Using Your Property management System to Choose between Oil or Gas for Heating
As the winter chill begins to spread throughout the country, residential rental and commercial property owners throughout the country will be collectively spending millions of dollars on heating their buildings. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the national Average for heating oil as of November 3rd 2014 was at 3.43 dollars a gallon. While heating oil has seen a drop in price since the same time last year (by 39 cents), it has steadily increased by over 300% in the last 14 years. In comparison, as the supply of natural gas booms, the price of natural gas versus oil continues to be extremely competitive. According to Duelfuel corporation’s website, a company that specializes in converting buildings from oil to natural gas heating systems in the new York area, owners can save as much as 50% on heating costs by switching to natural gas for heating.
Based on these figures many residential and commercial property owners should weigh the potential pros and cons of switching from oil to natural gas before they decide whether to switch or not. Oil and natural gas companies each have several arguments and tactics to get customers to switch or stay with their products. For example, both industries argue that their product is more environmentally friendly. Oil companies claim that fracking to get natural gas is dangerous for the environment and natural gas companies argue that its product burns cleaner than oil and therefore is more environmentally friendly.
The motivating factor for property owners on whether to convert from heating oil to natural gas is going to be cost of the conversions versus potential savings. Depending on the size of a residential or commercial building and the annual heating costs it may be worthwhile to convert the building to natural gas. However, the only way a property owner or manager is going to know whether it makes sense to spend thousands of dollars on converting their building to natural gas heating or staying with their heating oil system is whether their property management system is tracking energy costs efficiently. If a residential property owner or manager is not using management property software that tracks energy usage in an easy to interpret system then it will be difficult to decide whether to switch to natural gas or stay with heating oil. RISSOFT software for property management has unique energy management features such as the ability to produce critical numeric and graphical reports detailing a property’s energy consumption and costs. The energy use and cost data that RISSOFT building management software produces can then be used to decide if converting to natural gas heating is a financially viable option
This post is provided by RISSOFT Residential and Commercial Property Management Software, specializing in innovative and cutting-edge property management software for all 50 states. Request a demo or contact us today to receive more information.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this post in not intended to be construed as legal advice, nor should it be considered a substitute for obtaining individual legal counsel or consulting your local, state, federal or provincial tenancy laws.