Help! any converts to propane heat from oil~

[ITD]

Originally Posted by marinewife

Well, we just got the news, fixing the oil system is useless, we didn't spend the $ to buy the parts since 1 of them cost $1600.00 alone.

So now, we are faced with 2 choices- oil or propane-

New oil system is $8500, 83-86% efficient.

New propane system is $9300, 97% efficient.

Does that amount sound correct? They said it will take 1-2 days to completely do, whichever system we choose. (this is from Strogens, btw)

THANKS!

~wife

That sounds about right, but oil has about 140,000 btus per gallon, where as propane has about 91,000 btus per gallon. So oil, while less efficient in burners gives you much more heat per gallon.

So a simple conversion, a gallon of oil through an 83% eff burner would yield you 140,000 *0.83 = 116,200 btus

Where as a gallon of Propane through a 97% burner would yield you 91,000 * 0.97 = 88,300 btus.

(the btu values of propane and fuel oil vary from different sources, but the difference is pretty small in the variations)

In the above scenario, even though propane is more efficient, you only get about 76% as much heat, which means you need to burn more gallons of propane( more$$$$) to equal the same heat of oil. Propane typically tracks oil prices, but propane would have to be 24% cheaper per gallon to break even versus oil in the above example.

[Biggd]

Originally Posted by ITD

That sounds about right, but oil has about 140,000 btus per gallon, where as propane has about 91,000 btus per gallon. So oil, while less efficient in burners gives you much more heat per gallon.

So a simple conversion, a gallon of oil through an 83% eff burner would yield you 140,000 *0.83 = 116,200 btus

Where as a gallon of Propane through a 97% burner would yield you 91,000 * 0.97 = 88,300 btus.

(the btu values of propane and fuel oil vary from different sources, but the difference is pretty small in the variations)

In the above scenario, even though propane is more efficient, you only get about 76% as much heat, which means you need to burn more gallons of propane( more$$$$) to equal the same heat of oil. Propane typically tracks oil prices, but propane would have to be 24% cheaper per gallon to break even versus oil in the above example.

I will add, there is more maintenance on an oil burner than a propane burner but with a new system you should get many years of service with just a yearly cleaning which typically runs about $150. Add that to your oil bill and you still come out cheaper than propane.