Getting wood stove - now a ? about the oil furnace and the future

[joefrompa]

Hi all,

Getting my Lopi Republic 1750 installed in a few weeks. This is my first wood burning stove, though I grew up around them somewhat. On top of that, I just bought this home (single family) and I've never used oil before. Only a newer gas furnace, and I never ever had that thing serviced (worked great too!)

My intention is to heat my house with this stove. In SE PA, this is probably going to be fairly easy with a well-insulated home with plenty of air movement via ceiling fans and such.

Nonetheless, I am sure I will be burning some oil from time to time.

My hope is to burn only about 75-100 gallons per winter of #2 heating oil to supplement the wood burning stove. So here are my questions:

1. If I burn only 100 gallons per winter, do I need to service this thing every year with a new injector nozzle, oil filter, etc.? To me, it seems like all of those parts wear based upon actual oil usage, not time schedule. So I'd think I could get 3-4 years out of each.

2. What should a 10-15 year old oil furnace cost to service by a professional company not operating under a contract?

3. I might suck it up and do the service myself. I'm not super handy, but I work on cars and I have an in-family expert. Any recommendations on where to buy the replacement parts?

Thanks all,

Joe

 

[vvvv]

http://www.heatinghelp.com/Forum

 

[begreen]

I would ask around to your new neighbors. Find an oil company that has a stellar local reputation for service and sales. Then have a pro service the unit and give you a full report on its condition. If you get a good serviceperson, he(or she) will let you watch and will discuss what is found when instruments are put on the unit. Then decide if you want to get the tools and instruments to do this yourself.

It's good that you intend to exercise the furnace a bit during the winter. Maybe try to run it at least once a week for 30 minutes, but perhaps more in the dead of winter when you'll want to make sure that the basement stays warm enough so that no pipes freeze.

 

[joefrompa]

Thanks guys. I guess some of my questions were very specific to oil-furnace experts. However, my main question is focused on those with woodburning stoves & oil furnaces:

Do you find that because you burn wood as the primary heat source, you don't need to service the furnace every year?

Maybe that's still too specific...I'll check out the other forums...

 

[albertj03]

I have a wood stove and an oil furnace in my basement. I burn more oil than you plan to because it is the main source of heat for the second floor of the house while the stove heats the basement and the first floor. I find that I'm using about half the oil that I used before the wood stove but I still have the furnace cleaned every year just to be safe. It isn't all that expensive anyway, maybe $120.