Oil to Gas Conversion in Rhode Island

Is gas on your street? That is question one.

An oil to gas conversion starts with a fact about the road, not the boiler. Rhode Island Energy runs the gas mains, and if there is one in front of your house they will run the service line to the building and set the meter. If there is no main, the conversion is not available at any price, and we will tell you that on the phone rather than after a site visit. Much of the state's older housing is on gas already or on a gas street with an oil boiler that simply never got changed. That second case is the one this page is for.

What a conversion actually involves

• The oil side comes out: burner and boiler removed, the oil tank drained and decommissioned or removed according to state requirements, and the fill and vent lines capped so nobody ever fills a tank that is no longer connected
• Gas service and meter: coordinated with Rhode Island Energy, whose timeline is usually the longest part of the job
• Gas piping from the meter to the boiler, sized for the load and pressure tested, to code
• The new boiler, sized from a heat-loss calculation of the house rather than from the oil unit coming out
• Venting: a condensing boiler vents through the sidewall in plastic pipe, so the chimney the oil boiler used is retired or lined, and that decision is made before anything is ordered
• Permit, inspection, startup and combustion test, with the utility's requirements met and documented

Why Rhode Island homes convert

No deliveries and no tank to run dry in February. No tank in the basement or the yard, and none of the questions a buyer asks about one. Less maintenance, because a gas burner does not soot up the way an oil burner does, and no nozzle or filter to replace. And efficiency: an older oil boiler often runs in the low to mid eighties or worse, while a modern condensing gas boiler runs above 95%, which shows up on the bill every month for the life of the unit.

Fuel prices move, and we will not pretend to predict them. What does not move is that a 95% boiler uses a lot less of whatever it burns than an 80% one.

High-efficiency and combination boilers

Since the boiler is being replaced anyway, a conversion is the natural moment to go to a high-efficiency condensing unit, and often to a combination boiler that supplies heat and domestic hot water from one wall-hung appliance. That retires the separate water heater as well as the oil tank, and frees the floor both were standing on. We are certified installers for Navien and Viessmann, both of which build exactly this class of unit, and for Utica and Burnham where a conventional boiler is the better fit for the house.

The 2026 rebates, which are written for this job

Rhode Island Energy's 2026 residential gas heating rebates pay $775 for a high-efficiency gas boiler at 95% AFUE or better and $950 for a combined condensing boiler and on-demand water heating unit. The application form has a box for customers converting from oil or propane, so a conversion qualifies once the gas account is active. We put the rebate figure in the quote so the number you are comparing to staying on oil is the real one. Full detail, deadlines and paperwork on our rebates page.

When staying on oil is the right answer

No gas main on the street, obviously. A house you are selling within a year or two, where the conversion cost is not recovered. Or a well-maintained oil boiler with real life left in it, where the honest advice is to keep it serviced and revisit when it fails. In those cases a good oil boiler or a repair is what we will recommend, and we will say why.