Heat bills will soar this year (Oil @ $4.39 a gallon - and rising)

Delaware Online | 6/22/08 | AARON NATHANS

[Libloather]

Link only.

[MarkL]

That's OK, pretty soon you'll get socked with a tax on burning wood that's sending all sorts of pollutants into the atmosphere.

Mark

[Edgewood Pilot]

Oil Heat has a number of advantages:

1.Home heating oil systems burn cleaner now than ever before. And because heating oil burns 400 degrees hotter than natural gas or electricity, your home heats up faster and requires less fuel than other types of heating systems.

Heating Oil contains 138,690 BTUs per gallon.

Natural Gas has 100,000 BTUs per therm. It takes 1.4 therms to equal the heat content of one gallon of heating oil.

Kerosene has 131,890 BTUs per gallon; 1.05 gallons equals the heat content of one gallon of heating oil.

Propane has 91,500 BTUs per gallon; 1.52 gallons equals the heat of one gallon of heating oil.

Electricity has 3,413 BTUs per kilowatt hour (kwh); 40.6 kwh equals the heat content of a gallon of heating oil.

2.Using heating oil means you can keep your supply of fuel on your own property. Regardless of how cold it gets, you’ve got “heating insurance.” On the other hand, in very cold weather natural gas customers can find themselves out of heat due to severe drop in gas line pressure.

3.Dropping a lighted match into a vial of heating oil puts out the match flame because heating oil in liquid form is well below its flash point of 140°F, the temperature at which it begins to vaporize in order to fire inside a burner. Striking a match in the presence of natural gas or propane and the fuel bursts into flames.

4.In the old days, oil burners were known to be inefficient combusters. But thanks to breakthrough technology, modern oil heating systems are high-efficiency, low emission combusters that give you more for your oil heating dollar even as they keep the air you breathe cleaner.

Modern oilheat equipment actually burns less fuel. The average annual fuel consumption in 1973 was 1,294 gallons; and now it is only 833 gallons – that’s 35% less fuel.

5.Heating with oil is cost-effective because heating oil prices are 2.5 to 5.5 times lower than electricity. Converting from gas to oil heat can substantially reduce energy costs as older gas heaters frequently operate at less than 70% efficiency. While the installed cost of an electric heat system appears attractive the annual operating costs quickly exceed first time savings. In the majority of cases, converting to efficient oil heat offers a very good payback.

6. Home heating oil is environmentally sound. It’s biodegradable, non-toxic and contains no proven cancer-causing agents. Correctly installed residential heating oil tanks are not a danger to the environment or to human health. In fact, home oil burners produce less than .003 of all the particulate emissions in the U.S. Electric, coal and wood heat are far more harmful the quality of the air we breathe.

7.Oil heat is safe. Properly installed and routinely maintained, modern oil heating systems are safer than natural gas systems. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that gas-fueled appliances cause far more deaths from carbon monoxide than do liquid-fueled appliances! Another important safety advantage is that even if a leak should occur, heating oil is non-explosive. When natural gas or propane leaks, an explosive mixture of air and fuel quickly forms.

(This info is available from NORA - National Oilheat Research Alliance)

[who knows what evil?]

Who specifically is going to stop you?

People who RENT in the northern climes have very little say in the matter...if the rental property is heated with oil (and much of it is); then be prepapred to crack open your wallet.

[gusopol3]

BO: “LET THEM EAT CAKE.”

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow, I see a huge pile of dollars there! We pay about $350/cord here in the SF Bay Area for split and seasoned oak. Of course, we can now only burn it when the authorities deign to let us burn it.

[sheana]

http://www.valleyair.org/aqinfo/WoodBurnPage.htm

We have ‘no burn’ days which sometimes will run for up to 13 days at a time. They actually pay people to drive around town with some kind of heat meter pointed at fireplaces. They will leave a ticket for $1000 (I believe) if they sense heat coming from your chimney.
Noone has contested it yet.
They would much rather we freeze to death than burn wood here.

[randita]

Will the last person in New England please turn out the lights?

[penowa]

SW PA around P'burgh is not like NW PA - no forests, just some privately owned wooded property that most owners know has value and are not likely to give away, even the downed stuff. The "country" around here is now the 'burbs of P'burgh all the way through WV into OH. The closest sawmill sells their scrap for woodburners; no freebies around here as somebody will pay.

I lived on a 160 acre farm for years in SW PA and burned my own wood in a wood-coal-oil furnace. When I wasn't in the hay field, I spent almost every day, cutting, hauling, splitting and stacking wood for the winter. It makes sense if you own the property to cut your own wood if you have the equipment to do it.

Buying more firewood to use than for an occasional fire in a fireplace or woodburner is not feasible here as it is not cheaper, and is certainly more labor intensive than oil.

[nicola_tesla]

Why ? Because in the NorthEast, there are only two ways to heat - oil or natural gas. Natural gas is not available everywhere and electricity is about .17 a KW, so oil is the best alternative. Heat Pumps just don’t work well under 30 deg outside air temp.

Now, bring down the cost of electricity and it would be feasible to use a heat pump with electric supplementary heating.

