I have never built with oil-fired heating. Forgive my ignorance, but here are questions.
Is the fuel-oil storage tank located inside the house?
How far from where the fuel truck can get can the tank be, for a typical fuel delivery guy?
My idea is for a two-story house atop a basement with integral garage, and I was thinking the fuel storage room could be in the basement adjacent the garage area.
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Replies
Is the fuel-oil storage tank located inside the house?
Stored outside the fuel could gel / wax up in the very cold and not flow. Tank heater solves that. Inside you have fumes and a possible spill to contend with. Inside is also the local governing authority thing. Here you can have a tank indoors.
How far from where the fuel truck can get can the tank be, for a typical fuel delivery guy?
100 feet.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
You heat with oil? I never heard of anybody west of the Mississippi using oil heat.
Not me.... Wood....
There's a few in the surrounding area that do.... Old systems..
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Is Aspen the wood of choice there? I know at that ele. there is not much to pick from. Can ya slow it down enough to last all nite or does that not work?
Others burn mostly Ponderosa, it's most common and every where. spen is too valuable. Not as much burn time but it is hot. Good chiminey cleaner.
Average controlled burn time is about 6 to 8 hours with splits and 8 to 10 hours with rounds. Coals usally last about another 6 hours. Heating season, Sept thru May, is around 10 to 12 cords a year.
My system is downstairs and after awhile the 2nd floor's floor becomes RFH. The important thing is to get the thermal mass of the house up after that the house stays in the high 70's with little effort. Let the mass's temp drop to ambient and it's a day or 2 before comfort returns.
If I told you what I burned there would be hell to pay here and you guys would come and take my fire wood away from me. I use 6 to 8 cords a year and I'm also set up for passive solar.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
I know what ya mean 'bout the firewood police...had a coal stove up in PA. woodshop too, cats in woodshop, cat scat in the shavings, shaving go in the stove..neighbor comes to borrow snowplow and sniffs the air.." You heatin the house with cat S##T ?"...it did stink purrty bad.
I'm burning wood. But...... Haven't put a split or round in the stove in years...
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
LVL's stack SOOOooo nice too <g>
Nope... Glue....
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Quite a few folks heat with oil here including us. A pair of 275s in the basement. Because of that, we can use #2 all winter which is a bit cheaper.
Over at the farm, tank is outside. Coldest temps require either an auxiliary source of heat on the line before it passes into the house to prevent gelling in extreme temps or a blend of fuel with some #1 in it.
Delivery trucks here have hoses that go 150', but that guy will be much happier when you call if you don't make him drag it all out and while stomping thru waist deep snow...........or at the very least, clear him a path with the skidloader.
Give your tanks a bit of backfall away from the outlet.
Edit: We can usually save $$$ if we fill those tanks somewhere in or around the first two weeks of September. Around these parts, that's the typical low point and prices begin to escalate after that. Sometimes, dramatically and in very short order. Enough to make you groan if you find out where it was two weeks ago.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 12/25/2003 9:46:26 PM ET by GOLDHILLER
My question was placed because I plan to build another spec house here, and the local folks have place a moritorium on the use of electric boilers used for hydronic heating. I am beginning to research oil-fired boilers.
The house design I am leaning towards has its mechanical room in the basement level, which is the same as the integral garage. One of the garage bays is almost two cars deep, and I would plan, if using an oil-based heating system, to place a tank or tanks at the far depth of that bay, adjacent to the mechanical room, and separated from the mechanical room by an insulated wall.
The garage won't be heated, but because of the sheltered location of the oil storage, temps in the vicinity of the tanks won't probably drop below -10 F. in the deepest cold of our winters. We are in Lake Placid, NY, and have seen lows go down to -50 in some really wild winters.
The filler hose won't have to stretch out more than about 50 feet, so the fuel delivery guy should be happy. We will heat only the main floor of the place with the boiler, and use electric baseboards upstairs, so the total fuel usage each winter might only need one 275 gallon tank.
Do you think I should figure a way to keep the tank or tanks a little warmer?
"Do you think I should figure a way to keep the tank or tanks a little warmer?"
Borderline at -10F with straight #2, IME. I believe you'd get away with it because numerous times over at the farm we'd get caught at that temp during the night hours without having remembered to turn on the auxiliary heat and I don't recall ever waking up cold as a result. -20F is another story, especially if there was a good wind in the night. You might be pushing it even in a sheltered location. (We always ran a #1- #2 blend in the diesel tractors at these temps and I still do today for the winter)
We never did supply heat for the entire tank, but rather just on the copper feed line. Seemed that's all that was ever required. Used a heat tape for years on end and when it eventually died and we needed something in a BIG hurry (use your imagination <g>), we hung an infrared heat lamp about 8" over the line and it always did the trick……even at
-35F. This might well be a safer option anyway when you consider a potential short in a heat tape on a fuel line; could get ugly if worse came to worst.
An auxiliary heat source for the feed line hooked up to a thermostatic outlet should do the trick under your circumstances….no matter what. No human alertness required, just a check of the heat source if you anticipate extreme temps in the near future.
Someone posted this link here the other day to these thermostatic outlets and I grabbed it. (My apologies for not remembering whom) Might be useful to you, too.
http://www.lmimg.com
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.