Have a 1960 Olson Fuel Oil Furnace and central air.

Time for a NEW Furnace, stay with Fuel Oil or Switch to Propane?

4 units iam looking at to choose from ; What's the good and bad that you like or dislike??


1) Williamson 86.5% Fuel Oil Furnace with A/C ?
2) Williamson 86.5% Fuel Oil Furnace with a Heat Pump ?

OR

York 95.5% Propane Furnace with A/C ?
York 95.5% Propane Furnace with Heat Pump ?

Thanks

Propane myself.......fuel oil tanks are known to leak eventually. Propane is hard to beat, especially if you have a woodburner backup for eye appeal and cold winter mornings.

Propane or natural gas if available. You will freeze after being used to fuel oil if you get a heat pump.

Propane furnace with a heat pump is a great way to go. Use the heat pump till it gets cold then switch over to the propane furnace. It’s called a dual fuel system. Been in the HVAC business for over 20 years and that would be my suggestion to you.

Propane might fluctuate more in price than natural gas, but, with natural gas they get you with the "distribution fee" which involves paying for a pipeline thru somewhere. Propane is from your tank to your house. Just don't let it run out in January.

Its has to be propane
OR
Fuel oil

are the choices

Get a bigger like 500 gallon propane tank and fill it during the summer when its cheap then have them fill thru January or February then let it go tell low and price comes back down. I have an equal payment plan cost my 100 busks a month and i never worry. Also bought a propane generator to run the house if we have a power outage and plumbed it into my bulk tank .

Sorry bout that........propane. Fuel oil is basically diesel fuel. It stinks if you develop a leak or have spillage. It does put out heat though!

I gather you don’t have an option to use natural gas. My system uses its heat pump until the outside temp reaches 40 degrees or less, then it switches to gas. I like this method.

A guy with 20 years experience of selling & living with them.
Probably good advice.
Also considering he has nothing to gain.

I would skip the added cost of the heat pump.

I worked in the trade for 30 years and can only remember installing one heat pump. Must be a reason for that.

Heat pumps not the best choice for Ohio winters. I would go propane

I just sold my house in Nov that had Nat Gas. We ran the thermostat at like 78 and averaged less than $100 / month. I miss that.

New house has a heat pump with propane backup. If you can manually switch from one to the other I don't know how to do it yet.

I suspect that my electrical bill is higher b/c of the heat pump running all the time but then I use less propane.

So the real answer for you in your specific case is which one can you get cheaper / easier.

i.e. my old house was natural gas and the elect was a cheaper co-op. I was win win either way. If you have one or the other then take advantage of the one.

At the new house I had them put a 1,000 gallon tank out there and fill it for cheap in the summer / first time fill.

Since the heat pumps running I don't use much of the propane but to have the 1,000 gallon tank your usage has to be so much or they charge you a fee for having a 1,000 gallon tank and not using enough.

So I'm still learning with mine.

Also they make some really good heat pumps now. There are diff efficiency ones. My FIL just bought a big super efficient one and loves that he is using less propane.
Some people think Ohio is too cold for heat pumps. When they first came out that was true and people still say it but there are heat pumps plenty able to handle Ohio now.

The one thing I will tell you about my heat pump that I have noticed is this...

Set the thermostat on 75 or whatever and it keeps up descent enough. Seems like it runs alot but it will if its set that high right...
Anyway the diff is say you leave out of town and turn it down to 60.
When you return from your trip and turn the thermostat back up to 75 a heat pump takes like all day before the house is comfy again where a propane furnace would be lickidy split.

Propane should be cheap now. I'm not sure you could justify the additional cost of a heat pump. Over the next twenty years though? Maybe it'll be high again.

With that all said. If I was doing a new one I'd probably go with the larger heat pump with propane backup, a large tank, and know how to switch back and forth between the two. Then you have options.

As far as fuel oil... the only houses around here that do that are the really old farm houses that never switched over and they are far and few between. Dirty, own set of problems, and not cheap but you have alot more experience with that fuel type than I do so you can draw your own conclusions there.

Good luck and keep us posted.

I have propane and a heat pump. The heat pump has reduced my propane use about 40 percent.

Did your elect bill go up?

I would go with strickly Propane. Also the insulation factor tells you how much it will cost to heat the house.

At this time I have a 500 gallon tank. I usually use about 550 gallons for a year. In a couple weeks I'm getting a 1000 gallon tank.

That way I can take advantage of summer lower prices when filling. The difference of 30-40 cents a gallon. I own my 500 gallon tank.

I rented a house with an oil heater. It cost too dam much run the thing. I'm glad I was single at the time, I couldn't afford $200-250/week to keep my house at 68* with that thing. I made due with a small electric space heater, and worked 16hr shifts so I didn't have to be home.

My house has a heat pump, it kicks on when the fireplace burns down. I'm glad I don't have to get up and load the fireplace any more during the night.

I run oil in a house built in 1958. I usually spend between $600 and $1000 a year for oil, but the attic is well insulated. We run a programmable thermostat set at 64 during the night 10pm-4am, 66 for two hours in the morning 4am-6am, and 68 after work 4pm-10pm.

The home's central AC unit is a heat pump.........in summer pumps heat from inside the house to the outside. In winter, it reverses.....collects and gathers heat from outside and moves it back in. Pumping heat is cheaper than creating it. But in winter, there isn't enough heat in the outside air once temps drop to +40F, so that is when the gas or oil furnace kicks on.....and burns gas to create the heat.

So best plan does seem to be a duel source heat system.....heat pump with gas backup for when temps drop below +40F.

Cheapest of all to run is a ground source heat pump.......long loop buried in the ground is at a constant +50 to 55F year round.......place to dump heat in summer.....collect heat in winter. Cheapest to run.....NOT cheapest to install. Gotta have the land to do it and expect years to get your money back. Ground source HP is at least double and maybe 3X the cost of a duel source heat system.

and everyone i know with a geo underground system has trouble with it.