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

alexeix

bracken wrote: »

Hello, I do not usually bother to post but feel quite strongly that this needs answering. WE need a new boiler and have spent the last 3 months investigating and getting quotes for biomass and also wood boilers. Also looked at Air source and ground source heat pumps( about £25k with a borehole!) but I have read that they do not keep either the house or hot water very hot so really should be used alongside eg biomass so no good for us even if we had the funding.

Anyway besides the fact we are reasonable at DIY and can do most of the work ourselves thereby reducing the costs the cheapest we can get a woodfired ( not as good as pellets!) boiler installed is around £8000. This includes us getting a grant! We would also have to completely re-plumb our central heating system ( further increasing costs) so while I love the idea of biomass it is not yet a real alternative for normal people who do not earn large amounts of cash. It would also take us at least 4 years to pay for it self and thats if the price of oil goes up to £1 a Litre which hopefully it wont. In the end we are going to have to replace with an oil fired boiler costing around £2.5k including fitting but very efficient one.

I'm not sure that it's correct that wood fired boilers are not as efficient as wood pellet ones.
You can check out comparitive costs of differetn heating methods here: http://www.nottenergy.com/energy-costs-comparison3

We're doing a new build and have been researching ground/air source heat pumps, as well as wood/pellet boilers.
Ground/air source does seem prohibitively expensive to install at the moment, whereas wood/pellet seems like a viable option - we've found a large variation in prices.
Furthermore, if you have space to leave your logs to season for a year, you'll pay very little for the wood (see web site).

The major snag seems to be that they are higher maintenance than a standard gas boiler, i.e. you have to regularly load the hopa with wood/pellets to feed into the boiler.

I'm still not sure what the maximum amount of time is, that you could leave the system unattended.

mattsmum_2

Hi - I'm so glad someone is prepared to look into ways of getting better deals on LPG. It's so annoying that we cannot switch suppliers as easily as we could with natural gas.

The only tips I have are that when we first moved into our house with LPG I asked around the neighbours to see what rates they paid - all were paying less than our quote, so I rang and our supplier reduced our costs more in line with the existing customers. Also, after yet another increase I did once ring and complain to the supplier and they reduced the standing order costs. Have to say though that numerous increases have since followed.

cawyatt

Our neighbour Tom runs the oil syndicate, but rather than buying monthly, Tom keeps a regular eye on the price, and when it's half-decent (or just not absolutely crippling) he rings round to see who needs some. We are all billed individually, and can either specify the amount we want, or just get a fill-up. Don't think he gets anything out of it, except a friendly wave when we see him!

EddyB

Mattsmum, would you mind (?) telling us what supplier it was who didn't mind reducing your LPG price per litre when you rang and asked? As I said earlier, Calor are adamant with me that they won't lower their cost for me below 40ppl. And I know that's what a neighbour of mine is paying them too.

How many people believe in the following product - mentioned earlier in this thread, and designed to lower usage of oil and gas? I'm sceptical. There are quotes from people on the website but you can't believe quotes like that. They're so easy for the manufacturer to write. Does anybody know of any scientific analysis or review of this product?
http://www.cutgasbills.com/how_thermoflow_cuts_gas_bills.html

Eddy.

EddyB

Warning Warning Warning Warning

That device referred to earlier in this thread is apparently nothing but a scam.

See the following page:
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/magscams.html#MFT

PLUS I have asked the manufacturer for contact names and numbers of just 3 satisfied customers and he has refused. I then asked him to point me to scientific reviews etc., . . . . and he hasn't replied!

It's a scam.

Eddy.

klaatu

EddyB wrote: »

They're so easy for the manufacturer to write. Does anybody know of any scientific analysis or review of this product?

The company that manufactures these useless items (Ecoflow) has been in trouble with Trading Standards and the ASA for making unsubstantiated claims in adverts. And the guy that posted the link is a spammer - it's his web site.

Steve

casacolinas

my sister in law joined forces with all the other people in her village who have oil delivered and then negotiated a discount with the delivery company as a bulk order. They have managed to save quite a bit this way and are now joining up with neighbouring villages to save even more.

SusieH_4

We were oil dependant and have now decided that enough is enough. No more oil for us! We are installing a woodburning stove with back boiler capable of doing the central heating and providing hot water. We won't want to use the wood burner in the warmer months, so we are having a small air source heat pump coupled up to our cylinder to provide our hot water needs.

An air source heat pump is very efficient - manufacturers typically quote that for every 1kW used to run the machine between 3 and 4kW of useful heat is produced. The heat pump will also provide heat for those 'not so cold' days! Who needs oil??:rotfl:

Logs are sooooo much cheaper than fossil fuels - they even come cut to the right size to fit the fire! I've even bought a paper briquette maker and I recycle all my old waste paper and cardboard into 'bricks' to burn on the fire - FREE heat - love it! And, it's fun to do to!

Just a few ideas - hope it helps someone.

Brian_the_gas_man

At the risk of tyrning this into a green thread, I would advise the following.
Lag the pipes to your boiler, I have been to a couple of houses recently that have boilers in out houses, sheds or garages, a bare pipe is heating spaces needlessly. Turn rads down in rooms that aren't used.


Heavy curtains, especially in a listed thatched cottage like mine, help save a lot of heat loss relatively cheaply.

Have appliances serviced and mantained, gas engineers now carry flue gas analysers by law, the only exception is anyone working on a gas hob. The analyser gives a % efficiency which will indicate whether the appliance is working correctly or not, who knows it may save you from Carbon monoxide poisoning also, as these tend to only occur in privately owned dwellings now.

If your old appliance is looking like it needs replacing, consider heat pumps or biomass (wood pellet) boilers as an alternative. Worcester Bosch and Visemann are good manufacturers and sources of information.

To keep my running costs down, I have two wood burners that I run on a mix of bought logs and timber reclaimed from any sites I work on, in the last year this set up has kept my heating oil use down to 650 litres. When I replace the oile boiler next year, biomass is looking like a strong contender. I may set myself up as a wood pellet merchant if the sales network is no better by then also.

EddyB

SusieH, how many logs have you made to date with your log-maker?

And how long does it take you to make one log?

Thanks.

Eddy.