why I think I don't want an oil heated house

[forgotten_aria]

Please tell me if there are other reasons or if I'm wrong on the ones here.

• Further dependance on foriegn oil: the US has natural gas reserves itself. I can only imagine our oil and gas issues will get worse as the decades advance
  
• Dependance on oil delivery guy: while gas lines fail and service might be intruppted, I've heard more stories about late deliveries or problems occuring because the delivery person was having a bad day
  
• fear of the failing oil tank: I've heard stories of the cost of a failed oil tank form the clean up of all the oil. Gas leaks happen, but you can usually clean those up by opening the windows, with the exceptions of an explotion, but things are getting better and better about preventing those.
  
• less basement space: those tanks are huge
  

Right now oil heat is a complete strike from the list, which is sad, since it is about 50% of the homes around here, even the new ones.

Comments

[alphacygni]

Really? I'm almost eliminating oil-heated houses out of hand, and I don't feel like I've had to eliminate that many. My big feeling of disadvantage: you have this extra weird set of incentives involving when to call for a refill, whether to call for another that year, whether to wait. Whereas gas heat is one axis of heat vs. money without so many confounding factors. I don't want to have to decide whether or not to put on an extra sweater based on my guess of how many cold days are left versus how much oil is left in the tank.

Also, in my house search having a gas stove is important. And gas heat means a gas stove is likely, or at least easily possible.