[parentologist]

With home heating oil now under $2.50/gallon, I'm curious at what point oil heat is as cheap as, or even cheaper, than gas heat in CT? Assuming young, relatively efficient furnaces/boilers. Anyone know?

[NewJeffCT]

Not sure, but I've heard natural gas prices have been going down as well.

[parentologist]

Really? I heard that natural gas prices would go UP for us in the Northeast, because of a pipeline bottleneck! Frustrating, to know that there is all this increased production of natural gas, what with fracking and such, but it can't get to us here where we need it!

[Lintu]

This might help:

Home heating oil is now cheap, but natural gas is even cheaper - MarketWatch

No hard and fast oil barrel number to compare to, but I would throw out a guess of $40-45 per barrel of oil for it to become equivalent to natural gas.

[parentologist]

That article quoted oil at $3.14, but it's now about $2.50. And the price of natural gas here in CT is supposedly going up, because of the supply bottleneck. Not to mention that there are minimum fees associated with gas service.

I'm just curious, because I have a property that has young oil boilers in it. I was thinking about changing it over to gas, but with oil so cheap right now, I'm waiting.

[jesse_f]

You have to look at the energy equivalency - comparing BTUs per unit of measurement. Oil is priced in dollars per barrel, while gas is priced in dollars per million BTUs. One barrel of oil produces 5.8 million BTUs of energy, so on an energy equivalent basis, natural gas prices have to be increased by a factor of 5.8 to see where the break-even point is. I'll let you do the research as to current prices, but don't forget too that WTI and Brent Crude are not the same as heating oil so check with your local suppliers. Also, remember that oil is currently at a 5-year low, but commodity prices tend to revert to the mean and all it takes is a little shock or momentum for them to cruise right back up to the 70-100 level. Natural gas seems to be on a longer downtrend. Anyway, you're probably better off focused on getting yourself a high efficiency furnace and boosting your home's insulation, etc for longer term savings than trying to arb heating fuel and getting your face ripped off when energy spikes again.

[parentologist]

I just looked at the yankee gas bill. About $50/month just for the privilege of having an account! And 7 months of the year, I don't use any gas, since the hot water heater is electric. I don't get why their monthly privilege fee is so much higher than Connecticut Natural Gas' monthly account fee.

[NewJeffCT]

Originally Posted by parentologist

I just looked at the yankee gas bill. About $50/month just for the privilege of having an account! And 7 months of the year, I don't use any gas, since the hot water heater is electric. I don't get why their monthly privilege fee is so much higher than Connecticut Natural Gas' monthly account fee.

Unless your water heater is new, you might want to consider a gas fired hot water heater - with CT electric rates climbing at crazy rates, you'd probably save a decent amount of money on electricity.

[jesse_f]

Originally Posted by NewJeffCT

Unless your water heater is new, you might want to consider a gas fired hot water heater - with CT electric rates climbing at crazy rates, you'd probably save a decent amount of money on electricity.

Agreed, especially since the $50 you mentioned is probably the delivery fees that I think are somewhat constant (I don't really look closely at my bill as it's still about 1/3 of what the oil bills were).

[thecoalman]

Assuming the same efficiency, these would be the equivalent prices for the same cost per BTU.

$1.60/gallon of oil

$12/mcf or $1.18/therm