dieselnewbie

My house is now heated by oil and I'm interested in bringing in natural gas from the street for a fireplace insert, and a small NG stove.

The problem is the gas company charges $2300.00 to hook you up from the street for anything other than converting your main heat from oil to NG.

If you buy a NG burner and do the full conversion it's alot less to get hooked up. Probably about $800.00 or so. If you do that they know they have you so they cut you a break on the hook-up.

They consider fireplace inserts and NG stoves, dryers, ranges, etc., to be appliances only, not the main heating system, so for those appliances the hook-up is again, $2300.00.

So I'm wondering this:

1.) Would it be worth the $2300.00 to hook up the house and keep my oil burner?

Would haveing a NG connection increase the value of the house enough to cover that $2300.00. I suspect it would. It gives you the option of buying NG appliances as well as electrical.

Just from going to the yearly Home Shows, I know all the best ranges and appliances, and I'd say MOST of those too are NG only, not electric. So NG offers many more ways to go when you shop for appliances.

2.) Or is NG such a better way to go that the full conversion is definitaly worth it?

I know it's cleaner but is it cheaper?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

DT.

dsldan

If I would be looking for better heating (price) I would really be looking at the geo-thermal units out there today, huge savings in the long run......

mikmaze

think of it this way, if you ditch the oil system now and get rid of it while you have no problems with it and leaks considder yourself lucky, think of the cost of a cleanup should your tank develop leaks over time and contaminate your ground water..... not pretty, have watched more than one of my neighbors go through with this, lengthy process digging tests wells and all. Nat gas is cleaner and less maintenance than oil. geo therm would be great if you can swing it but out of nat gas and oil I would step away from the oil while you have the chance. over time in the future as appliances wear out you will likely switch them from electric to gas as well, hot water and dryer and don't forget bbq grill, never have to fill a tank again halfway through a steak!

chaikwa

Speaking from a safety standpoint and that of a 20 year firefighter as well, I will NEVER have natural gas in MY house. I've seen too many houses literally blow up because of both natural gas and/or propane. One winter, we had 12 houses leveled because of natural gas leaks. 2 of those houses weren't even connected to the gas line. The line in the street developed a leak and the gas followed the sewer line into the houses.

As far as 'cleanliness' is concerned, natural gas might be 'cleaner' to have around I guess, but a properly cleaned and operating oil furnace is environmentally cleaner than natural gas or propane. The combustion of oil is more complete and yields more btu's than gas, unit for unit. Another thing I've always considered is that I can always choose my oil supplier. If the gas company decides to gouge you with their prices, (more than they already do), you're stuck paying the price. At least with oil, you can shop around for a little better price and there's some competition to keep pricing more in line.

The leaky tank in the basement issue? Well, I HAVE seen it happen. Once in twenty years. The homeowners insurance covered the whole thing and the basement contained 99% of the oil. Yes, there were test wells outside for the next 10 years monitored yearly by the DEP. But no groundwater contamination was ever found.

Just a few things to consider before making the switch to the 'Safe, Natural Explosive'... I mean Gas.

chaikwa.

westcoaster

Darn near every house in the province is connected to gas, while explosions do happen, it is extreamly rare. While you do have the option of shopping around for your supplier with oil, if your cheapest oil price is still more expensive than natural gas, what are you saving? When shopping for my house I wanted natural gas, I didn't want electric heat (in a province full of dams) and oil heat never even entered into it.....

wgingg

look into propane waaaaay cheaper to install. you can do every thing your self in advance. worth a phone call imo

d0dg301

I switched to gas after my oil furnace quit and then I learned that my oil tank had a hole in the bottom of it and it was leaking fuel. $3900 bucks later leaky oil tank problem cleared up. The gas company out here will hook you up free if you are not over two hundred feet from the road and are going to use a furnace and hot water heater.
Gas is the only way to go as far as i'm concerned way cleaner to burn doesn't smell up your house. Propane is way to expensive to burn.
Plus I work for the gas co. out here so I get a little bit of a discount on my gas bill .
As far as chaikwa claiming how dangerous it is I think that he is way off. The only way it really gets dangerous is when people do stupid things around our gas lines like break them and damage them and then bury it and don't call us. Then it has time to leak under the ground and saturate the area. Thats where it gets ugly. Believe me thats all I do is go around and fix broken gas lines that contractors and home owners reak havic on.

