Jun. 7th, 2008
Further on home heat
Jun. 7th, 2008 02:43 pmBig article in today's paper, lead headline, about natural gas as a home-heat fuel of choice. About half the cost per BTU of oil, at current rates. But Maine lags the known world in utilizing this miracle of modern science.
Well, yeah. Our town didn't have access to piped natural gas until about ten years ago, and combining that with a preponderance of century-old (or more) houses means that the installed heating base uses other fuels. Our current boiler was designed for coal, and then converted to burn oil.
In fact, the closest modern gas main misses us by a hundred yards. Yes, our house still has some gas pipes installed -- that was for gas light, people, gas produced by incomplete combustion of coal in the old gasworks, and the city is still looking at a bill to clean up the coal tar waste from that one...
Well, yeah. Our town didn't have access to piped natural gas until about ten years ago, and combining that with a preponderance of century-old (or more) houses means that the installed heating base uses other fuels. Our current boiler was designed for coal, and then converted to burn oil.
In fact, the closest modern gas main misses us by a hundred yards. Yes, our house still has some gas pipes installed -- that was for gas light, people, gas produced by incomplete combustion of coal in the old gasworks, and the city is still looking at a bill to clean up the coal tar waste from that one...