by MarkJ » Sun 20 Jul 2008, 09:19:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('misterno', 'p')eople are complaining about price of heating oil
what are they going to do when the price hits $10/gal
Well, many of our heating oil, kerosene and propane customers will insulate, weatherize, replace windows and replace their grossly oversized, grossly inefficient, poorly designed heat & hot water systems. People will also turn down thermostats, heat fewer zones and install alternative primary and supplemental heating equipment such as wood, pellet and coal stoves or boilers.
Customers with natural gas available generally switch to natural gas when they replace their oil fired equipment. Many people haven't switched since they've never connected to the gas mains, haven't wanted to spend money on system replacement or they already have an efficient home and efficient oil fired equipment. Some people are also afraid of natural gas and propane running in their homes.
Since many people are already using more than double or triple the fuel necessary due to heat loss, gross inefficiency and poor design they're already paying more than $10.00 per gallon effectively.
As fuel prices have risen, more people are buying higher efficiency boilers, furnaces, water heaters and performing upgrades like zoning, control strategies, outdoor reset controls etc.
In the past, high efficiency boilers like Energy Kinetics System 2000, three pass horizontal boilers. (Buderus/Viessmann/Biasi/Burnham MPO and Others), outdoor resets controls, indirect water heaters and zoning upgrades weren't popular due to low fuel prices. We've seen the same lax demand in the past due to low fuel prices in the high end pellet boiler and wood gasification boiler market.
Since the system designer, installers and service techs are the most important pieces of the puzzle, the demand for high end installations is rising and the demand for low-bid jobs is dropping. This is a good thing since many newer supposedly efficient boilers operate in the 55 to 65 percent net efficiency range due to the bogus AFUE rating system.
REAL FUEL EFFICIENCY