Is An Oil Furnace The Best Heating Solution For Your Ski Cabin?

After a long day of skiing, snowboarding, or tobogganing down the slopes, there's nothing better than retreating to a warm, comfortable ski cabin to relax and tell tall tales about your mountainous exploits. However, without a powerful and efficient heating system installed, keeping any ski cabin, condo, or townhome at a comfortable temperature can be very challenging.

Installing a reliable and suitably powerful furnace in your ski cabin is one of the best ways to keep it warm and inviting year-round, and oil-powered furnaces are particularly suitable for ski properties. However, while these versatile furnaces have many advantages, they also have some shortcomings that you should be aware of.

What are the advantages of installing an oil furnace in your ski cabin?

Highly Resistant To Cold

If your ski cabin or property is located high in the mountains, it is probably exposed to some pretty chilly temperatures, especially during the winter months and/or during nighttime.

Extremely cold temperatures can cause problems with many commonly used furnace fuels. Furnaces powered by natural gas are especially vulnerable to cold, as many types of natural gas (such as propane and butane), become non-flammable if they are allowed to get too cold.

If you want to ensure that your cabin's furnace remains functional throughout the worst of the winter cold, oil furnaces are ideal. Furnace oil has a much lower freezing temperature than almost any other type of furnace fuel.

Powerful Fuel

Oil furnaces are also suitable for ski cabins for another, simpler reason — they can get very hot, very quickly. Furnace oil burns at a significantly higher temperature than most other common furnace fuels, and an oil furnace will almost always outperform a gas or electric furnace of similar size and capacity.

As you can imagine, the ability to produce intense heat rapidly is very useful for ski cabins, and most moderately sized cabins can be thoroughly heated in a matter of minutes. This allows you to deactivate your furnace while your cabin is not in use during the day, helping you save money and reduce your cabin's carbon footprint.

Superior Safety

A well made and properly installed oil furnace is also a very safe piece of equipment to operate — a reassuring property when emergency services may take hours to reach an isolated ski cabin. Unlike gaseous furnace fuels, furnace oil does not pose an explosion risk. Oil furnaces also do not produce carbon monoxide, which can be deadly if allowed to leak into your cabin unnoticed.

What are the disadvantages of installing an oil furnace in your ski cabin?

Fuel Handling Complications

All furnaces are fitted with storage tanks to store their fuel, but the tanks fitted to oil furnaces tend to be particularly large and bulky. In smaller cabins and resort apartments, finding enough space to install a suitably powerful oil furnace can be a challenge.

Oil furnace users will also need a way to transport new tanks of furnace oil to their properties. This is usually done by contracted furnace oil delivery services, but if your ski cabin is located in an isolated location or a particularly high altitude, arranging regular furnace oil deliveries may be difficult.

Unpredictable Running Costs

The price of furnace oil also tends to be significantly less stable than prices for other common furnace fuels. This is because furnace oil prices are directly linked to global crude oil prices, which can be volatile at the best of times. While crude oil (and therefore furnace oil) prices are currently at historic lows, there is no telling what the future will bring. 

To get a furnace installation, contact an HVAC contractor in your area.