Heating Oil vs gas

[tolivac]

My house used to have a oil burner furnace-the previous owner replaced it with a Lennox AC-Heat pump.the unit works great as an AC-buts its a lousy source of heat.Use portable electric heaters instead.The previous owner also heated with wood-still have the "fisher" woodstove-don't use it because the wood is expensive now and don't have time to fuss with it.Where I work they have two Cleaver Brooks oil fired boilers that provide building heat.Two 60 Gal electric water heaters provide the hot water.also the this site has a 1.8Megawatt Deisel cat generator for Load mangement and emergency power-when that is running-burns up 400Gal fuel oil per hour!!The plant has too 7,500 gal fuel tanks.The site is two far away from gas lines.
My moms home she had in the Wash DC area was a Levitt built home-the boiler in it was natural gas fired-provided heat and hot water.The house was built in 1969.she rented a farmhome in the same area that had an oil fired boiler and radiaters in the home.

 

[david]

sign me up, steve

Sounds great to me. There probably is a disadvantage or two, but wouldn't be bad. I guess since Texas and Louisiana are the 1st and 2nd in gas production, we got the gas use thing started a long time ago. However many rural residents don't have a gas line near and must us propane or electricity.

 

[MrX]

All-electric homes

There was a big marketing push on all electric homes here in Ireland in the 1970s and 80s however they're far less popular in new homes thesedays.

The price of electricity's gone up and it's recognised that having the fuel burned locally rather than at a power plant with the energy converted into electricity delivered along a power distribution system (with all the associated losses) and then converted back into heat again at the other end is just not a good idea from a CO2 emmissions point of view.

Electric heating here tends to use storage heaters that take advantage of cheap night rate electricity to heat special heat-absorbing bricks. Then during the day the heat is released slowly (controlled by dampers and fans). These heaters either had a boost function or seperate panel/convector heaters were installed which allowed you to get extra heat during the day, but at full day-rate pricing.

Each room had a heater and digital wall thermostat & timer unit. You programmed the storage heater's background temp. (e.g. 16 to 18C) and the "boost temp" (e.g. 20 to 22C).. you then programmed the time you wanted the boost heater to kick in... e.g. in the evening (while the house was occupied)

The kitchen had storage heating and the "boost units" were fan heaters mounted below the cabnets and blew warm air out at baseboard level.

The bathroom had a heated electric towel rail & radiator and a small fan heater unit that was mounted in the attic and blew warm air down through a grill in the ceiling should you need extra heat.

The control systems for our gas / oil fired system are quite simlar wall stats. However, the all-electric stuff was a lot more sophisticated.

I could see these systems making quite a come back once greener sources of electricity are found! i.e. more wind, hydro and solar .. they make no sense where power's generated from natural gas and other fossil fuels.

The control unit looked something like this:

 

[DADoES]

toggleswitch said: Yes, heat-pumps do deliver air that is below body-temp. 98.6 F (37 C ) so it does feel cool to the touch.

The two-speed Lennox heat pump with two speed blower in my previous house did feel warm to the 'touch.' Quite warm, in fact, when running on low blower speed, which it did most of the time. I never did measure the output temperature.

My new house has a 1-speed Carrier system, but has 10' ceilings, so I can't reach the registers without a boost, and I didn't make the effort to do so during what was left of the heating system.

 

[toggleswitch]

Heat pump air temp

Thanks DADoES!

Texas (where cooling need prevails) => supply air form the top
New York (where heating need prevails) => supply air from bottom.

Is your return down low? One central location or a register/vent per room?

Here, the returns in a better system are in each room near the ceiling (prevents stratification in summer during cooling seson when cold air is delivered to floor.)

Builder cheapies tend to have one large return register/vent near the floor. Then when cooling is added (As is typical in this climate)people forget to add a return near the ceiling. Which, of course, serves to pull the hottest air into the system to cool it.

 

[DADoES]

The new house has one air handler in the attic, with two return registers at each side of the house, in the ceiling, in the hallway at the spare bedroom wing and between the master suite and living room right near the thermostat.

The old house had one return in a wall, down near the floor.

 

[toggleswitch]

Cool heat-pump air

Hi DADoES.

Maybe the difference in temperatures can be explained climactically?

We here are at the northern edge of where heat-pumps will work efficiently. At one time heat-pumps had a 40.F min. (5.C min.)operatign temp.

Minmium temps here are usually in the 20's (-5.C) and a cold-snap is in the teens. (Kewl... minus ten is minus ten degrees F/C!)

I'm guessing that in texas electric resistance back-up is quite rarely used/needed. But here, based on a 40.F switch-over, most of the time heating would propbably be straight resistance electric. [and that is a big no-no price-wise up here!]

Bottom-line is, a heat-pumps look-like they struggle here as temps fall, and maybe their heat output is barely discernable at the point where electric back-up kicks in.

 

[DADoES]

The system in my old house was a bit oversized, which I did purposely. Being two-speed, it was able to run on low speed much of the time, sometimes for several hours at a time, which kept humidity low and temperatures consistent. High speed did kick in for cooling fairly often, in the heat of the South Texas summer. For heating, the system also was able to run on low speed the majority of the time, and keep up with the load *without* needing the auxiliary, even in those few incidents of < 32°F ambients. I had an extra outdoor temp sensor added that allowed locking-out the resistance until the ambient was lower than a particular temp, which I had set at 25°F (the lowest it allowed). The resistance never ran except during defrost, and I could easily get 72°F with the system cycling.

I didn't have the extra temp sensor for the first heating season, and being smarter than necessary (LOL), the thermostat would sometimes trigger the auxiliary if it *thought* the system was taking too long to reach the setpoint . . . when running the compressor just a little longer would do the trick. That irritated me greatly, so I 'scoped out the solution.

