Edmonds Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

Heating is by far the biggest use of energy in a Pacific Northwest home. There are several main sources for this heat: oil, propane, gas, and electricity. Which is greenest? Which is cheapest?

Oil furnaces are fairly inexpensive to buy, but the oil itself is expensive. Also, they need onsite storage and emit lots of greenhouse gases. They are being used less and less frequently.

Propane also requires a storage tank at the house. A good way to crash the value of a house is to have a leaky fuel tank on the property. So, for most of us, the two leading options for comparison are natural gas a...