What Kind of Oil Does a Gas Furnace Burner Use?

Gas Furnace

• Gas furnaces use a combination of gas and heating elements to generate heat for your home. When you turn on a gas burner, the heating elements begin warming up, while pilot lights, similar to those found on a stove, introduce gas to the burner area. The heating elements eventually become warm enough to ignite the gas, creating a fire. This fire generates the heat that the vents and ducts of your heating system use to heat your home. Gas furnaces connect to gas mains, the same way your plumbing system connects to water mains.

Oil Burners

• An oil burner, or furnace, contains a combustion chamber. A gun on the side of the burner sprays pressurized fuel oil into this chamber, where it mixes with air. This gun splits the liquid oil into countless small particles, which permeate air, rather than sinking to the bottom of the chamber and forming a pool. An electrical transformer in the unit creates sparks, which ignite the oil and air within the combustion chamber, creating fire. Low pressure oil furnaces work in the same way, but combine the oil and air in the gun, before it enters the combustion chamber.

Furnace Fuel Types

• Oil burners use home heating oil, also known as domestic fuel oil, to generate fires. Home heating oil is created by refining and distilling crude oil. Other types of oil created by this process include gasoline, kerosine, jet fuel and diesel. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, some manufacturers mix biodiesel with home heating oil for a less environmentally damaging alternative fuel. Gas furnaces use a fuel known as natural gas. This type of fuel gas contains methane and other highly combustible hydrocarbons.

Furnace Conversion

• Because gas furnaces burn only gas, and oil furnaces burn only oil, you can't use oil in a gas furnace burner. Introducing the wrong type of fuel to a furnace or burner can damage the unit. However, you can convert an oil furnace to run on natural gas, rather than oil. Natural gas burns cleaner than oil. Once converted, the burner in a furnace only takes gas. You cannot use oil in a gas burner, even if you converted the burner from oil to gas.