The same situation arose at the new house. I moved in at the end of January, with just a brief time left on the heating season. The idiot thing also triggered the auxiliary much too often, when I'd rather have the compressor running longer. I researched and found that Carrier also has the optional outdoor temp sensor with lock-out function. By the time the slacker-offer service outfit got around to installing it, heating season was officially over . . but I'm good to go for the next!

 

[toggleswitch]

25.F cut-out

Great! The next time I have to add central-air (yes, it is FINALLY catching on here where cooling season is 3 to 5 months long)I can think about a heat-pump.

With a 25.F cut-out which would cover me most of the time, if my utility ever begins to offer off-peak electric rates, I can run the heat-pump for heat during off-peak times and use fossil fuel for other times!

I still may get a natural-gas fired generator (mostly to have heat in the winter in emergencies) and size it such that I can run my central air off of it in summer. I wonder how to figure out if it would be cheaper than running the air off utility electric.

Cool, and then I could run the A/C off-peak too!!

 

[Cybrvanr]

You may want to look into a dual-fuel system too. They have gotten to be very popular around here. Otherwise and ordinary heat pump, but instead of electric resistance heaters for backup, these have a gas or oil furnace. When the temprature gets below 40 degrees or so and the heat pump becomes inefficient, the system will switch to the fossil-fuel system. If a major temprature adjustement is done, BOTH the fossil fuel system, and the heat pump will come on at the same time to bring the temprature up quickly.

I like the idea of the cut-out switch too that you guys mention, that will shut down the backup system when the temps are warm enough outside. This would work on a dual-fuel system too. The interesting thing about a dual fuel system is that very few are hooked up the same, being that customers almost always have different preferences in how and when they want the system to change between the heat sources.

 

[toggleswitch]

Thanks

Great idea will keep in mind!

I can't do too much in this house because my heating system is steam with radiators and my central air shoots in from the ceiling make it less-than-ideal for heating.

 

[jasonl]

Central HVAC is the way

We have a central AC/gas furncace here controlled by a Honeywell Round and it's perfectly fine here. Of course I was a digital round when I get my house but it's nice to be able to flick a switch and be cool.

 

[MrX]

Irish oil-fired heating boiler

Here's a picture of an oil fired heating boiler installed in a utility room in Ireland.

Alongside a Hoover frontloader washing machine and a cheap Service dryer.

As you can see the boiler roughly conforms to standard european appliance shape and style.

This is a set up in a rental property for self-catering vacations.

The devices beside the boiler:

The green unit = circulation pump
Blue unit = electromechanical valve (thermostat controlled)
The red unit = oil filter.
Grey box = electrical junction box.

The timer and controls are located elsewhere.

 

[MrX]

minor correction

The timer and water temp controls are on the front panel of the boiler. The large round dial is an electromechanical time clock with 15 min segments. You pull out for on, push in for off.

The smaller dial sets the water temprature.

It's made by an irish company called Firebird and contains a bentone burner.

It's "room sealed" i.e. the burner and combustion chamber are totally isolated air is drawn through a duct from outside and exhaust gasses go out via a chimney / flu which is obviously also 100% sealed.

 

[toggleswitch]

Thanks

MrX- Thank you.... seeing this stuff makes my day!!

 

[MrX]

Toggleswitch

No problem.... It's a BIT off topic but perhaps of some interest to someone !

That Service dryer's pretty cheap and crumby though!

 

[toggleswitch]

Bentone Burner

Bentone burner- not showing.

Is this of the nozzle-type similar to a Swedish burner as seen pictured above/earlier in that Irish red/orange unit within the weight-room?

Also don't see a barometic draft diverter in that photo. Is there one? Our are usually located in the flue pipe.In a "T" pipe configuration

[Why do I find it funny that the earlier Irish boiler is red/orange? ] LOL.

http://www.bacharach-training.com/Combustion%20Zone/Comb/Draft/draft.htm

 

[MrX]

It's all inside the case!

That white unit actually houses a fairly normal looking boiler and burner.

The burner sucks air in via a "snorkel" i.e. a fireproof metalic duct that goes out through the wall.

The exhaust gasses are forced back up the flue mostly by the force of the fan, but also by the usual chimney draft that develops.

The stack is pretty simple, just a long hollow metal tube with a cowel on the top and a door at bottom on the exterior of the house to allow for sweeping.

Here's what's inside the case:
(you can see the snorkel)

 

[MrX]

Bentone (or similar) burners

They're all pressure jets nozzle type units. They basically atomize the oil using a pump and nozzle. A fan sucks air in, this is mixed with the fine mist of oil in the combustion chamber.

As for the orange colour. Lots of things in Ireland are orange, including all long distance trains, some houses, shops, bars people's hair, 1 of the three stripes of the national flag..

Nothing particularly unusual about an orange boiler.. It's a bit of an ugly looking machine and shouldn't be in a weightsroom! Meant to be in a boiler house.

 

[toggleswitch]

Would you like a digital, Honey?

Flea-bay is offering these, as metioned earlier, on the cheap!

Interesting how this section of the ad (a the bottom) is 100% UNRELATED to the product being offered.

WRONG!!!!

Features

Supports 802.11g networks for Data transfer rates of up to 54Mbps
Backwards compatible with 802.11b networks for data transfers of up to 11Mbps
Fits any standard USB 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0 port
Built-in 64- and 128-bit WEP data encryption
Low-Power Consumption Chipset
Requires: Windows 98 SE, Me, 2000, or XP
Includes Belkin Lifetime Warranty and free 24 hour technical support!
Color - Black

Pardon Our Interruption...