How does the Oil Furnace in Your Home Work?
If you’re debating between choosing oil heat or gas heat for your home, or you’re considering renovating your system and aren’t sure whether to continue with your current heating method or switch, one of the problems might be fundamental confusion about how a furnace works. How does oil heat work, and is it really a better choice than gas? Here are the basics of how oil heating works, which should help you gain a better, more thorough understanding.
How Oil Heating Works
There are two different types of oil heating systems: air-based and water-based. Water-based systems can be further divided into standard hot water systems or steam systems.
Hot Water Oil Heating System
If you have radiators, you have a hot water heater system — either a standard hot water system or a steam system. Oil-fired boilers work by burning oil to heat up water, which then circulates through the radiators to provide heat throughout the house.
Hot Steam Oil Heating System
If you have a boiler, you have a steam oil heating system. This heating system is also water-based, but your oil is used as fuel to boil the water into steam, which then passes through pipes and heats the home through your radiators.
One advantage of water-based heating systems is that they are extremely durable. With good maintenance, they can last 15 years or more.
Warm Air Oil Heating System
An air heating system works a little differently, with a hot air furnace. In this type of oil heating system, your oil fuels the heating of air in the furnace rather than water. It works in concert with a blower to force that heated air through the ducts and out of the vents of your home. A return duct sucks the air back in to keep the heating cycle going.
Older atmospheric furnaces that funneled waste gasses out through the chimney were fairly inefficient and wasteful. Modern, high-efficiency furnaces draw the hot air through a heat exchanger before venting, and they do so to eliminate heat loss during waste elimination. Condensing furnaces — which cool the waste gasses until they condense and then pipe them out of the house rather than condense them — are the most efficient.
Where Does the Oil Come In?
By now, you may have a better understanding of whether you have a boiler or a furnace. But where exactly does the oil part fit in? Good question. Your oil heating system has what is called a combustion chamber. The system pumps oil from your tank into the chamber, usually through a process called pressure injection. Then, the system ignites the oil. It’s important to understand that it is actually the vapor from the heated-up oil that ignites.
Once this ignition takes place, the heat and gas that result go into a heat exchanger. What else is in the heat exchanger depends upon what kind of heating system you have. If you have a furnace, it’s air that combines with the heat and gasses in the heat exchanger. If you have a boiler, on the other hand, it’s water or steam.
Now that you have hot air or water as a result of the heated-up oil products in the heat exchanger, whichever medium you use can go on to heat the house. If it’s a water-based system, the now-hot water leaves the heat exchanger and goes into the pipes, where it can then radiate heat through the baseboard heaters or radiators. If it’s an air system, a fan pulls cool air into the exchanger, heats it up with the oil products and then blows it out through the ducts and vents to warm the home.
Marstellar Oil Can Fuel Your Furnace or Boiler Right Away
Whether you have an air-based furnace system or a water-based boiler system, you need oil for your furnace. Fortunately, in central Pennsylvania, there’s an easy solution. Marstellar Oil is the reliable local source for home heating oil throughout the region. Those who know home heating oil in the central PA area know that Marstellar Oil is the right choice. We have decades of experience in the oil field, and we deliver fast, affordable oil all over the area so that you don’t have to go without the warm home and comfort you need.
