Which Heating System Is Best for a House?

Shopping for a new home is an exciting time, full of important choices – where to live, what style of home to buy, and more. But one of the most important considerations when choosing between home options – especially here in Massachusetts – is one that many people overlook: how the home is heated.

A heating system will not only affect the comfort of your home during the fall and winter, but it will also affect your monthly home budget – sometimes dramatically.

Here in New England, we have many options for heating our homes – natural gas, propane, and electricity, to name a few. But one option stands above the rest when it comes to keeping us warm through the winter: heating oil.

But why choose a home that uses heating oil over other alternatives? Here are eight key reasons:

1. It’s highly efficient – Many of today’s oil-fired furnaces and boilers boast efficiency percentage ratings well into the 90s, giving you more heating bang for your buck.
2. It provides abundant heat – Heating oil burns 300 degrees hotter than natural gas, which means your home will heat faster and you’ll need to burn less fuel to stay comfortable – two pretty important considerations here in MA.
3. It’s safe – Heating oil does not burn in a liquid state – it must be vaporized and heated to 140 degrees in order to burn. Unlike natural gas or propane, it will never explode. Heating oil is also free of cancer-causing agents, meaning it is safe to store within your home.
4. There’s plenty of it – During the winter, high demand for fuel can strain supply for natural gas (as it did last winter) – but rarely for heating oil.
5. It’s inexpensive – Adjusted for inflation, today’s heating oil prices are about the same as they were in the mid-1970s, making heating oil a bargain in the home energy game.
6. It burns clean – Clean-burning oil? You bet. Today’s ultra-low sulfur heating oil (ULSHO) burns 95 percent cleaner than heating oil did 50 years ago – and Bioheat® fuel ups the eco-friendly factor of heating oil even more by blending heating oil with biofuels made from renewable sources (our B10 Bioheat includes 10 percent biofuels). Clean-burning fuel also means longer lasting equipment (see below) and fewer furnaces and boilers in the landfill.
7. Equipment lasts longer – With proper professional preventative maintenance, today’s oil-fired heating furnaces and boilers can last 30 years or more – significantly longer (sometimes twice as long) as systems powered by natural gas or propane.

The bottom line: Look for the heating oil gems when shopping for your dream home!

Need a heating inspection for a home you’re considering – or a new heating oil supplier for a home you’ve recently bought? Call the pros at Scott Williams for expert oil heating service, repair, and installations, along with the most reliable heating oil deliveries in our Suffolk, Norfolk and Plymouth county, MA service area.