Safety

You care about your home and your family. You want your heating system to be safe.

There is a tremendous amount of information available and all kinds of claims as to which kind of heat is safest for you and the environment.

We figured it would be best to just pass along some solid facts and let you decide for yourself.

Just the facts

• According to a report by the National Fire Protection Association, Oil Heat equipment caused the least amount of deaths of all heating fuels.
• Unlike propane and natural gas, oil can't explode. In fact, heating oil will not burn in a liquid state. In order to light heating oil on fire, you must heat it above 140 degrees, the temperature at which it begins to vaporize.
• While some have characterized oil as being "dirty". In fact heating oil is clean, contains no carcinogens, and is biodegradable. Reports that depict oil heating as an environmental hazard are unjustified.
• A properly maintained residential oil tank can last for decades and does not present a threat to human health or the environment.
• Oil Heat has the least environmental impact, attributable to its high efficiency and cleaner burn. Natural gas and propane are similarly benign, while electric, coal and wood heat are far more detrimental to air quality.
• Home Oil Heat equipment is so efficient, and emissions are so negligible, they are not even regulated by the federal Clean Air Act, unlike other petroleum products.
• Unlike gas, oil poses one of the least risks of carbon monoxide poisoning to your family. With home heating oil systems, carbon monoxide leaks rarely happen without warning. If an Oil Heat system should malfunction, it will release smoke or soot as a visible warning; these serve as early indicators that something is wrong, long before dangerous carbon monoxide can be released into the air.