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Location: Sometimes Maryland, sometimes NoVA. Depends on the day of the week
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We are looking at a house that has fuel oil forced-air heat and hot water. I've had oil heat before, so I know some of the details of that. Does anyone else have an oil-fueled hot water heater? Anything you can tell me about it? For example, I know gas hot water heaters tend to have a long lifespan that electric, but what about oil? This one is 15 years old (pushing the life span on any hot water heater). Can you replace it with another oil heater? Are they still made? Would we be better off converting to electric (no gas available)?
Personally I wouldn't buy the house with an oil furnace but I do know they are pretty common in the NE so you might not have a choice where you are. We lived in a house with oil heat and there was always a background smell of oil and it is EXPENSIVE.
As for the water heater, I guess I have never heard of one that is fueled by oil. I would maybe call an appliance repair shop in the area and see what they have to say about them.
I have a separate hot water tank with its own separate oil burner and love it. It works much better than the indirect-fired hot water tank that it replaced. It has several advantages, in my opinion:
1. If you have oil heat with an indirect-fired (runs off the home heating system burner) hot water tank, the heating system burner will be running all year because although you won't need heat from spring to fall, you will still need to keep the water in the tank AND the (unused) heating system boiler at the required temperature. So your heating system will be used 12 mos out of the year. With the separate water heater/tank, you can shut down your heating system completely (burner and boiler) during the warmer months, thus saving wear and tear on that system for half the year.
2. If your heating system (burner or boiler) ever breaks down during the winter and you have to wait any length of time for the repairman to arrive .... you'll still be able to take a hot shower or bath. Never underestimate the value of hot water in a heating-system crisis!
Do you mean that the burner is 15 years old, or the tank? Either way, you should think about replacing both. Today's burners are much more efficient, and today's tank are better insulated and have more reliable thermostats and circulators. Either a Riello or a Beckett high-efficiency burner would be a good choice. For the tank itself, I would highly recommend a Bock. Their website is at Moderator cut: commercial link
Location: Sometimes Maryland, sometimes NoVA. Depends on the day of the week
1,501 posts, read 11,753,766 times
Reputation: 1135
Thanks for the information! That really helps a lot.
I actually kind of like the idea of oil heat, if for no other reasons than BioHeat. (broken link) I've lived in two seperate fuel oil heated houses, and never really noticed the oil smell.
Quote:
Do you mean that the burner is 15 years old, or the tank? Either way, you should think about replacing both. Today's burners are much more efficient, and today's tank are better insulated and have more reliable thermostats and circulators. Either a Riello or a Beckett high-efficiency burner would be a good choice. For the tank itself, I would highly recommend a Bock. Their website is at Moderator cut: commercial link.
Honestly, I don't know. We haven't had our home inspection yet. When we looked at it, it had a sticker on the tank stating it was installed in 1991. I don't know if the burner itself has been replaced since then. We definitely need to do some research on the subject, and I'm hoping the home inspector can tell us something. That will likely be Monday or Tuesday next week because, although we have a verbal agreement, the contract can't be ratified until Friday. :\ I'm not quite counting my chickens yet, but I admit to be counting eggs.
We have oil heat, and the hot water off the furnace. It's much more efficient than the electric water heater we used to have (we never had good experience with the water tanks. They seemed to be short lived). And we never, ever, had an oil smell. It's a top of the line furnace, so maybe the kind of furnace and burner has something to do with it. We are very happy with the evenness of the heat as well.
We are looking at a house that has fuel oil forced-air heat and hot water. I've had oil heat before, so I know some of the details of that. Does anyone else have an oil-fueled hot water heater? Anything you can tell me about it? For example, I know gas hot water heaters tend to have a long lifespan that electric, but what about oil? This one is 15 years old (pushing the life span on any hot water heater). Can you replace it with another oil heater? Are they still made? Would we be better off converting to electric (no gas available)?
We have oil and oil fueled hot water heater. It is ver reliable.
Last edited by Cornerguy1; 01-27-2008 at 10:22 PM..
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We had an oil heat (boiler) and I hated having to run the boiler all year because of the hot water (the house didn't have a separate tank for the water). It was extremely expensive, because of the high cost of heating oil. We paid about $100 just for hot water a month, that is with one person taking a 5 minute shower each day and one other person taking maybe two minutes showers a week. In the house before that, we had an electric hot water heater and our bill was usually around $50 a month, INCLUDING the hot water! On top of that, during the heating season, if you were taking a shower and the heat came on, you'd start getting cold water or barely lukewarm water! Not fun at all. So I would not recommend it, unless you don't mind paying the extra and also have a separate tank for the water.
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