Home heating. Oil vs. electric

M-squared · #1 (**permalink**) 04-23-2008, 05:58 AM

In the ever ongoing renovations of owning an old house, we need of a new boiler. We had someone come out to look at it recently and he suggested replacing the whole kit and kaboodle since the heating system was put in a very long time ago and really isn't all that efficient.

We live in the northeast (think really cold winters) where most homes are heated with oil. We aren't in the city, so there are no gas lines to our house.

Does anyone know were I can go to find projected costs for heating a house with oil vs electric? I've always thought that electric was the most expensive option, but with the price of oil these days (and not likely to go down) electric might be an alternative choice.

Of course we will get several estimates and have more than one repair person come look at our heating unit to determine if we need to replace the whole thing or if we can get by with just a new boiler.

banana · #2 (**permalink**) 04-23-2008, 08:16 AM

I'd be interested in this too.

We have oil heat and we are thinking about adding electric baseboard heaters in each room.

bjl584 · #3 (**permalink**) 04-23-2008, 09:15 AM

First you need to figure out the square footage of your house and the size furnace that you will need to adequately heat that amount of space. Any dealer can give you a good estimate of how much it will cost to operate the furnaces that they sell. If you tell them what you are trying to figure out (oil vs. electric) they should be able to produce a side-by-side comparison for you. If not, I'm sure that you can search the web for this info.

nhhillrider · #4 (**permalink**) 04-25-2008, 12:57 PM

go to hearth.com and goto to "quick navigation" then "main informational articles". The site would not let me insert a link.
There you will find a few calculators. I tried the fuel cost calculator and was not surprised to find that at about $3.50/gallon and 11 cents per KWH
that the two were very close.
Electric heat will probably be more cost effective in the upcoming years.

garilon · #5 (**permalink**) 04-27-2008, 04:23 AM

yes think ahead, go electric - how far away is the gas line ?

M-squared · #6 (**permalink**) 04-28-2008, 06:06 AM

nrider: Thanks for that website. I will have to check out what oil and electric are currently costing us.

garilon: I have no idea how far away the gas line is... I honestly don't think that there is one. All of the houses we looked at both in town and out were heated with oil and had electric ranges. Gas really isn't used much in this part of the country.