer is yes, if all the answers to the following questions are yes...

- Do you have Hot Water Baseboard or Hot Water Radiant as the Heat Delivery method throughout the house?
- Can you get the new gas heating unit installed and the whole project done for no more than $4,800.00?
- Is the new gas heating unit offering you an efficiency rating of at least 87%?

If your answers are NOT all YES, then you must also consider a new more efficient oil heating unit, compare the numbers with payback times as well as look at all other Sections in our web site to learn additional steps to lowering overall operating costs for heating. For example: Insulation levels.

Watchdog in Action: WARNING - please note that sometimes you can get an incentive from your utility company for converting, but in most cases they are only offering you a new gas heating unit that provides 80% efficiency or less. A far cry from 87% and the better gas heating units that offer up to 97% efficiency.