Looking to make an offer. Question about oil heat

I’m a Long time brownstoner reader, first time poster. My wife and I are looking to make an offer on a 2 family. The building currently uses an oil heating system. Our broker has asked the seller for records for oil purchases so we can get an idea of the cost of heating, but we haven’t been updated. I’ve done a lot of digging around these forums, and have seen some posts with people on the high side saying their costs of oil heating was in the $1K/month range for a similar home, so it could be a significant part of the financial calculations. The seller has asked for a best-and-final offer we are generally inclined to make one. However, the unknown of the oil heating question has us a bit concerned. Is it unreasonable for us to push harder to get this number before making an offer? Or would you guys recommend any other strategy for handling this unknown? Thanks!

jakester

in Heating 10 years and 3 months ago

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ayman | 10 years and 2 months ago

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Highly recommend switching to gas. Did a project last year converting oil to gas and client couldn’t be happier. Financial no brainer

NeoGrec | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Master Plumber: Hot water. Presidentstps: Your system sounds more efficient that ours, especially the boiler. I think our secret advantage is tight windows and wearing sweaters!

presidentstps | 10 years and 3 months ago

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That’s funny NeoGrec, I just ran the numbers and my gas bill was $1,607 for the last 12 months, also for a 2-family 4 story brownstone with 4 adults. Radiant floor heating and indirect hot water tank, with high efficiency boiler. Average 50-70 therms per month in the summer, and 200-300 therms in the winter.

jakester | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Thanks so much for the added input guys. Based on your feedback we figured the cost of a renovation into our offer price, and didn’t bother to press the current owners for exact figures on their current cost. Your opinions were extremely helpful!

Master Plvmber | 10 years and 3 months ago

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NeoGrec, do you heat with steam or circulating hot water?

NeoGrec | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Our gas bill in 2014 was $1,600 for a 2-family, 4-story brownstone with 4 adults in residence. I keep the thermostat at 70F but boost it a couple of degrees on very frigid days. We have replacement windows throughout (though some are still a litle drafty) which definitely keeps the cost down.

cate | 10 years and 3 months ago

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If the house is an attached row house on both sides, even if very leaky, cost will probably be in the $4,000 range per year for heat and hot water. I got an estimate of $12k to switch to gas in 2009\. The estimate did not include relining the chimney.

steam_man | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Perhaps the easier way to consider this expense is to write off the idea of heating with oil and its associated cost entirely. Instead consider a roughly $20,000 expense for a oil to gas conversion. Perhaps that cost can be worked into your mortgage? Buy the house and do the conversion immediately.

cmu | 10 years and 3 months ago

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If you figure heating w/oil at $4000, gas will be about 35% less, so your savings start at $1000/yr. If the oil furnace is old, a new gas furnace may drop that by another 10-20%. The hi-efficiency gas furnaces are only for water heat, not steam, and may require much higher install costs due to venting requirements (cannot vent thru chimney, iirc). Check if gas company has a deal where they will replace oil with gas, they used to pickup the install costs, so you only pay for the boiler. I got mine done for $5000 back in 2003, a 150kbtu steam unit.

brucef | 10 years and 3 months ago

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15k does sound like a lot. We pull our own stainless sleeves, so it doesn’t cost us much at all. We pull a cone down the flue to make sure a given size will fit (6,7,8″) Then boiler sizing has to be within flee rating. Usually not a problem. Only other consideration is gas service. You may have 3/4 but they will require 1″, which the plumber will have to pipe.

mario71 | 10 years and 3 months ago

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When you explore the issue of conversion take into account that the metal lining for the chimney, which is required when you use gas, may be as expensive, or more, than a new boiler. On the other hand, the conversion is very advantageous not only because you’re converting from oil to gas but also an old boiler to a new, much more efficient, one. I would say 15K for conversion, depending on size of boiler and chimney.

jakester | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Thank you for the input. This is extremely helpful. I’m thinking that if things align we might try to get a quote from a plumber during inspections just to be sure there are no issues that would make a conversion more than $12-$15K (which seems to be the high end of most standard conversions based on other posts in these forums). Does that seem like a reasonable game plan?

daveinbedstuy | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Yes, convert to gas. Make the contract contingent upon them supplying the bills if you really need to.

brucef | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Converting to gas is a no-brainer, so agonizing over the oil bill is a non-issue.

argentina | 10 years and 3 months ago

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They will likely not tell you if it is really high. What shape is the building in? will you have to replace windows? is the roof insulated? When I bought my 2 family it was leaky….and by that I mean the windows were crap (one window would spring open when “tapped” by a stray cat who’d sneak in and terrorize our cat), the stained glass was swiss cheese, no roof insulation, no insulation on exterior walls and I had oil heat. The oil heat was cheap then…2001, but that quickly changed.We tackled all the fenestration issues- windows, roof, walls , stained glass restoration, etc,and the building stopped losing heat. Wish I had FIRST done an oil to gas conversion…because heating was averaging $1200 per month…and we’ve had rough winters the last few years. We did this in 2012…if you want the house don’t let this stop you and plan on doing it first. Oil is not the way to go at all.

catboot | 10 years and 3 months ago

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Before we bought our house, never in a million years did we think we’d be living with oil heat. But here we are. We average about 3K per winter for oil. We are a 3 story 2-fam brownstone (with really crappy replacement windows). You’re buying at the end of heating season, so you have some time to figure out what to do, such as convert to gas.