Electric Vs Oil heat

[Lizzo]

So, we are curently renting a very old house. We have been here for almost two years, our 2nd son was born here. It's a great place. But it's so old and my baby got a 19 on his lead test. And it's small, there's no backyard,no washer or dryer...I could go on. It's only 675/month and we only pay electric, phone and internet. The heat is not electric. We're students and cannot afford a lot, but have so clearly grown out of the place we're in.
We are looking for somewhere new and have narrowed it down to two places. One is a town house, a little further from town than where we live now, but not much. It's new and cute, bigger, 3 bedrooms, 3 floors (no basment), 1.5 bath, has a shared backyard and a teeny little shed. It has electric heat, not included in rent and is 875/month.
Place two is a house owned by friends. It's huge and beautiful. 5 miles from down, but we can still bike there easily which is very important to us. It has a garden, a giant back yard, a huge shed, a full basment, 3 bedrooms plus a loft type thing and 2 full baths. The rent is 900/month and the only utility we'd pay is the oil heat. It is older, but we can do some stuff to the windows come winter.
I'd like to know which place do you think would be more be economical and enviromentaly responsible overall.

[Lizzo]

Bump.
I just need to know which is more typically: electric heat or oil.

[quantumleap]

Where we live, oil is more expensive, but also more common. Keep in mind that, unless you have an uncommon sort of oil heating system, you will also be paying electricity bills as the furnace is powered by electricity and simply *burns* oil. Maybe you already knew this, but I really hadn't thought about it until we were heating with oil.

[Lizzo]

The electric bill is covered in the rent of the oil heated house. The only utility we'd pay is for the oil heat.
Thanks for responding!

[californiajenn]

Oil heat is the most expensive. I just moved into an 1200 sq. ft. 1920's bungalow with oil heat and it cost over $400 to fill the tank halfway. That will last us a month if we keep it barely comfortable.

What is working very well and costs a fraction is using an efficient space heater in one or two rooms. We hung curtains on the living room door and keep it closed most of the time. Running my little space heater 10 hours a day everyday only added about $15 to my electric bill and it is very comfortable now.

[mnnice]

I would want to see the utilities bills of the most recent occupants of each. Which is cheaper is going to depend on how well insulated each dwelling is and what the cost of electricity is.

Nobody here has electric heat at $.10 a kilowatt and cold winters it would be expensive. We have friends that live where there is cheap hydroelectric power and they pay just $.03 a kilowatt and have electric heat in a new large home.