Energy prices can vary widely across the country. Your Oilheat dealer can provide you with the information to accurately compare energy prices in your area.

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Converting to Oil Heat
According to CECA, a residential conversion cost between $2,000 to $3,000. Given the virtual price parity between fuels and the higher efficiency of most oil heat equipment, most homeowners will never recover these costs. Estimates show that two million conversions would cost consumers about $5 billion, and drain another $500 million in lost wages annually from the region's economy - with no lasting local economic benefit. Worse, the conversion of 2 million oil heated homes in the region would result in the direct loss of some 35,000 to 40,000 service, sales, trucking, and clerical jobs. Since the heating oil industry has a much higher local labor component, only 5,000 to 7,000 of these lost jobs would be restored in the local gas industry. The ripple effect through the local economy could also lead to the demise of thousands of other small businesses.

Heating oil prices are 2.5 to 5.5 time lower than electricity. Converting from electric to Oilheat can substantially reduce energy costs.

Electric water heaters are very inefficient (about 29% AFUE). The potential savings for converting an electric water heater to an oil-fired unit range from $101 to $467 or more a year depending on your electric utility's rates.

There are many old gas heaters operating at less than 70% efficiency. In the majority of cases, converting to efficient Oilheat would provide a very good payback.

Conversely, switching from Oilheat to gas does not offer an attractive payback. In most cases it can take longer to recover your investment than the life expectancy of the new gas heater. Data from the Consumer Energy Council of America Research Foundation showed that changing from oil to another fuel over the last twelve years did not make economic sense; the cost of conversion is highly unlikely to be recovered.

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Safety Advantages
Oil, gas, and electric heat all have commendable safety records when the equipment is installed properly and maintained regularly. However, when heating units malfunction safety hazards can occur.

Should that situation arise, Oilheat offers important safety advantages:

• Heating oil is non-explosive. If a heating oil leak should occur, it is not an explosive hazard. When natural gas or propane leaks, an explosive mixture of air and fuel forms rapidly.

• Heating oil will not burn in a liquid state. If you were to place a lit match into a vial of heating oil, the match would be extinguished 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. By contrast, natural gas and propane will burst into flames when mixed with air if a match is struck in their presence.

Oilheat enables you to have a supply of fuel oil stored safely on your property.

Do not worry about the weather, because the oil in your tank is yours to use for heat and hot water whenever you want.

By comparison, in extremely cold weather, natural gas customers can be subject to pressure drops in the pipelines. A severe pressure drop can result in total loss of heat.

• Fuel oil is a liquid which is non explosive.

• Fuel oil will not cause a fire unless its temperature is raised above 140 degrees F.

• Risk of carbon monoxide exposure is lower for fuel oil than for natural gas.

• When an oil burner goes out of adjustment, fuel oil is safer than gaseous fuels because SMOKE is generated BEFORE carbon monoxide is released.
  Source: 1993 Study USEPA and BNL

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Home Safety Message
The risk of exposure to dangerous levels of carbon monoxide (CO) is substantially less with Oilheat than natural gas, propane, or wood heat. Carbon monoxide cannot be detected by one's senses, but prolonged exposure to it can cause injury and even death.

Properly set and maintained oil and gas burners produce very low, safe levels of CO as a normal part of the combustion process. But should there be a malfunction, oil is the safer fuel.

In the unlikely event an oil burner malfunctions due to air restriction, smoke occurs before appreciable amounts of CO develop. This serves as a warning signal. When gas burners malfunction they produce potentially dangerous levels of CO first, then smoke. It is difficult to tell that a gas burner is creating CO simply by looking at it.

A high CO reading is often due to vent blockage, flue pipe damage, heat exchanger cracks, and/or restricted air supply into the house.. Homeowners should periodically have heaters and gas appliances inspected and tested for carbon monoxide levels and proper venting.

All homes should have smoke and CO detectors.

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Efficiency Leader
Due to its superior combustion characteristics, today's modern home heating oil equipment operates at efficiencies which average about ten percent higher than any other fuel.

This efficiency advantage means that a typical homeowner will use ten percent less oil than any other fuel and still keep warm and comfortable.

Due in large part to advances in burner technology, virtually all oil heat equipment sold during the past several years had efficiency ratings higher than 80 percent efficient. The vast majority of gas heating equipment units sold in any given year, on the other hand, fail to meet the high efficiency standards of oil heating equipment, according to the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association.

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Conversion Costs Don't Add Up
Widespread residential conversions will also produce little or no environmental improvement, since residential heating oil and natural gas systems emit comparable levels of pollutants. Although carbon dioxide emissions may decline slightly, increased methane emissions would cancel out any possible global warming benefits.

A substantial increase in conversions would also cause problems for our energy delivery system. Oil refineries, for example, would have to be reconfigured to reflect the reduced demand for heating oil. Additionally, the increased demand for gas would occur at a point when pipeline capacity is already fully utilized, incremental costs are highest, and supply systems are seasonally constrained. This peak demand would force the use of marginal gas supplies such as propane or imported LNG - both of which re more costly and highly volatile - or increase interruptions to dual fuel industrial customers, thus straining the system at its point of greatest demand. In summary, our local economies cannot afford the $5 billion cost of a government-promoted oil to gas conversion program. At best, the benefits are illusory; at worst, it results in significant job losses and higher total energy use.

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Benefits of Oil Heat

• Oil heat offers a full range of professional in-home services exclusive to oil heat companies. This is an important advantage for the homeowner.

• Oil heat is clean burning. Modern oil burners produce negligible amounts of smoke and soot.

• Oil heat equipment has always been more advanced and many equipment innovations have been developed that are revolutionizing oil heat technology.

• Oil Furnaces 85% efficient

• Gas Furnaces 77% efficient

• Electric Heat 31% efficient
  Source: US Department of Energy