A couple of months ago we got a letter from our insurance company stating that by April we need to replace our oil tank or we’ll lose our insurance coverage. Obviously we have oil heating, and I guess that as an oil tank ages there’s more chance that it will rust and begin to leak. So one a tank is of a certain age, 15 years I think, insurance companies want their clients to get new tanks.
So we are faced with a few major decisions. Should we replace the oil tank and continue to heat our home with Oil? As far as I can tell it seems to cost about the same as heating a home with gas. The other alternative is to remove the oil tank and switch over to gas heating. We already have gas coming into the house as we have a gas stove, but if we switch to gas we’ll need to replace the furnace and possibly have some duct work done.
Changing over to gas heating will be more costly, but if we get a high efficiency furnace I believe we’ll qualify for a rebate from the Government of Ontario. I believe the rebate might be as much as $3000 so that would cut our costs quite a bit. Still we’d have to come up with the money for the new furnace and any other work that we’d need done at that time first.
The other dilemma facing us is the fact that we’ve been using our unfinished basement as a large storage area! We have our old sectional couch down there, plus some furniture that we got from my parents home when my mother died. We also have boxes that we never unpacked when we moved from our apartment as I’ve been waiting to unpack them once our living room/ dining room and other home renovations are finished.
Whether we just replace the oil tank or change our heating system over to gas we’ll still have to clear out the basement so that the work can be done. I think over the next few months I’ll take a few hours each week and go over some of the stuff we have stored down there and slowly put some of it out in the garbage. I’m sure there’s lots of things in the basement that we’ll never use. However, what to do with the rest of the stuff is a problem.
We have a very small house and there really isn’t much room in the rest of the house to store some of the things we have in the basement. In fact, some of the furniture we have down there we planned to use in the basement once we renovated it. So I think I might have to look into a self storage service. We could rent storage space for a month or so and keep our items in storage while the work is done in our basement.
Hmmm maybe having an almost empty basement will spur us on to quickly renovate the basement. Now that’s an idea. Of course money will be a problem. We don’t even have enough money for Christmas this year let alone changing the oil tank or replacing the heating system!
So anyway … if this was your house what would you do? Would you just change the oil tank to satisfy the needs of the insurance company or would you take a leap and change over to gas heating?
Propane buyers beware… http://homeheatingoilprices.com/blog/12/03/propane-or-oil-heat-whats-the-best-decision/ run over to that post to see the main reasons why oil is so much better then propane hands down.
Now if you only had a choice between propane and electric I’d choose propane in a new york minute. Electric will eat you alive.
One more thing…. to prevent your new oil tank from corrosion for a longer amount of time, you’ll need to put in a corrosion resister additive into the tank a few times per year. You can get more details on the best choice and learn some tricks on how to save money on your fuel bill at HeatingOilHelp.com
So go grab the new tank. AND don’t forget to ask the oil company to give you terms on the tank purchase. They want long term customers and I’ll bet they’ll be thrilled to keep you as a customer especially if you let them know you are seriously considering a move to gas!
John thanks for your input. As for propane heating … I really don’t think there are many places in Canada that use propane for heating (except trailers etc). Here in Toronto we have a choice between oil, natural gas and electric heating.
Electric heating might be ok in a mild climate, but efficiency and price wise it’s one of the stupidest choices a home owner in a northern climate could make. In my opinion anyway!
Your post makes it sound like the Ontario Government came to me and offered a rebate on a gas furnace if I switched to gas … not so …. they just offer a rebate to home owners who switch to high efficiency furnaces.
Likely if we were to replace our oil heating furnace as well as the tank we’d still get a rebate. It’s just that if we only change the oil tank we don’t really need a new furnace (yet! but soon enough), however if we switch over to natural gas heating we’d need to replace the furnace and that’s the only reason I mentioned that we could get a rebate on the furnace if we switched to gas.
Your blog doesn’t really seem to cover natural gas as a heating option. What’s your opinion on a switch to natural gas?
Hi Tricia- good to hear from you. Sounds like I misunderstood the gov connection. Sorry about that.
I agree with you on the electric heat scenario… way to expensive.
I’d stay away from natural gas. Oil heat is a much better bet for a lot of different reasons.
Tricia, I cut my teeth on both the heating oil side and natural gas and propane but when I had a chance to grab the url I couldnt pass it up. I’m going to be adding more natural gas and propane as I go along.
Take a peek at http://www.heatingoilhelp.com if it’s something that you think you can use I can send you the pdf piece of the special report for free to check it out. The complete package has video and all sorts of other bonus stuff but the 87 tip pdf that might give you ore insight. Let me know if you’re interested, it’ll be an early xmas gift. 🙂
Hope I could help.
john