Ideas for how to be done with oil?

[peakbagger]

After a lot of expensive experimentation on his part (I was an unintended guinea pig with my first liner) he settled on PVC liners and bought an expensive PVC welder to weld the liner. I think it comes down to, to do it right its pretty pricey tank and no that much demand.

If i were to be building a new house, I would pick up 550 gallon SS IBC tank and drop it in the basement then insulate it. They have a manhole on top that could be used to drop a coil inside and it could be run up to boiling. He used to use copper coils, but I think he switched to stainless. I will probably need a residential sprinkler system where I am planning to build so I could use the thermal storage tank as the backup tank for the sprinkler supply.

 

[Marshy]

After a lot of expensive experimentation on his part (I was an unintended guinea pig with my first liner) he settled on PVC liners and bought an expensive PVC welder to weld the liner. I think it comes down to, to do it right its pretty pricey tank and no that much demand.

If i were to be building a new house, I would pick up 550 gallon SS IBC tank and drop it in the basement then insulate it. They have a manhole on top that could be used to drop a coil inside and it could be run up to boiling. He used to use copper coils, but I think he switched to stainless. I will probably need a residential sprinkler system where I am planning to build so I could use the thermal storage tank as the backup tank for the sprinkler supply.

ICB totes are just HDPE from my knowledge. Would they withstand that much heat? Interesting idea though.

 

[peakbagger]

https://www.ibctanks.com/550gallon-stainless-steel. The key word is SS (Stainless Steel). They come up used on Ebay on occasion.

 

[Highbeam]

I will probably need a residential sprinkler system where I am planning to build so I could use the thermal storage tank as the backup tank for the sprinkler supply.

Image in my mind of your sprinklers kicking on and spraying 180 degree water all over.

Good idea on the SS totes.

 

[BigJ273]

I suspect insurance companies have paid out way more $ because of leaky oil tanks over the years than anything NG related. They can make a huge mess, render a house a complete loss, and require very big $ environmental remediation.

Most states have reimbursement programs for oil tank issues (leaks) as they want people to get them resolved. However I’m sure the wait list is quite long.

 

[Ashful]

Most states have reimbursement programs for oil tank issues (leaks) as they want people to get them resolved. However I’m sure the wait list is quite long.

Good timing for that post, BigJ! Just Googled, and it looks like PA might have a $500 rebate for this. Sent inquiry to my accountant, will post feedback on this channel. I replaced my tank in 2022.

 

[SpaceBus]

Hah, fair! We've already got one wood stove and I suppose could put another in to replace the oil boiler but it's a crappy place to put a stove since it would sit in the uninhabited utility room of the basement, and would leave the hydronic heat system stranded and unused.

I should say that ROI is not the main motivation (agree, it's very hard to justify yanking out an oil boiler halfway through its lifespan when we use so little oil for heat, but $5.50 per gallon does change that calculus some...). We do have some concern about the potential for oil tank leakage, which is very difficult to insure and could be a very large expense based on MA requirements for cleanup -- so it would be nice to get rid of that liability. That plus aesthetics plus a values-based desire to move away from oil are the main considerations, rather than a purely financial ROI perspective.

Do people ever pair an interior air-source heat pump with a wood stove in an unused part of their house? I've read about using heat pumps in a basement space for DHW but not for hot water to supply to radiators -- which is presumably much more heat demand and would cool the basement space too much unless compensated by a lot of waste heat from something else. This would be a wacky solution...

We do use portable indoor heat pump AC/heat units in our house, but only one in the winter and on the same floor in the same space with our stoves. Our first floor is mostly open and 32x24'. The portable ducted heat pump let's me stay in bed overnight even with tiny stoves. It doesn't do much by itself when the Temps get below freezing. When it's running with the wood stoves the efficiency is crazy and they are cheap to run in heat or ac modes. If the overnight lows don't go much past freezing then I don't even need to burn wood in our 1200 sqft salt box. However, I usually do just because we prefer the heat. Eventually I would like to upgrade to an air to water heat pump, when they become popular in the US, to take over for the portable units and my DHW.

 

[Ashful]

I would like to upgrade to an air to water heat pump, when they become popular in the US, to take over for the portable units and my DHW.

They seem pretty popular, around here. Most of my neighbors went geothermal more than 20 years ago, although it was still pretty expensive in the 1990's. The last one to convert was about six years ago, and his pricing was surprisingly low. Most used deep well tech.

I think I'm the only one out of a dozen houses in the neighborhood still using any oil, since I'm the old farm house around which the rest of the development was built. I have two zones of wood, two zones propane, six zones oil, three zones heat pump, and one zone resistive electric.