They’re not the coldest states. Does it have to do with infrastructure? Thanks. [http://nhenergy.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html?m=1](http://nhenergy.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html?m=1)
In: 164
Where I grew up was quite rural. Natural gas was not an option, so it was either wood or oil. Propane was also available, but mostly for stoves and water heaters, etc.
I grew up in two extremes of New England. Southern Connecticut where natural gas was piped into our houses via the utilities and Maine where we had heating oil. So there isn’t a “New England” thing in general.
In Maine we had heating oil in the rural areas because there wasn’t natural gas piped into peoples houses. And because most people live in rural areas, it likely never will be an offered utility as the expense and maintaining would be enormous. Another thing to keep in mind, most of these rural areas do not even have water utilities! Your water comes from a well on your property. The only utilities running to the rural areas is power and communications lines.
Some people would convert to propane gas and have huge propane tanks on their properties. I don’t believe there was a big savings when I lived there. It was only worth doing if you were building a place from scratch versus the expense of retrofitting. Often propane houses were fully propane, as in water heater and dryer as well.
Electric heat was always way too expensive. Anyone I knew that converted to it regretted it.
My input after owning 2 houses in MA over the past 10 years or so. I had a smaller house as my first house and it was close to the center of town. The house was built in the mid – early 1800’s. When doing renovations it wasn’t uncommon to come upon square nails (late 1700’s – about 1830). Because this house was in the center of town I had natural gas heat. At some point they added that to the town’s infrastructure.
I bought a house 2 years ago probably 5 miles away from the old house and there is no gas on my road. The road was built up in the early 90’s. My house was built in 92 and we have oil. Due to the price of oil I installed a wood stove.
In Wisconsin our house had heating oil running a converted coal furnace until the early 70s. There’s still a lot of rural homes heated with oil.
In the south, populated areas typically have natural gas piped to houses and the people in the rural areas are more likely to have heat pumps. In the north where it actually gets seriously cold, heat pumps are not as viable, so it makes alternate sources like oil make a lot more sense.
Latest Answers