WITH home heating oil above $3 a gallon, many homeowners are wondering whether now is the time to switch to natural gas.
The answer: It depends.
“Right now, oil costs more than gas,” said Henry Gifford, an owner of Architecture and Energy, a Manhattan energy consulting firm, “so switching to natural gas will only save money until the price of gas catches up to the price of oil.” (Mr. Gifford said that at present, oil selling for $3.41 a gallon produces the same amount of heat — or therms — as $2.44 worth of natural gas.)
Lee Covino, who owns a two-family house in St. George, Staten Island, is covering both bases. “I’m getting ready to spend my tax returns on putting a conversion burner on my six-year-old oil boiler,” he said, noting that the price of oil has gone from $1.39 a gallon when he replaced his boiler in 2002 to $3.41 today.
The burner Mr. Covino referred to can use either gas or oil, allowing him to switch fuels as prices change.
Brian Gelber, the owner of Stan Gelber & Sons Heating and Air-Conditioning in Uniondale, on Long Island, said: “If you already have gas service available, a conversion is not too terrible, but if you have to bring it in from a line in the street, that can start to get expensive.”
Joseph Rende, the vice president for energy solution services at National Grid, formerly the KeySpan Energy Corporation, which serves customers on Long Island and in Brooklyn, Staten Island and parts of Queens, said that his company would install the first 100 feet of gas line to a customer’s house at no charge.
For National Grid customers considering replacing an old heating plant, the company will provide a new gas boiler for $599.
But Mr. Rende said that when the cost of installation and the removal of the old boiler and fuel tank was included, the final cost might be $3,000 to $6,000.
Richard H. Toder, a Queens resident who is the executive director of TS Associates, a heating, air-conditioning and ventilation firm in Manhattan, said that even homeowners who already have gas service — say, for the kitchen stove — should make sure the gas line is large enough to run a new heating system.
“Chances are you’ve got a three-quarter-inch gas line,” he said, “and that might not be big enough to run the heating system, too.”
Mr. Gelber, the Long Island contractor, says that another thing to consider in a conversion is the chimney. The flue from a boiler to the chimney should be the same size as the chimney flue itself. If the connecting flue is smaller than the chimney flue — as would be likely in an oil-to-gas conversion — condensation forms and acid starts to eat away at the chimney walls. Installing a liner can cost $800 to $1,500, he said.
John Maniscalco, a vice president of the New York Oil Heating Association in Manhattan, said homeowners contemplating a conversion should exercise caution. "Natural gas prices are subject to the same severe price swings as oil," he said. "So making a hasty decision to convert to gas now may prove to be a costly mistake in the long term."