costs of using oil for domestic energy

Lin53

Hi

Our fuel bills seem to be even worse than other people's! We currently cook on an Aga and heat domestic water by a separate oil fired system. Can anyone give me a ball-park figure as to roughly how much more expensive it is to do this than cooking by electricity (we have an elec cooker available) and heating water by electricity (we have but don't us an immersion heater)? There is no piped gas in our area so am not even considering that.

I can't find any easy to understand tables comparing costs, but suspect it would be cheaper to cook and heat water by elec. Anything I find seems either very complicated and/or very old.

Cardew

There are a number of posts on this very subject in this section.

There are 3 main factors to consider.

Cost of oil

efficiency of oil boiler/aga

cost of electricity.

A litre of oil contains the equiv 10.2 kWh, so at a cost of 65p a litre it works out at 6.5p for a kWh.

The efficiency of a boiler can vary from 50% to 95% so that means pricing a kWh at 7p to 13p.

Aga's use huge amounts of oil.

Electricity can be between 8p to 12p for a kWh unless you have economy 7.

Without knowing you exact details(mainly the efficiency of your boiler/aga) it is impossible to know what is cheapest. I suspect there will not be a great deal in it with the boiler, but the Aga will be a lot more expensive - particularly in the summer when the heat from the Aga is wasted.