[wolf78]

5.Heating with oil is cost-effective because heating oil prices are 2.5 to 5.5 times lower than electricity. Converting from gas to oil heat can substantially reduce energy costs as older gas heaters frequently operate at less than 70% efficiency. While the installed cost of an electric heat system appears attractive the annual operating costs quickly exceed first time savings. In the majority of cases, converting to efficient oil heat offers a very good payback.

Using electricity to heat your home directly makes little sense, of course. However, by using a geothermal heat pump you get 4 kilowatts of heat for every kilowatt of electricity. Combine that with superinsulation and you can heat your home with electricity and pay less every year, too.

Geothermal heat pump

Superinsulation

[libertarian27]

I had to order 100 gallons of oil for delivery yesterday.
Wanted 50gal but they were slapping on a $40 delivery fee.

The company charged me $4.09/gallon
I should have filled the tank...

[marsh2]

In the mountains of northern California, our Aging Commission is working on the forthcoming crisis in heating for low income seniors. We are now working out a way to stockpile firewood from fuel reduction projects and distribute it voluntarily to qualified low income seniors. Unfortunately, because of air quality regs, many were talked into converting to kerosene heaters. There, we are working with our local Office of Emergency Services in case we have to open up warming shelters this winter. This could be a very serious problem.

And the State legislature and Congress, of course, sit on their proverbial collective arses ignoring what is going to happe here and other high poverty northern rural areas.

[Eska]

All the great things to do around the burgh, guess I wouldn't wood cut either, no matter how good exercise it is. My kid keeps tellin me when he grows up, ain't going to be no wood burners in his house, ha. Ya right.

It gets minus 65 come winter up here, no joke. And since this is what occurs around here every couple years, people don't care who cuts where. Most is Indian Lands anyway, and they'd never complain about somebody cutting wood on their land over freezing, sharing people/native way. Another reason why I heat with wood is the getting out in nature. I usually get a moose or lynx over the winter while hauling wood. Actually, I like cutting wood when its like minus 10; just perfect out there.

Wifey and I were originally from westmoreland co, miss alot about Pittsburgh but can't bring myself to move on back. I do have center ice, super fan, and all local WPIAL, and local burgh sports programming on direct tv; so everybody in Eagle are Pittsburgh fans if they want to watch football & hockey in HD. Hard to get use to watching football at 9am sunday morn.

[penowa]

I NEVER liked it. Too many other things to do on a farm in summer than cut wood all day every day, etc. BORING, NOISY, HOT and NASTY, but back in the '70's and '80's it was great for saving $ and heating a big old farmhouse for virtually nothing except time spent. Burned wood all day, coal at nite, so fire would keep overnite. Way too many other things to do in the winter on a farm than try to cut wood too. Not enough hours in the day for that. Kept one 250 gal. oil tank just in case I was going to be away. Some winters, I never used any since only an emergency like a hospital stay was an excuse to leave the farm and animals to the care of others.

Fairly certain where I live now, I'd get a visit from the EPA or some gov't agency if I tried to burn coal. No local mines open close by anymore that would deliver either. I am pretty much stuck with oil here. Except for the price (!), I don't have any complaints about it.

I'd go nuts where you are - WAY too much winter for me. Hubby would love to move to Alaska for hunting, but he'd have to leave me behind. Glad you can get your P'burgh sports fix and are busy converting new fans for them. GO PENS!

[TribalPrincess2U]

Beeeeuuuuuttttiiiiffffuuuullll

Can I come live you. LOL

[puppypusher]

“Heat bills will soar this year
Not mine! Wood is as free as it was 20 years ago when I started heating with it. ;O)”

Wood won’t be free for long if the LIBERAL Envirowacko’s have anything to say about it.They will claim it harms the environment because your putting too much CO2 into the atmosphere.So they will ban all wood burning stoves and fire-places.

Don’t laugh I think California is doing this already.

[Ditter]

How long would it take you to get help if you had a medical emergency?

[iThinkBig]

Thank you for the nice comment. Some compassion (we got plenty of heated rhetoric, also a good thing too) is in order for one another again. It can’t be about ‘ourselves’ any longer. There was some brief flashes of fun there though :)

[Eska]

Our road closes in Oct until April/May, First year I watched every single Pen Game; only one I didn't see here in Eagle; I was at Peanut farm, sports bar in Anchorage; they had eight, 15 foot big screens in there, spoiled me for my 67 inch back at the cabin. Malkin looked like a giant on the wall.

For us going thru 2000 gallon of oil a year was just unacceptable, it has been $5.50 for heating oil here and figure it will be 6-7 bucks this winter. Even though oil is refined in Fairbanks, it is hauled into our community during the short summer and why it's expensive. Our cabin is 2400 sq ft and we have a woodburner in basement and a Pioneer Maid wood cookstove upstairs, wifey cooks alot on woodstove too but also has elec range in kitchen. For us it;s either heat with wood or spend 14 thousand every winter on oil. No can do.

[Eska]

Believe it or not, once you live rural a few years, you really miss alot from urban areas. I miss going to hockey games couple times a week, blues clubs/music,malls, guitar stores/access to Craigs List, chinese/fast food;;;; boy do I creave big macs after 6 months not having one.

Guess if I couldn't get into Anch or Fairbanks a few times a year; I would go nutty here.