The Truth about Electrification and Oil Heat

Heat pumps are a great way to add some supplemental heat to your home, but they are not a replacement for boilers and furnaces.

In recent months you might have heard a radio ad or seen tv commercial about adding heat pumps to your home, that these are a convenient and energy efficient alternative to propane, oil, and natural gas boiler and furnaces. This is part of Massachusetts desire to move towards electricity as a clean power source for home, while this is true if you look at just your home, it is not true if you look at the whole picture. In fact it's not even the most green fuel source available in Massachusetts to heat your home, that would Bioheat, when used and delivered properly.

Heat pumps are mini-split air conditioners that can produce...HEAT, along with its cooling capabilities, making it a single unit that can produce cool air in the summer and warm air in the winter. They run exclusively on electricity and can release you from "dirty" fossil fuels like heating oil, propane, or natural gas, in theory. You have to look at the whole picture, the electricity your home uses is generated somewhere, right now 40% of New England's electricity is generated by NATURAL GAS plants, followed by 25% by nuclear, 17% imports from other parts of the country, 9% renewables, 7% hydro, and 2% oil & coal. While your home isn't being directly heated by fossil fuel, it more than likely is down the line by a fossil fuel power plant.

As stated above, heat pumps are a great way to add supplemental heat, they cannot keep up with cold New England winters like your home's boiler or furnace can, for a variety of reasons. Heat pumps are comprised of two parts, an interior unit and exterior unit. The interior unit is most commonly a large rectangular looking piece of equipment that is hung up on the wall, while the exterior is a smaller unit attached to your home with a fan to pull or push air from your home. First, it is very expensive to install heat pumps in every room you need to heat, like bedrooms, they do work great in large open spaces like living or dinning rooms. Second, they don't produce adequate heat in our winters, heat pumps are fairly common in the Southwest parts of the country where days are extremely hot, but nights can get down to 30 or 40 degrees. Air conditioning is of course needed in these parts of the country but a little bit of heat can be needed as well, however many homeowners end up installing a small furnace or boiler because the heat pump cannot keep their entire home at the desire comfort level. ckSmithSuperior proudly and confidently installs and services heat pumps, but we don't recommend them as an alternative for whole house heating systems like furnaces or boilers.

The last thing we'd like to address is the misconception about home heating oil being "dirty", when the future of home heating oil couldn't be further from this. Bioheat, the combination of biodiesel (recycled oils like plant, cooking, and animal) and traditional home heating oil, will eventually be 100% renewable fuel source for your home. Right now Bioheat is delivered to home in a blend of biodiesel and heating oil represented as B and the amount of biodiesel. A blend of 40% biodiesel with 60% heating oil would be B40, which is what ckSmithSuperior currently delivers. When blended correctly through injection blending Bioheat is a safe, reliable, and clean fuel source. By 2030 heating oil will need to be B50 and by 2050 it will need to be B100.