Why is oil space heating so popular in the Northeast USA?

Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3111 Location: Maine

We were talking about the situation here in Maine. Right now the average price for #2 heating oil is at $3.28 per gallon. The average house has a burner that uses about 3/4 a gallon per hour. Next year heating oil will be around $4 a gallon. That means the average house will need to use $3 worth of oil an hour for say 10 hours a day. $30 a day just to stay warm. $210 a week just for heat. Our winter lasts about 6 months around here, but only serious cold for 3 months. $2520 for the coldest part of the winter plus 1260 for the other 3 months of cold and you get $3780 just to stay warm in a small house next winter. That's the best case scenario.

Peak oil hits home hard in Maine. We all need $4000 just to keep from freezing to death.
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MarkJames · Tar Sands Joined: Dec 25, 2007 Posts: 63

The average home in Maine must be poorly insulated and/or the average furnace, boiler, boiler/tankless combo, boiler/indirect combo or boiler/outdoor-reset combo must be really oversized or very inefficient to use so much fuel per day.

If our average fuel oil customers burned that much fuel, we'd have to put more trucks on the road.

oowolf

It has been technically possible to build houses that require no off-site fuel for heating--even in Maine and Montana--for a hundred years or more.
The only reason such houses weren't built: You can't make money selling fuel to people who don't need it.
Same reason automobiles were invented--so standard Oil et. al., can make money.
In the so-called developed nations, the primary reason for existing is to make money by selling people stuff they don't really need.

misterno

Here is my take on this

1) If all said about oil and NG is true, meaning they are getting more and more expensive and this will continue, then sometime in the future, the cost of heating will be so high that people will be forced to move south.

As an example somebody calculated that it costs $3/hr to stay warm and what if this goes up to $10/hr, would you still live in Maine? This is impossible.

2) Someone said propanes are a way to go. What I do not understand is propane is a byproduct of oil so if oil goes up propane should go up too. Isn't that so? So what is the difference from heating oil? Can someone elaborate?

dinopello

Maybe their systems were built so well they just never saw the need to switch them out. I'm not really in the 'NorthEast" here, but my home is only about 100 years old. I am told that it probably had a coal-fired boiler when the house was built in 1905 and at some point had an oil one put in (the controls for that are still in the basement) and now I have a 25 year old natural gas boiler (radiator heat).

bonehead

Bought my house four and a half years ago when heating oil just crossed over the $1.00 a gallon mark.This was before i ever heard of peak oil.Since then i've done everything in my power to get the most out of every gallon.Looking back,i'm not so sure i would've bought the house knowing what i know now,but there really aren't many alternatives when you factor in the cost of a new system.Guess i'm just stuck with it for now,but i can see these oil dealers in my area going out of business in the near future as their product becomes just too expensive.
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Tyler_JC

Even with a relatively mild winter here (in southern Massachusetts), it costs well over $1000 per month to keep the house warm.

It's not a large house by any strech of the imagination (just a basic two story cape house of about 2200 square feet) and it is very well insulated.

But with heating oil at $3/gallon, it's become a money trap.

I'm trying to convince him to invest in a solar water heater and after the last heating oil bill...he's warming up to the idea.
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Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3111 Location: Maine

Tyler_JC

Denny

Geez, I am in Canada of all places, and heat my 2,100 sq ft detached home by natural gas, and my bill works out to about $1400 a year, including water heating and there are five of us here.

So, if somebody has a $3,000 annual oil bill, but if they could substitute for gas, even if the investment was as much as $5,000, plus some upgraded insulation, it would be a great financial benefit it would give a two or three year payback.

Maine borders on Quebec, and I know that much of Quebec now has piped natural gas, as far east as Quebec City at least, it would not take much to run a line south, so you'd think.

In fact, it looks like more gas is on its way for our buds south of the 45th parallel -- see this article Quebec heralds billion dollar methane project

" The port is expected to serve Quebec, Ontario and the northeastern United States.

But Bechard moved on Wednesday to allay concerns that most of the gas coming through the port would be sold south of the border.

"It is part of the diversification of our sources of energy," he said. "Potentially there could be some going to the United States, but there is also a need for natural gas in Quebec."

Bechard added that developing a port in Cacouna doesn't hurt the chances of a similar project planned closer to Quebec City.

The proposed terminal for liquefied natural gas at Rabaska, which is headed by Gaz Metro Limited Partnership (TSX: GZM.UN), is being reviewed by Quebec environmental officials after recent public hearings."

For that matter, why couldn't Maine set up its own methane port? You'd think the ships would have a shorter distance to travel that way.

MarkJames · Tar Sands Joined: Dec 25, 2007 Posts: 63

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