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8 Reasons To Choose An Oil-Heated Home
8 Reasons To Choose An Oil-Heated Home
Posted: June 8, 2020
Home buying is all about choices, including where to live and how big a home you need. But there’s another factor to consider when shopping for a new home – one that people often overlook: how the home is heated.
A home heating system will have a big impact on your quality of life: not only will it affect your family’s comfort for much of the year (especially here in New England), but it will also affect your energy bills – often significantly.
Here in Rhode Island, there are many options for heating our homes, including natural gas, propane, and electricity. But one option offers unique benefits that other options struggle to match: heating oil.
Why choose a home that uses heating oil? 8 reasons.
Efficiency – Many of today’s oil-fired furnaces and boilers boast efficiency percentage ratings well into the 90s; combine that efficiency with the high burning temperature of heating oil (see #2) and you’ll see why heating oil delivers more bang for your heating buck.
BTU output – When it comes to pumping out the BTUs, nothing beats good old-fashioned oil heat. Heating oil burns 300 degrees hotter than natural gas, which means your home will heat faster and you’ll need to burn less fuel to stay comfortable.
Safety – Unlike natural gas, heating oil will never explode. In fact, heating oil does not even burn in a liquid state – it must be vaporized under precise conditions in order for combustion to occur.
Abundant supply – During the winter, high demand for fuel can strain supply for natural gas – but that will rarely happen with heating oil.
Value – Adjusted for inflation, today’s heating oil prices are about the same as they were in the mid-1970s, making heating oil a bargain.
Eco-friendliness – You read that right! Today’s ultra-low sulfur heating oil (ULSHO) burns 95 percent cleaner than heating oil did 50 years ago. Clean burning fuel also means longer lasting equipment (see below).
Longer equipment lifespans – With proper maintenance, today’s oil-fired furnaces and boilers can last 30 years or more – significantly longer (sometimes twice as long) as systems powered by natural gas.