[TorontoCon]

What are the pros and cons?

I'm considering purchasing a house that is at a great price but has an oil furnace. My family thinks I should go with natural gas.

Anyone out there have experience with both? Are there differences in monthly cost? I've also read some blogs that the air quality in your home can be compromised. True?

Thanks for your help.

[Cool Blue]

How old is the oil furnace? I understand that newer ones are very efficient.

I guess the only air quality issue would be if they aren't properly vented outside...

[skuleman]

Well I can tell you from experience that a big disadvantage to oil is if for any reason you're away in the winter and the oil runs out repairing all the frozen plumbing will make you wish you had gas. :x

[Alan A.]

Natural gas is much cheaper. Reserves are domestic, plentiful across the continent and reliable. The price is independent of world political events. Natural gas burns cleaner.

[kwlafayette]

Oil furnaces basically run on winter diesel (doesn't gel up when it gets cold). You have to fill up a tank outside, or have someone fill it for you. Fire is fire, trenching in a natural gas line can be very expensive. I would say, oil is just as good and probably indistinguishable from gas.

PS. Do not forget propane. That is another option, if you do not have a gas line. Same deal as with oil, you have to fill your tank or have someone fill it for you periodically. Propane used to be very common in rural Sask, but since the advent of pushing city services out to the remotest outpost of humanity, pretty much everyone has a gas line these days. Hell, they are even pushing city water out to farms these days, all at collective expense of course.

[Alan A.]

How do you like encouraging imports from the Middle East? (conversely, natural gas is domestic).

"Domestic crude accounts for only about 45% of Canada's oil consumption. Imports represented the remaining 55%, mostly coming from either North Sea countries or the Middle East. Imported oil feeds refineries mostly in Eastern Canada." ----Source: Statistics Canada, 2005

[kwlafayette]

I was unaware that zero oil came from Saskatchewan. I guess all those people investing in the Baken should have realized it was just another Bre-X.

Ass hat.

PS. Also a revelation that the oil sands did not produce any oil at all, only natural gas. Guess "oil sands" is a misnomer?

[kwlafayette]

http://www.energyandcapital.co.....al-gas/529

Yeah, so obviously, natural gas, fuel of the future, and we will never need to import any. I wish it didn't get me so hot under the collar when people made ignorant comments without basis in reality, but it just does for some reason.

PS.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ca.....alGas.html

[Alan A.]

- "Domestic" means North America in my own book. Natural gas everywhere. Shale gas abundant, including in Canada, and cheaper to extract thanks to new horizontal drilling technology. Huge plays discovered almost every year. There's a reason why natural gas is so cheap: too much supply.

- for Canada-East (including Ontario): Oil from Western Canada is more expansive to move there than importing it from the Middle East. Extraction cost in the Middle East is a fraction of Oil Sands'. I don't know where Saskatchewan's oil is sold (probably down south).

- kmlafayette: peak gas religion = peak oil religion. Nutjobs who've been crying peak for 50 years and it's always delayed, and they push the peak date farther every 5 years because of constant new discoveries. Try some global warming chicken-littling with that.

[Alan A.]

[Cool Blue]

[Cool Blue]

[kwlafayette]

To get back on topic, short term, natural gas is set to become the most expensive of all fossil fuels. It is the least plentiful, and both North American and Canadian production peaked more than 10 years ago. With the advent of all the "green" initiatives, things like natural gas fired power plants are being constructed. The oil sands uses natural gas to extract oil. So we have falling production, and rising demand. Saskatchewan is in particularly bad shape, I think within a few years there won't be enough gas coming out of the ground to supply the power plants and heat all the homes. We have actually built power plants here, not knowing where the gas will come from in 10 years. One of the reasons I went geothermal with my new house, and did not even bother getting gas service.

Within 5 years, Canada will be an importer of natural gas, and within 10 years our current proven reserves will be completely exhausted. So unless they make some big advances in coal bed gas and the like, and there turns out to be a LOT of viable alternative sources, I would stick with oil if that is what I already had. You really have to look at the cost of putting in a new service and buying all new equipment.

PS. Actually, come to think of it, natural gas is the fuel of choice for greenies worldwide who are in nuclear denial. So expect a huge spike in demand over the next decade or two, as shortsighted governments shut down coal and fire up gas generation. Gas also goes hand in hand with wind power, as you need something that can quickly spool up and down as the wind varies.

[crazymamma]

Back to the original question:

My hubby has his heating and gas licenses. One of the first things that he did when we moved into our house? Remove the Oil furnace and tank and have a high efficiency Natural gas furnace put in. He loved working on Oil furnaces ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$) before he switched to being an electrician.

Oil must be delivered by a truck, the tanks are often in the home basement and now if it or the furnace leaks it is considered a bio hazard. Can you say hazmat team, very expensive to get cleaned up. Insurance companies are getting increasingly itchy about oil furnaces.

My 2 cents.[/code]

[kwlafayette]