12PACK

If you're looking for an alternative heating source, are wood pellets available in your area? I love my Harman P61. It heats my family room and gets heat upstairs, while my gas furnace runs a radiant floor system to heat my kitchen and living room.

Just a thought. (and it beats chopping wood)

dieselnewbie

Yeah that's what got the whole thing started.

A friend of mine has a pellet stove and I liked it so I went to a showroom and the guy said pellet stoves require electricity to keep the exhaust going.

If you have a power failure while the stove is running, you'd get a blowback of soot.

Not sure how true that is but I don't think he'd be BS'ing me since he's supposed to know the stuff inside and out.

chaikwa

d0dg301 wrote:
The only way it really gets dangerous is when people do stupid things around our gas lines like break them and damage them and then bury it and don't call us. Then it has time to leak under the ground and saturate the area. Thats where it gets ugly. Believe me thats all I do is go around and fix broken gas lines that contractors and home owners reak havic on.



That was part of my point. A lot of people have paid the price for the stupidity of a few. Personally, I'd rather have to deal with ground contamination from leaking oil than a destroyed house and dead family members from leaking gas. Again, just my humble opinion.

chaikwa.

AlpineRAM

I'm gonna play devils advocate now: If you live in a street where there's already natural gas piped in I'd go for it- the riscs that chaikwa stated are already there- why not reap the benefits?

I'd also suggest to compare the prices per btu of the different fuels that you are considering.
Wood pellet stoves will usually need electricity. (As some gas or oil heating equipment will too)
If you are worried about power failures you should check out a genset- and a history of the reliability of the gas supplier.

AlpineRAM

dieselnewbie

Good point Alpine, but I'm not sure my house would be leveled if it blew up under the street or in a neighbors house. We could sustain some damage but that'd probably be it.

The best heating fuel is Anthracite coal and there are stoves and fireplace inserts that burn that.

And they don't need electricity. They have blowers to spread the heat but if they go out because of a power failure there's no problem.

The stove just continues to radiate the heat with no chance of blow-back.

But i still like gas because you can do alot more with it.

Most good appliances come only in gas.

AlpineRAM

Well over here houses that are connected to gas and all nighbouring houses have gas sniffers installed that will make a noise and flash a light if they detect something. They are checked twice a year and cost only about 15Euros. (20US$)
The gas is also "perfumed" so you'll readily smell it and all electrical appliances that are in unvented areas must comply to IP54.
Gas accidents became very rare occurances over here. Most of them are caused by things like d0dg301stated. In some areas we have gas powered gensets for the winter where the heat is also recovered and used for heating the building.

AlpineRAM

12PACK

Yes and no. Yes, they require electricity to run the combustion fan, distribution fan and the feeder or auger that drops the pellets into the burn pot. Battery backups are available if you live in an area that loses power frequently. When I bought my stove 3 years ago, a manual backup was $150 (meaning you'd have to flip a switch to battery power) and an automatic one was $250. I was told a $40 12 volt battery at Walleyworld would power it. We hardly ever lose power, so I haven't bothered buying one.

As far as the soot issue, once power goes out, the fans stop and the feeder won't put addition pellets into the pot, so when the pellets in the burn pot go out (you're talking about less than a handful and any time) there's no more burning.

I wouldn't even call it soot, as with premium pellets (which most pellets sold now are) ~98% of them burn. I've burned over 2 tons, probably closer to 3, before I've emptied my ash pan, which is about 10" H x 10" L x 8" W.

If the stove was direct vented, meaning the exhaust pipe went horizontally, through your wall and was ~ 2 feet long, maybe for the short time the burn pot was still lit, AND if there was a stong wind blowing towards the house, you may get a little smoke inside. Put an elbow in the pipe and I don't think this would happen. My exhaust pipe is ~ 25 feet as you can't vent within 4 feet of a working window or door, and the pipe goes from 3" to 4" after ~ 6 feet, so it's pretty safe to say I'll never have smoke in the house.

The exhaust port in the back of my stove is 2 feet lower than where the distribution fan blows warm area into the room at the front of the stove. I can't see where a stove designed like this would have this issue, imho.

dieselnewbie

Thanks for the info 12Pack.

Let me ask you this:

If I bought the pellet stove and put it in front of a chimney/fireplace, with a ~2-3 foot horizontal pipe, then go verticle with it all the way up the chimney, would that prevent any blowback of soot if the power went out?

As long as most of the exhaust is vented vertical, there'd be no power outage/blowback soot problems?

It's that simple?

Thanks again,

DT.