Across the Puget Sound, it’s the height of a record hot summer as well as the height of the home buying season. While heating a home is the last thing most of us want to think about now, it is a necessary logistic to settling into a new home. Winter can often sneak up on us, and being unprepared is no fun. If your next Puget Sound home is heated with heating oil furnaces, here are five facts to know.
Home heating oil is not the black, thick crude oil most people envision. Instead, heating oil has a consistency much like water, and a yellow tint similar to vegetable oil.
Home heating oil is non-explosive. It has a much higher boiling point than natural gas, which will explode if exposed to open flame. In fact, if you were to put a lit match into a container of heating oil, the flame would extinguish, just as if it were put into a container of water.
Home heating oil is also efficient. Today’s heating oil furnaces run with up to 95 percent efficiency and actually put out more heat per unit than natural gas.
When properly maintained, heating oil furnaces will last 30 to 50 years while natural gas furnaces have a much shorter life span of about 12 – 15 years. This is due to the fact that heating oil has a higher boiling point, and therefore creates less condensation than a natural gas furnace. The excessive condensation created in a natural gas furnace is what contributes to its shorter life span.
Bioheat is an advanced home heating oil made of a blend of traditional petroleum-based fuel and clean, renewable biodiesel. The biodiesel consists of natural oils such as recycled restaurant cooking grease, excess animal fats, and vegetable oils. And it can be used in your existing oil tank and furnace without any modifications to your system.
As a lower carbon fuel, Bioheat emits less carbon into our environment and improves air quality in your local community. It’s simply a cleaner alternative to traditional heating oil. By using Bioheat, you will be reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and improving air quality. As a result, you will be making our community a healthier place to live.
You can learn more about Bioheat from Genesee Energy here.
Not only is Bioheat a cleaner and more sustainable fuel, it’s a better fuel, too. Bioheat naturally has more lubricity than standard heating oil, which a furnace of any age can appreciate! It acts as a cleaning agent, and keeps your furnace running more smoothly over time. Best of all, Bioheat has been thoroughly tested by the most prominent fuel research organizations in the world to show it can be used in your existing oil tank and furnace without any modifications to your system. This means no costly upgrades to your existing systems or add-on technology. Just a simple switch from Genesee’s standard heating oil to Genesee’s Bioheat.
Using Bioheat in an oil furnace can be a more affordable alternative to the significant cost of converting your home to other heating systems such as an electric heat pump or radiant heating. Although the cost of both heating oil and biodiesel fluctuates, today, the cost of using one of our Bioheat blends is small compared to the huge benefits it leads to in our environment. Also, it is predicted that as Bioheat becomes more widely available, the cost will come down over time.