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With all due respect that comment is meaningless...
The BTU content of any energy product and it's cost per BTU is is what ultimatly counts. That's what you're buying ...ENERGY
You don't buy a cubic foot ,or a gallon of energy...you buy BTU's...if you aren't clear on that you need to go back and reread your high school science books.
The big energy companies do their calculations not on gallons,pounds,cubic feet etc...they deal in Watts and BTUs..... AND....that's what they base the cost of the product they sell to you will be.
Comments such as "the bottom line" just show you don't know what you're talking about
With all due respect that comment is meaningless...
The BTU content of any energy product is what ultimatly counts. That's what you're buying ...ENERGY
You don't buy a cubic foot ,or a gallon of energy...you buy BTU's...if you aren't clear on that you need to go back and reread your high school science books.
The big energy companies do their calculations not on gallons,pounds,cubic feet etc...they deal in Watts and BTUs..... AND....that's what they base the cost of the product they sell to you will be.
Comments such as "the bottom line" just show you don't know what you're talking about
Yep, that is true. You must be talking oranges oranges / apples to apples. It only makes sense if you are relating BTU's to some price. But it does get even more tricky in the real World. The killer with natural gas is so much of the money does not directly buy energy. I even get wacked if I use no fuel at all in a month. Taxes, fees, monthly user charges, on and on. Only about 60 cents of every dollar I spend with the gas company actually buys fuel. Couple that to they had monkeyed with the meter and I was being cheated big time. Finally got them to change the meter head and dropped my gas bill like 50%, surprise, surprise. The World is not always what it seems. If you are using a fossil based fuel, ask the question "Do I own a quantity of fuel after I pay for it, with no on going fees, charges, etc" True for fuel oil. Once in the tank, you own it, the charges stop. Many ways to look at how you actually have to spend money. Are you using an energy source that is subject to being rigged so they can cheat you on what is being delivered. Happens a lot more than peeps want to believe. Such an easy way to make money. What kinds of billing games can be played???? Different fuels have different types of games.
In today's World I would be looking beyond most type of fossil fuels, ie fuel oil, natural gas, propane, etc. They all are just going to keep getting more expensive.
Prime energy sources like solar, geo thermal, wind, mini-hydro, even wood based energy, etc are the way to go. The initial equipment / installation may be more but you have a foggy chance of being off the price escalator that all the rest of the fossil carbon based fuels are going to under go. You want a fuel source that is going to be independent of World oil prices. Something that the "Fuel" is basically free or fixed price, once the initial costs are paid. The future is going to be nasty. Can be a long discussion on the why's. Think longer term. Get something free from billing games.
Plus if it really gets nasty, the bigger question may be can you get any fuel at all, no matter the price. It is not only price, energy security should be another goal for anybody trying to avoid the mess coming.
Geo is my main source for heat and cooling. My LP gas furnace came on maybe fives times all last year. Central air, never. My geo was about $8000 to install. I drilled and installed my loops. So, my cost for BTU would sound very low. My point, there are many factors. One thing I would consider, will you ever need a water well? If so, the oil tank is a source of contamination.
We have oil heat here, too. We don't have natural gas in our area, I shudder to think how much it would cost to get it, or if it's even possible. But to answer the OP's original question, we had a new boiler installed last year. It's a Beckett brand boiler. I don't know much beyond that though, other than we did notice we used less oil last winter, it does seem very efficient. We had it cleaned once by the oil company, and the serviceman was very impressed with it, for whatever that's worth. He said it was a very good boiler to have.
I know years ago there was a oil burner with a blue flame that was suppose to be efficient.
Cosmic, I agree with ya, that's why I heat with wood....
Think you are talking about what was called a Blu-Ray or Blue-Ray. Has a sort of checkered history. Was an improvement in efficiency over previous designs but they had problems with CO being produced in some cases.
The real story with so many of the fossil fuels, especially those tied to crude oil is going to be this huge price increases we will see in the next few years. What we are experiencing now is just the openers. So is any boiler burning oil going to be efficient enough? Same problem as we are seeing with gasoline.
It is all tied back to a long predicted situation where World oil production peaks and a supply / demand mismatch occurs with the resulting financial melt downs that will happen at some point. The production peaked in the USA in about year 2000, year 2008 has been predicted to be the World peak point. We probably do have a production - demand mismatch right now, your best guess what the numbers might be. My general feeling is the production side is being over stated for some time. We could be in the start of a scenario that has been pretty well predicted. Strange conditions, were even huge efforts at conservation will have no effect to contain price spikes.
Wall Street Journal has had a number of excellent articles on the entire mess. Been some good TV programs about how it will all unfold and various impacts. One interesting prediction is $8 a gallon gasoline in the USA as part of the first mismatch correction factor. Even that may be too cheap. Lots of wild cards in the mix and we are in the window where it is actively happening with no real means of reversal of the overall trends.
So any type of fuel oil home heating boiler / furnace may be peeing in the wind. If the price spikes as predicted, you can't afford it.
The smart money already has shifted into something not tied to crude oil. Same a bit for all the ones like LP, natural gas, they are going to tend to follow the price of oil up, might be a lag initially but the direction is up a lot once the situation really starts to get a good bite.
Happened once before when the World switched from wood to coal and then on to oil. There is no one energy source that can immediately replace oil. Maybe nothing that can even temper the melt down scenarios. Shame being we have wasted something like the last 40 years understanding the problem was coming, doing the initial research and building some type of response.
Oil heat for houses is going to be a dead horse pretty quick. One of the solutions to the looming crisis has to be reserve all the diesel type fuels for transportation related uses. It may not be price alone that will get you, might not be able to get a delivery.
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