The Great ‘Home Heating’ Hunt: Do you know cheaper ways for LPG and oil

cairndog

OK they've spent over 2 years looking into all this but have we really gained anything? There are so few suppliers and they all know what their competitors in an area charge,I can't really see that it will make much difference.

Sorry to be so negative but I'm pretty disappointed in the outcome.We changed our old LPG boiler for a (supposedly more fuel efficient) condensing one but its still costing a fortune to run.

We're with Calor at the moment but other users on here give horror stories about Flowgas too.

diyman54

one thing to consider is a solar air collector. You know when the sun shines on a car it can get really hot inside it. Well a solar air collector exploits that effect by pumping the resulting warm air into the property continually. You have to make a vent hole to connect it to and the warm air is pumped through the vent hole.
I have a small one on my old farm house just for keeping the old dairy room dry as a regular supply of warmed dry air is 100 times more effective than the dehumidifier.
The company solarventi (www.solarventi.co.uk) that supplied it make a much bigger one that they say raises the incoming air temperature by 40 degrees - i havent tried this unit but am thinking about it now that energy costs have risen so much.

soph2566

Boilerjuice.com have teamed up with Colchester Borough Homes to supply cheaper oil. The more people that order the cheaper it gets. However you have to order on one of their 3 buying weekends. The weekends are:

Friday 5 September to Sunday 7 September
Friday 3 October to Sunday 5 October
Friday 7 November to Sunday 9 November

When you phone your order through on 0800 321 3275 you need to be able to pay by credit or debit card and mention CBHOMES to get the right discount.

You can order online at https://www.boilerjuice.com and enter CBHOMES as the promotional code and again pay by debit or credit card.

Although Colchester Borough Homes are a social landlord, boiler juice have allowed ALL Colchester residents to subscribe to this offer. You do not have to be a CBH tenant or leaseholder to qualify.

Never posted before so hope I have done this right and it helps someone.

nuthatch

I always check Boilerjuice against my usual oil supplier, and mostly my usual one is cheaper. However I checked today and for 900 litres the Boilerjuice price is £515.97 (£32.60 cheaper than the usual supplier). So it pays to check first.
Incidentally I paid £382.25 in February for the same amount, and in June last year I paid £295.79. The increase is shocking!

DerekH wrote: »

I regularly use Boilerjuice.com to source oil. I have a monitoring device on the tank which gives me plenty of notice of when the level is getting low. when I have less than 20% in the tank in winter or in late summer (see later) I begin to watch the very useful information on Boilerjuice to monitor current price trends - they show max and min prices on a ?daily basis. We know how much price fluctuates within a few days! Boilerjuice also provides news feeds on price movements so you can make some jugements about what is happening to oil prices.This lets me know whether to order now or to wait as prices are falling - as they are at present! I don't want to order today and find prices have dropped 10% in the following week! I also try to order only once in the winter as prices are invariably higher then. I aim to top the tank up to full in late summer and then just get one suply in winter. It may be Boilerjuice doesn't get prices from absolutely all suppliers and I would be interested in comments on this from others - perhaps we can get some new price comparison sites going to create some competition! However to date I have been please with prices I have got using the above processes and when I have double checked on occaisions I have not been able to get better.

u102363

Today I wanted to order 1000 litres of heating oil (I have used Watson Petroleum since moving here), anmd I thought I would check Boilerjuice.com. Price was £626 (+ credit card surcharge).

I phoned Crown Oil, and was quoted £576, then phoned Watson, and was quoted £572. Watson also send me an invoice afterwards (which I can pay at my leisure on a cashback credit card), so it was a no-brainer.

I do feel that when you phone an oil supplier if you ask for a quote (rather than just ordering) you are likely to be given a more competitive price. In both cases I was put on hold while they checked the price for me. I think the oil suppliers are as keen to get your business as any other in these credit-crunch times.

As an aside, we had a 300 litre high pressure hot water cylinder fitted earlier this year, and as the house has an Economy 7 meter already, we had a timer fitted so we can heat the water for 7 hours each night (about a pound on a capped tarriff) which is usually enough for three of us. Thermostatic radiator walves everywhere limit wating heat when the boiler is on.

border_collie

Good price u102363 :beer:

Ann1e

I don't actually order our oil, but the OH has, in the past, played one off against the other and when asking for a quote, and they say "when do you want delivery" he will say well so-and-so are quoting a lower price, which quite often they do. Once, some silly woman took the quote phonecall as an order, and although we had ordered from elsewhere, the first company delivered while we were out. Luckily we noticed before the 2nd company showed up (the tank would have overflowed had they pumped their load in on top). We rang first company and said we had only asked for a quote and they needed to come and pump it out as we had ordered and paid for cheaper oil elsewhere - they let us have it for the other company's price and we got a refund.

Unfortunately, there are not too many suppliers to choose from around here but we have found that the few there are can be negotiated with and have undercut higher quotes.

INSPIRED

I have done a quick search of all forums dealing with heating oil but can not find links for websites that provide quotes for heating oil. In the past I have used FuelOilDirect but they no longer quote for my area in Scotland - neither does BoilerJuice. Are there any more?

Any help would be appreciated.

cairndog

Here we go again!! Today calor kindly tell us their "price is fixed for the winter" BUT....not until they've put it up by 6.95 pence per litre(plus VAT)
This makes it 47.60 pl altogether plus 16.9p per DAY tank charge.
However they go on to say we're lucky really because,quote----

"Our price for LPG compares extremely favourably with domestic heating oil where prices have exceeded 60p p,litre in recent months"

Then a lot of condescending drivel about price stability and advice on their website on how not to freeze to death this winter!! :mad:

Frugal_Foxy

I enquired about an underground tank as I have a small garden and am fed up with it 'being my garden'. The cost wasn't prohibitive for something of that nature, but the main problem was that I had to dig my own hole, which had to be about the same size as a container lorry, and about the same size as my entire back garden! The cost of digging the hole and making is 'secure' was the prohibitive bit.

However, one thing that came from the discussions was that they offered me a much cheaper per ltr price if I went ahead! I guess that may be something to do with the fact that the saleman may get a lot of commission on underground tank sales and he may apparently have the discretion to offer incentives!

Interesting though that they appear to be able to offer cheaper rates if they want to.