Cost of oil central heating

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  • zar
    zar Posts: 284 Forumite
    Oh don't get me wrong I love being warm! I'm always going and standing next to the heater or sitting right on top of the radiator. It only gets to 11 degrees by the evening just before we put the heating on when we get in from work. And I do keep my big fluffy coat on til it warms up a bit! When I didn't have to pay the bills I'd put my parents heating on all the time. :D

    I wouldn't want anyone to be too cold it can be dangerous (we're young and healthy and it does me good to have to move to keep warm as it encourages me to do some housework!) The kitchen where the range is warms up first of course (there can be a 5 degree difference between the kitchen and the living room even with the big hatch between the two and the kitchen door open) and we're both cooking in there when we first get in, so it works for us. From an energy-saving point of view though, it makes much more sense to have the house at 18degrees or whatever and a jumper than 21degrees or hotter and no jumper (like it is in my office even with the radiator turned off!)

    I was just explaining how the vendors in the original post might keep their usuage as low as we do.
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  • mattt44
    mattt44 Posts: 118 Forumite
    Hi

    I didn't quite spit my coffee over the monitor, but I did smile.

    We have a 4 bed brick semi, not very well insulated (solid walls), 2 yr old oil boiler, no other oil eating items.

    I am very careful with heating, never over 18oC, never drops below 15o though, makes it alot easier (and cheaper) to heat up again.
    We use the boiler for hot water once a day, all year, 1000 litre tank. The tank gets filled under twice a year, something like 1.5-1.8 x tanks a year.
    Just filled up a couple of weeks ago, something like £340 per 1000 litres, so thats about £600ish a year.


    We have 15o most days all day, on a bit in the morning, 18o for 5 hrs in the evening, when its gets cold, get a jumper or goto bed.

    I can't stress enough, I am very careful with the heating, everyone who comes here gets cold. My neighbours do have a bigger house, but spend way over twice what we do a year.

    If you only have a 500 litre tank it costs you more to get oil per litre as well, from most places, unless you use YOBCO, worth looking into.

    Matt
  • Ummm most peoples oil use seems to be a bit high.

    4/5 bed semi. Cavity wall insulated, double glazing back, secondary glazing front. 2ft of loft insulation. Digital thermostats in three zones. Radiator thermostats on most radiators.

    Upstairs is 18 degrees, downstairs 21. Heating off at night (very rare for the temp' to drop below 17 at night).

    +15yr old boiler, running at 89% efficency as measured when the boiler was last serviced.

    800-900ltrs in a year (before solar installed).

    The previous owners were using ~4000lts a year!!!

    I had solar hot water heating fitted last year (not much benfit over the winter) but the boiler is off over the summer unless it is very cold.
  • paul_h
    paul_h Posts: 1,072
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    Ummm most peoples oil use seems to be a bit high.

    4/5 bed semi. Cavity wall insulated, double glazing back, secondary glazing front. 2ft of loft insulation. Digital thermostats in three zones. Radiator thermostats on most radiators.
    I would guess that your property would be close to qualifying as "super insulated". Heating requirements for a super insulated property can be half that of an average property. You are doing all the right things, but many people do not have this level of insulation.
    +15yr old boiler, running at 89% efficency as measured when the boiler was last serviced.
    A combustion or flue gas analyzer is used to measure the efficiency of the combustion process - combustion efficiency is not the same as boiler efficiency.

    It does not take account of, for example, the heat losses from the case of the boiler or losses from the flue discharge, so generally the efficiency stated on the rating plate of the boiler will always be lower than the measured efficiency of combustion.

    Boiler efficiency is the based on the ability of the boiler to actually convert fuel into usable heat, your boiler will probably be 65-70% efficient at best.
  • moonrakerz
    moonrakerz Posts: 8,650
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    Question for the OP - were the occupants of this house Eskimos ?

    £320 per year for heating does seem incredibly low, however, the next post which quotes £1500 seems almost as incredibly high !
    I have a 600 gal oil tank (2500L - ish), over the past few years (this one excepted) I have been using about 2500L a year for heating and hot water. My house is 4 beds with 3 bathrooms, my boiler is 20 years old. When I moved into this house (20 years ago), I heard horror stories about how expensive oil was compared to gas, within 12 months I realised these were just "stories". My heating bills for oil were much less than for my previous, smaller, gas fired house.
    The two disadvantages of oil are having to store it and having to pay in advance for it. Apart from that I am more than happy with my system.
    The main reason, I think, for my reasonable oil consumption is that every radiator has a thermostatic valve on it, there are no wall room stats. Another reason is that everyone takes a shower; we could keep coal in the bath, no one uses it !
    If you are using excessive amounts of gas/oil/electric/coal etc, etc, the most likely reason is that you are overheating your house and the heat is escaping and heating your street.
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,036
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    moonrakerz wrote:
    Question for the OP - were the occupants of this house Eskimos ?

    £320 per year for heating does seem incredibly low, however, the next post which quotes £1500 seems almost as incredibly high !
    I have a 600 gal oil tank (2500L - ish), over the past few years (this one excepted) I have been using about 2500L a year for heating and hot water. My house is 4 beds with 3 bathrooms, my boiler is 20 years old. When I moved into this house (20 years ago), I heard horror stories about how expensive oil was compared to gas, within 12 months I realised these were just "stories". My heating bills for oil were much less than for my previous, smaller, gas fired house.
    The two disadvantages of oil are having to store it and having to pay in advance for it. Apart from that I am more than happy with my system.
    The main reason, I think, for my reasonable oil consumption is that every radiator has a thermostatic valve on it, there are no wall room stats. Another reason is that everyone takes a shower; we could keep coal in the bath, no one uses it !

