OT: converting a house from oil heat to gas heat ?

[Kbee3]

We're planning on moving out of the area and looking to buy a place in eastern Pa.
A number of the places thus far have oil heat, which my wife seems to think is a deal-breaker.
Is it ? Anyone know what's involved and what the cost might be ?

 

[LevaosLectures]

Oil is the worst. Avoid. Granted I lived in Maine but I used to spend like $3000 a year easy heating my tiny house. It would be a little cheaper now, but not much.

 

[Piscataway]

I have oil. I hate it. very expensive. about 3k a year. some areas of PA like anywhere else dont have gas available. Also stay away from LP. just as expensive

 

[KeithK7624]

If you have the option to convert from oil to gas you're foolish not to. The gas companies will bill the conversion in to the monthly bill for x number of years and there are a ton of grants out there to help with the conversion as well. $0 out of pocket. The trouble is, most areas won't have the option.

 

[Ole Cabbagehead]

Needs a new furnace to be plumbed in if gas is available. Probably $4,000.

Or you can go wood burning at least as a supplement to the oil.

 

[Upstream]

Anyone know what's involved and what the cost might be ?

The big barrier is that your new home would need gas service, or at least gas service would need to be available on your street. If your new home has a gas stove, then you have gas service and replacing the oil heating system with a gas heating system is pretty easy and straight forward, and is basically the cost of installing a new furnace. If your new home doesn't have gas service, you would need to contact the gas company that serves the area and find out the cost of running gas service to your home. It could be cheap (or free) if their is already a gas line running past your property, or it could be prohibitively expensive. Only the gas company could tell you.

 

[RUich]

My current house is the first one I have had with natural gas. Oil has little to support still using it. If the house already has forced air to circulate the heat, it will not cost all that much to convert. Plus, adding AC is a cinch.
I only wish I had NG a lot earlier in my home owning life.

 

[imoapie]

We're planning on moving out of the area and looking to buy a place in eastern Pa.
A number of the places thus far have oil heat, which my wife seems to think is a deal-breaker.
Is it ? Anyone know what's involved and what the cost might be ?

Its a deal-breaker if the tank is burried.

 

[Piscataway]

Its a deal-breaker if the tank is burried.

absolutely!!!

 

[RU4Real]

Have you thought about solar?

 

[DJ Spanky]

We're planning on moving out of the area and looking to buy a place in eastern Pa.
A number of the places thus far have oil heat, which my wife seems to think is a deal-breaker.
Is it ? Anyone know what's involved and what the cost might be ?

Its a deal-breaker if the tank is burried.

The potential risk for having to do remediation with an underground tank is enough to make you want to stay far, far away from this.

 

[RutgersRaRa]

I just had a tank taken out of the ground last year (by a company owned by a huge Rutgers fan), and it had a small leak. They pretty much all have a leak, so if you don't have insurance for the tank and remediation you're looking at serious cash out-of-pocket, even if the leak hasn't come within (IIRC) 2 feet of the water table. If it has, forget having a good life from here forward because the state will own your ass for a long time. PA is more accommodating than is NJ, but it depends on where you live and how close your neighbors are to your property. IIRC, PA is a risk-assessment state, meaning that if you have a tank that leaks they will assess the risk to your neighbors and other factors (e.g., well water), and might not make you do a huge cleanup. NJ, quite naturally, isn't as user friendly--if there's a leak, regardless of whether it poses a potential risk to anything (we're almost all on city water so there may not be a risk to anyone), they still make you get all of the contaminated soil out of the ground.

All things being equal, and if you have an adequate (1/2 inch?) gas line already coming into the house, conversion should run around $3-4k, depending on unit and the company.

 

[rbboyl]

I did the conversion a few years back and it was one of the best things we did for the house. We had a gas line coming in already for stove and water heater. Our gas bill is now $119 a month which includes, stove, water heater and the gas furnace. With oil heat, we were paying $300-$400 each fill up and the cold winters we had to fill up at least 5 to 6 times. And we were keeping the temp low in the house too to save money and make each fill up last longer. Converting to gas heat will pay for itself over the life of the unit and make it easier to sell the house in the future.