Has anyone installed a new oil boiler lately? I have an old one now which needs to be fixed or replaced. The cost of the repair is $500 so I am thinking of upgrading rather than throw good money after bad. Now, the gas company will say they are better, and the oil companies will say they are, so I asked two plumbers who install both types of boilers and they said oil is better. I live on Long Island where the cost for gas and oil may be higher than other parts of the country. What is your opinion? If you installed an oil boiler what was your experience with it. Are you satisfied? What kind of equipment did you install?Thanks in advance.
Oil is more more maintenance. Any time you are working with oil or burning oil you will have more maintenance problems. You have problems with the nozzles, soot, leaks, and keeping the oil tank free of moisture. Oil absorbs moisture and it will not burn right if it's not pure. This causes other problems. You also never know exactly where the oil is coming from or how it's been stored. Natural gas is better if it's available. It's really a no brainer. Of course the oil boiler guy is going to rattle off a bunch of reasons why oil is better. I don't live in the northeast so I don't know the cost of fuel oil compared to natural gas. I just know that Natural Gas is clean and requires a lot less maintenance. You don't have to buy a new tank full twice a year either.
I live in Maine and the rule of thumb here is and always has been oil heat. I'm not sure why more people in this area don't use gas but I've used oil for many many years and overall like it. If you service your boiler once a year and have it cleaned properly it will preform well with no problems. The trick is make sure you service it every year. I just helped my brother in-law install a new boiler in his house. He went to Home Depot and purchased the boiler, it took us about three days to get the old one out and the new in and working. All said and done he has around three thousand in it. It works well and should give him twenty to thirty years of service without much headache. I'm not sure of the name brand but you can go to Home Depot's web site and get some idea of what they sell. I don't recommend trying this yourself but a new average sized boiler here in Maine should cost thirty five hundred to four thousand installed. Good luck with your new boiler :)
I'd go with gas if I had the option, but there's no service where I live. Propane is an option, but that means a massive tank in your yard. I'm sticking with oil for my new furnace. I've been quoted $9,500 for a system with a separate tank for hot water and abut $7,000 for one with a coil - less efficient over time but quite a savings up front. I'll probably have to have my chimney relined, which I'm told will be another $1,500 or so. So I'm looking at $10K give or take. The unit in there now is 20 years old and with annual maintenance and a service contract from our oil co., it hasn't caused too many hassles.
Mpffff.... Three things right off the bat: 1. The US produces most of the Natural Gas it uses, and there is an adequate supply anticipated for the next 100+ years. The US produces about 23% of the oil it uses and we are at the mercy of various foreign suppliers from Saudi Arabia to Canada and Mexico. 2. Oil-fired boilers by nature and design cannot be as efficient as gas-fired boilers. And without scrupulous maintenance, an oil-fired boiler will lose efficiency very rapidly over time. With maintenance it will always lag natural gas by about 5% at the highest end. Much more below the very high end. 3. The price of natural gas has lagged the price of oil historically by about 30%. Right now, heating oil on the retail market is about $2.39/gallon which comes to 130,000 BTUs of heat. Natural Gas is averaging about 1.17/therm, which comes to 100,000 BTUs. The cost per 100,000 BTU delivered inside your house (counting boiler losses) will be about $1.24 for natural gas, and about $2.04 for oil, about a 40% premium. Go for a high-efficiency gas-fired boiler, something from Weil Mclain, Burnham, Slant-Fin or any of several others of similar quality and efficiency. We just replaced our old 400,000 BTU oil-burner with a 230,000 BTU gas burner last March, 2008 - net to the house is the same for both systems. Annual savings (by calculation based on actual gas use) was over $3,700. We had to replace the boiler anyway, the differential between a high-end gas boiler (Weil-Mclain Ultra) and a similar oil burner was about $1,000 in the favor of gas. And we got rid of the tank in the basement, the smells and potential for spills and so forth. The total installed cost for the boiler was about $8,000 but that is not a good measure as we had to have a great deal more system repairs done before we could turn it on. But the boiler itself cost just over $4,000.