    Oil might have been cheaper than gas 20 years ago but it is not now.

    At 35p a litre you are talking approx 3.5p a kWh. Assuming the efficiency of a gas and oil boiler is the same, that is 50%-70% more expensive than gas at the latest prices.

    2,500 litres pa equates to approx 25,500 kWh which is about the UK average for CH and water. At 35p that costs about £875 -£73 a month - which is a lot higher than average.
  • paul_h
    paul_h Posts: 1,072
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    moonrakerz wrote:
    When I moved into this house (20 years ago), I heard horror stories about how expensive oil was compared to gas, within 12 months I realised these were just "stories". My heating bills for oil were much less than for my previous, smaller, gas fired house.
    I can remember when heating oil was 9p/litre too - and it was only 6 or 7 years ago.

    Cardew's right, however. Today the mains gas equivalent of your 2500 litres of oil would cost over £300 less, and he's assuming that an oil boiler is as efficient as a gas boiler - this is rarely, if ever, the case.
  • moonrakerz
    moonrakerz Posts: 8,650
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    Oil was not 9p a litre 6 or 7 years ago. When I moved in 20 years years ago it was 10p then, and that was the cheapest since I have been here.
    I was told "that oil was much more expensive than gas", on my experience that was not a valid statement. It MAY have been that the case that if my present house had been gas fired rather than oil; that MAY have been cheaper. It is impossible to do a valid comparison - you are back to - who is the better footballer - David Beckham or Stanley Mathews ? Better driver, Fangio or Schumacher ?

    The point I was trying to make was not that that oil was or was not the cheapest or dearest fuel. Merely that there is a lot of mis/uninformed comment floating around, which makes it very difficult to arrive at a sensible informed comparison.
    I commented on another thread about warm air central heating, of which I have had experience on two different systems. Two other posts called these systems, "crap" and "the pits", neither of these comments based on first hand information apparently. These didn't really help the OP at all.

    And I stick by my point that much of people's heating bills goes "up the chimney".
  • paul_h
    paul_h Posts: 1,072
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    moonrakerz wrote:
    Oil was not 9p a litre 6 or 7 years ago. When I moved in 20 years years ago it was 10p then, and that was the cheapest since I have been here.
    Strange, my old 1999 copy of The Housebuilder's Bible quotes 28-second grade heating oil at 9p per litre for comparison. Don't forget that Oil prices slumped in 1998.

    There's also some more detail here, provided by the DTI -

    http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/bluebook/pdf/appendix3.pdf

    If you scroll down to Table A3.2, you will see that in January 1999, the typical price for 'Standard Heating Grade Oil' was 9.89p per litre, based on a delivery of 1000 litres, and that was in mid-winter.

    In 1985 it was over 21p per litre.
    moonrakerz wrote:
    I was told "that oil was much more expensive than gas", on my experience that was not a valid statement. It MAY have been that the case that if my present house had been gas fired rather than oil; that MAY have been cheaper. It is impossible to do a valid comparison - you are back to - who is the better footballer - David Beckham or Stanley Mathews ? Better driver, Fangio or Schumacher ?
    As Cardew says, that may have been the case 20 years ago, and oil was certainly cheaper by far in 1999, but it is certainly possible to do a valid comparison today by doing the calculations using current fuel prices. The OP was concerned about the likely cost of heating with oil today.
    moonrakerz wrote:
    The point I was trying to make was not that that oil was or was not the cheapest or dearest fuel. Merely that there is a lot of mis/uninformed comment floating around, which makes it very difficult to arrive at a sensible informed comparison.
    I commented on another thread about warm air central heating, of which I have had experience on two different systems. Two other posts called these systems, "crap" and "the pits", neither of these comments based on first hand information apparently. These didn't really help the OP at all.
    I agree that it can be difficult to make these sort of decisions with so many differing opinions about, but without hard facts that is all they are - opinions. You have to read them and make your own mind up.

    However, although the math is not always easy, it is possible to make a factual, direct comparison between different fuel sources at a point in time, using the current fuel prices, relevant calorific values and boiler efficiencies which are available to you. The only thing you have to then consider is the likely future movements in price of your chosen fuel... crystal ball? :confused:
  • Cardew
    Cardew Posts: 29,036
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    moonrakerz wrote:
    Oil was not 9p a litre 6 or 7 years ago. When I moved in 20 years years ago it was 10p then, and that was the cheapest since I have been here.
    I was told "that oil was much more expensive than gas", on my experience that was not a valid statement.

    I think we may be at cross purposes here.

    There is no doubt that oil at one time was the cheapest fuel for CH. In fact I bought the 'Which' central heating supplement about 30 years ago. That advised oil was the cheapest and I converted the solid fuel CH system I had to oil - and within a year or so it turned out to be a bad decision(cost wise) However the relative differential in running costs between oil, gas, off-peak electricity and solid fuel has varied considerably over the years.

    The point I and Paul were making is that it is now considerably more expensive than gas for the same output. That is not to say that the gap might not close(or widen?) over the next couple of years.

    As I said in another thread there is merit getting Economy 7 and using this for heating water and getting some modern slimline storage heaters and retaining oil CH for topping up heating if required. Given you can get E7 electricity at less than 2p kWh in some places(with 100% efficiency) it is much cheaper than oil. Even if you just used it for the Immersion heater it would be a saving.
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