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Five folders, from the fill pipe to the furnace

Heating oil5
Propane4
Tanks and gauges6
Switching and backup4
Safety and outages5

Smell propane? Get everyone out, then call 911 and your supplier from outside. CO alarm? Out first, then 911.Propane odor or CO alarm? Everyone outdoors first.

Ground Rules

Fill Pipe offers general information about heating with oil and propane, not advice for your house, and a licensed professional and your local code have the last word.

Updated

General information only

Pages describe how oil and propane heat, tanks, heat pumps and rebates generally work in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York. They are not instructions for your equipment and not legal, tax or financial advice. Your system's maker, your fuel dealer or propane supplier, a licensed technician and the program or agency that runs a rebate decide what applies to you. Prices, rules and rebate amounts change; each page dates its figures, and the linked source is the one to trust.

Safety first

If you smell propane or gas, get everyone out now. Don't touch light switches, phones, appliances, flames, the car or the garage door inside, and don't look for the leak. From outside and well away, call 911, then your propane supplier, and stay out until responders or the supplier say it is safe.

If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, or anyone has a headache, dizziness, nausea or confusion, get everyone outside to fresh air and call 911 from outside. Don't go back in until responders say so. The safety pages cover smells, CO and outages in more detail.

Fill Pipe gives no steps for lighting pilots, working tank or cylinder valves, restoring gas after a run-out, clearing air from oil lines or taking apart a burner. Those jobs belong to your supplier or a licensed technician. Maine's statute puts installing and servicing oil and propane burning equipment under a Fuel Board license; the only carve-out, for a person working on the single-family house they live in, still holds that work to the Board's standards.

Pages link to state agencies, federal agencies, standards groups, efficiency programs, equipment makers and, on some pages, businesses connected to Fill Pipe's owners, as the owners and outbound links page lists. Fill Pipe doesn't control those sites and isn't responsible for what they say or do.

Liability

Fill Pipe is provided as is. Its owners aren't liable for losses that come from using or relying on these pages. Any work on fuel, gas, tanks, chimneys or wiring should be done by a licensed professional following the maker's instructions and the codes where you live, and permits and inspections are set locally.