Oil Heat Is Still a Good Way to Heat Your Home

5 Reasons Heating with Oil Is a Smart Choice

As a homeowner, how you choose to heat your home is a big decision. It impacts more than your comfort: It affects your wallet. Efficient equipment is key, but so is the fuel you use. Furnaces and boilers can be run with oil, propane, natural gas, or electricity. However, except for natural gas and propane, you can’t just switch fuels without replacing your equipment. In our area, cold, raw winters make heating oil the smarter choice.

But isn’t heating oil bad for the environment? Not so much! Over the last few decades, technological advances in the way heating oil is refined have resulted in fuel that burns 95% cleaner than it did in the 1970s. You might be surprised to learn that today’s ultra-low sulfur heating oil burns so cleanly, and produces such negligible emissions, it meets or exceeds the same air-quality standards as natural gas.

Here are five savvy reasons why heating your home with oil is a smart choice that’s good for your wallet and the environment.

1. Powerful, Reliable Heat

Heating oil has always been more cost-efficient than natural gas in terms of Btu content. Oil heat burns hotter than other home heating fuels—producing up to 40% more heat per gallon than propane and significantly more than natural gas. Electric heating systems just take much longer to reach a comfortable temperature and need more energy to maintain it—driving up your energy usage. That means electricity will cost you more.

2. Efficiency in Fuel and Equipment

Today’s high-efficiency oil furnaces and boilers can reach efficiency ratings of 90% or higher, meaning nearly all the fuel you purchase is converted into usable heat, and helping to keep heating costs down. Ultra-low sulfur heating oil also opens the door to super-efficient heating systems, which can increase the advantages of heating oil over other options even more. Research conducted by the Energy Research Council/Brookhaven National Laboratory found fuel savings as high as 48.3% when outdated equipment is replaced with a new, high-efficiency boiler.

Heating oil-based water heaters also boast faster recovery rates. For example, a unit powered by heating oil will heat up to twice as fast as a water heater powered by natural gas, and more than three times as fast as an electric-powered water heater.

3. Protecting Your Investment

The quality of the oil in your tank has a big impact on how efficiently your system runs and how long your equipment lasts. Clean-burning, low-sulfur heating oil means less build-up in your equipment and your storage tank. That translates to fewer breakdowns and lower maintenance costs for you.

The average heating oil-fueled boiler or furnace should last around 30 years if it’s properly maintained—that’s nearly double the lifespan of a typical gas furnace.

4. Independence and Control

With heating oil, as with propane, your heating fuel is delivered on schedule right to your home. Natural gas customers don’t enjoy security like that. Any time of year, there are reports of interruptions in natural gas service because of pipeline deterioration, cold weather, or accidents. When underground natural gas pipelines are damaged, hundreds and even thousands of customers may lose their supply until repairs are finished. You could be hours, or even days, without the gas you need to heat your home.

The same is true of electric heat: When winter wind, ice, or snow knocks out power lines, you’re at the mercy of the power company to get your heat back on. Bolkema offers automatic delivery service so you never have to worry about running out of fuel, no matter what the winter brings. We also offer price protection and billing plans to help you control your costs.

5. Dependable Service

Dealing with the utilities for electric or natural gas heat means you’re dealing with a far-away office, or maybe a multistate operation where you’re just an account number in a database.

When you call Bolkema, whether it’s for a routine delivery or emergency service, we are here for you. We really are on call every day, any time of the day or night. With one of the largest storage terminals in northern Bergen County, we can store more than 200,000 gallons of heating oil—not too many other companies have that kind of capacity.

The Bottom Line

Five great reasons all add up make clean-burning ultra-low sulfur oil the best choice for keeping your home and family warm through a damp, cold northern New Jersey winter. Other options, like natural gas and electricity, just don’t provide the same heating energy.

Starting the season with a full tank is a great way to make sure you’re ready for whatever the season brings: Contact us to schedule a delivery or become a customer today.