Our soon-to-be-junked Norseman oil-fired boiler
We are in the unusual position of having a nearly-full oil tank and only a few days to consume the oil in it. We have responded–not too responsibly–by cranking up the thermostat! But given the circumstances we don’t feel too guilty about turning our house, briefly, into a mini Alberta-tar-sands-style carbon emitter.
Next Tuesday, our low efficiency fuel-oil boiler will be replaced by a high efficiency natural-gas boiler. This boiler will also heat our domestic hot water. They will drain the oil tank, cut it up into pieces, dismantle the old boiler and take it all away, never to be seen again. Hooray! We anticipate that our total energy bill will be substantially reduced with this changeover.
I tried to find alternatives to moving from one really obnoxious hydro-carbon to one only slightly less obnoxious, but couldn’t find anything too appealing. Geothermal and solar were too expensive, hardwood pellets were not commonly available in our area. I didn’t want to lug firewood around (which I did when I was a kid but didn’t much enjoy).
Our old boiler had multiple deficiencies, including stinking up the place with its noxious fuel odours, eating through impressive amounts of cash during the cold winter months, and not having the capacity or efficiency to heat floors much higher than the basement.
It also had the annoying habit of popping off its damper flap regularly so it would become even stinkier and more menacing. At those times, when the flames of the old boiler were visible and the roar of combustion echoed through the room, our basement became like the boiler room of a mid 19th century battleship. It was a bit of Victoriana we could do without.
We saved money with this inefficient heating system by setting the programmable thermostat to low temperatures–to 17c (63f) during the night and 20c (68f) during the day. If we didn’t do this our fuel bill would be excessive during the winter. When the thermostat is set to these temperatures our second floor could be quite chilly, sometimes getting to 12c (54f) at night. Yikes! We soon got a bit tired of these uncomfortable, indoor winter temperatures.
Our main motivation for improving the heating system was that we wanted to be warm upstairs during the winter months. Reduction of our carbon footprint and fuel bills were also important considerations, but ultimately they became secondary to simple domestic comfort.
To us nothing spells poverty more than being freezing cold inside during the winter. I’m not saying we want to be excessively warm, just warm enough that we could conceivably do some work in a room without being under a duvet. Is that too much to ask?
Going to yet another non-carbon-neutral heating source was hard at first to accept. We intend to do penance for this by adding other green energy sources in future. These will likely include solar–our south-facing roof is ideal for this; hardwood pellets–they will eventually become common in our area, and normal firewood–there are lots of hardwood trees in this part of the world and efficient wood stoves are readily available. Heating with wood seems more sensible if it isn’t your primary heating source.
These, of course, would require additional investment in our creaky old house, but the payback in reduced carbon emissions and utility bills should make them worthwhile.
