Oil *and* gas at the same time?

We saw a house that has an oil burner/oil heat but also has a gas line for the water heater only.

It seems strange to us, but I wonder if there are reasons that that should be a danger sign?

I assume we would have seperate bills but that since each utility is doing a different task, it wouldn't be cost prohibitive.

The oil burner looks very old, possibly original to the house (about 50 years!), so there is a real possibility that we could switch to gas.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

Maybe the owners didn't have all the $$ needed to convert from oil to gas and the reason they still have both.

One thing to check into - call keyspan and just check and see if you could fully convert and how much it would cost since they already have the gas line for the water heater.

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

Hey Tricia!

That is what we have - gas for our hot water and oven/stove and oil for our heat. I don't think it's a safety issue - I was worried at first also, but apparently it's pretty common - especially in older houses.

The one thing that you might want to investigate, though is if there are 2 separate sections to the chimney to vent? We had to have our chimney basically re-done from the inside and the crew that was here said that it's dangerous (I forget why) to have them venting into the same area in the chimney.

I am assuming (we haven't gone through a winter here yet) that the bills are not going to be crazy. We are not using any oil right now - the burner is turned completely off. We'll turn it on in October or so and keep it on until about April.

Call me crazy, but I kind of like the fact that we only have one "thing" running in the basement right now - the hot water heater. I feel like we are saving money by using this system. Are we actually saving? Who knows, we've never owned a house before, but we like to think so.

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

I have that too! Maybe it is bc my house is older. When I bought the house, I redid a lot, so I got a new oil tank and ran new lines for the gas. I have two utility bills. It has worked out just fine for me!

I agree with a pp, if you can probably get info on converting if you'd prefer!

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

I don't think it's a sign of a problem. This house (and all the others on our block since they were all the same builder) had oil for our heat and water boiler and gas for the stove. The oil burner was on it's last legs and needed to be replaced before winter so we just converted the heat system and the water burner to gas. But I could understand if someone just didn't have the money to do it all at once, stuff comes up.

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

Wow, thanks ladies! I feel a bit better about it now. We were always in oil houses, I honestly don't know much about gas. But it's nice to know it's an option.

I keep waiting for something really bad to surface with this new house. It always seemed to in the past!

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

I don't see it as a suspicious issue - - - don't let it intimidate you.

I've had both - - and would take gas a million times over oil.

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

Our house had oil heat, gas hot water heater, gas for cooking, and electric dryer. We just converted to gas heat and plan to also convert to a gas dryer. Having oil heat and gas for other things is not unusual. The good news is that you can easily convert to gas for heating or anything else if it is already in the house.

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

I have oil heat and everything else is gas(propane not natural) We have a 50 gallon tank on the side of my house. This is usual for my neighborhood

Re: Oil *and* gas at the same time?

i had propane for my hot water heater but oil heat and electric for the rest. the hot water heater was broken when we first moved in so we just converted to oil and returned the propane tank. it apparently was cheaper for the previous owners but with the price of gas it actually took a turn for the worse for them they admitted at closing so it was just our decision to convert it since we had to fix it anyway.