Biodiesel makes no sense in the context of home heating. Non-transesterized oils can simply be heated until their viscosity is low enough that they can flow through the fuel lines. Making biodiesel is a rather involved process but attractive for several reasons. The following are no-brainers. 1.) it can be used without preheating 2.) continuous production of biodiesel is more lucrative than one time engine modifications. 3.) ethanol is required for transesterication. Chalk up another victory for corn subsidies. 4.) the byproducts of transesterication are also useful for industry. In a car engine, biodiesel might make more sense than straight vegetable oil because of the cold temperatures experienced and the relatively short trips taken in personal vehicles. On the other hand, furnaces run continuously for several months, you could start the furnace on heating oil and then supply vegetable oil the rest of the time. Both vegetable oil and biodiesel require stabilizers if they are to be stored for long periods so neither one has a clear advantage in that regard. Ryan

I'm in town on an older natural gas system, so it's not an option for me personally, but I have wondered whether it's possible/advisable/been done to use waste vege oil in a gas heater or boiler? I've been interested in running a diesel vehicle on WVO but since I can't afford to purchase a diesel vehicle and the supply of wvo in my town is starting to look as if it's spoken for, it may not be an option for me, but I thought I'd post the idea here for readers who may be able to use it... I assume heating oil is some form of diesel, so it should work. I also assume that it would need to be filtered and blended/deacidified like it is for vehicles. The blending (with ethanol I understand, to make ethanol) isn't strictly necessary if you ensure the oil doesn't solidify - I also assume it could be blended with commercial heating oil to keep it liquid. Any thoughts?

We live in MD, in the DC/Baltimore suburbs although it's pretty rural out here (horse farm across the street, state park south of us). When we built 12 years ago our choices were electric heat pump or oil...there is no gas piped out here. A heat pump heated our townhouse b/f we built and I hated it b/c it took so long to warm up the house and if I wanted a "quick fix" I couldn't stand over the register to warm up quickly! I grew up with natural gas so I am used to HOT air coming out of registers and oil gives me that, as well as the "quick fix" to warm up quickly...and to dry mittens and boots :-) We have a maintenance contract to have them come twice a year...in late summer to service the furnace and late winter to service the A/C. We also have automatic oil delivery and, as far as I know, we still have a "budget plan" with fixed payments throughout the year. Although, since oil has risen so much lately, we actually voluntarily raised our monthly payment so we wouldn't owe a lot at the end of the season. We haven't had an oil delivery lately so I don't know how much it is now...but I'm sure it's quite high...they're forecasting a big jump in home heating oil prices this winter. We're actually considering getting a pellet stove to supplement the heat so we don't use so much oil...but I haven't looked into it too deeply yet to see if it's actually worth it. Besides, the kitchen remodel comes first! When the oil is delivered, the tanker connects to a pipe on the outside of our house that feeds into the 250 gallon tank in our basement. HTH!

The heatpump has 02 date on it, so it's 8yr old or less. when I flip the switch on and off the fan in heatpump doesn't always work. I tried like 6 times and it turned on by itself only once or twice. Also, I noticed that the circuit breaker (inside the house) makes a noise every time the fan is trying to start. Is that normal for circuit breaker to make this noise? The lights in the house flicker when it makes this noise, but once I start it up with the stick everything is back to normal. I had an oil service rep over at my place and he said it's normal for lights to flicker, but at that time I didn't know that the fan doesn't work. now I wonder if it really is normal. Another strange thing - it 70 inside and 70 outside, but when I tried to bring the room temperature to 68 the air coming out from the ducts wasn't cold enough, not nearly as cold as it was in the summer.I ran AC (with fan running) for about 45 min, but it's not the ice cold air that I was getting in the summer . Thanks