Cost of oil central heating

younggreen

i had oil fired central put in 3 years ago to replace coal fire, the most stupid thing i've ever done. probably costs about £800 a year for miserly use. for the little we get out of it i find it much more expensive than coal this is a small 3 bedroomed house. i find that central heating is much more unhealthy than the coal fire because there is no convection of heat like before, plus we have no airing cupboard now. if i had my time over i would not touch it with a 10 foot bargepole

coops228

We fitted a Boulter Camry 2 back in 2001 (oil was 43p/litre and then went down in price) and it was a total winner. We filled the tank perhaps 5 times in 2 years (800litres each time) and the boiler was on for a good part of the day. We lived up the far north of scotland too.
I wouldn't have any other type of heating again.
We rang round for prices to get the best price and as the boiler was out in the garage, we were not bothered with noise etc and it heated the garage for when OH is out there "messing about" with cars etc.
We used to have "total control" heating and it cost us £500 per quarter for very frugal use. Never again.
We have since moved and our new house has oil central heating with a wood burner tied into the central heating system and we now fill the tank (1000litres) once a year at about a cost of £450 and buy logs for another £150. With decent insulation, double glazed windows it doesn't have to cost the earth. Depends how hot you like your house.
We have friends who have the heating on constantly so their house is like an oven and bizarrly have loads of windows open. Strangely, their bills are high.

borkid

A little late for the original post but we are selling our barn conversion and hubby did some calculations for a viewer. Taking the oil used over the past 2 years we used an average 2345 lt per year ( this included last winter where snow was around for several weeks). We have the tank filled just over once a year. We use oil central heating from November to April/May if there are any odd chilly evenings we light the log fire ( have only bought 2 loads of logs in the past 8 years) also use the oil boiler for heating water during the summer. We have a 4 bedroomed 4 reception room barn conversion 2880sq ft most rooms are vaulted and lots of windows. The outside walls are thick, 12ins, and made of clay lump, all the radiators have thermostatic valves fitted and we have the boiler serviced every year. Based on our last oil delivery charge we spend £900 on oil per year and £38 per month on electricity. We are at home all day so throughout the winter the heating is on all day 8am til 10pm ish.

Considering where we live I don't think that's an outrageous amount to spend on heating.

And the boiler is a Camray from 1989 when the barn was converted!

moogley

Hi,
i have just moved in to a rented 4 Bed bungalow which has a warmflow oil boiler.
Apparently the landlord has put 500lts of oil into the tank.
How long will this last for as i have tried to get some today but because of the snow no one can deliver till the new year :eek::eek:.
Really dont want a cold Xmas & new year !!!!,
Should i keep it on constant or set times for it to come on ????.
Any advise greatfully received.

almost-bankrupt

I have just bought a big old 6 bed vicarage and renewed the central heating system. We have in the region of 16 radiators around the house and 12 rooms.

It's scaring me to death to see how much oil we are using, we have 2500 litre tank and with my estimates and the opinion of the oil delivery guy, we'll need to fill it every 2 months !!!?? thats abut 700 pound a month, with the top floor radiators switched off.

Surely this cant be right ? I expected a rise in fuel bills compared to my last smaller house but this is crazy.

w50nky

Scary isn’t it! Can not comment on your situation save to say that it is a big property. I would spend my money first on insulating and draught proofing everything I could. I live in a 4 bed detached bungalow reasonably insulated now but still more to do.

Last year 2009/2010 used a reasonable (in my opinion) 14-1500 litres of oil on heating & HW plus 5 - 6 bags of coal per month on an open fire to give ambience and heat to the lounge. I removed the open fire in August and fitted a multifuel stove in its place. The oil used (for heating) through the last winter is......None! ( save for running the system a few times to keep it in order). The stove has been on 24/7 since November using smokeless briquettes approx six 50Kg sack per month and logs if the weather is milder. To be fair we only use 2 bedrooms but we even have to open the other rooms up at times when the house becomes too warm to regulate the house temperature.
If you have open fires that are open but not in use you will be losing lots of your heat through the flues so worth checking. You can get "balloons" that you can inflate to block of the flue when not in use.

Hope some of this helps. I am sure more folks will be along soon to offer opinions and advice.

suki1964

5 bedroom house here and we would use around 2000 ltrs of oil a year - but like w50nky - we have stoves we use more

The oil has been on for around 6 hours a day since October and will be so until at least April. when I start decreasing the times it comes on. Its only June, July and Aug (fingers crossed) that we dont have the heating on at all - and then the hot water is for about 2 hrs a day

We prolly spend on average £30 a month on coal and logs for two stoves

Before we had the stoves installed - we were going through a tank of oil every 6 weeks in the winter and still needing to be wrapped up warm with throws over us in the evenings

owned_by_2_Siamese

Thought I'd stick my two pennies in!

I have to use oil - the nearest mains gas is 30 miles away (remote rural location in very north England) I too wondered and pondered about whether buying a house with oil heating was a good idea.
The problem is you cant compare what you dont have with what you have got!
I find heating a five bed well insulated house with a condensing A rated boiler - being out at work every week day is actually not as scary as it sounds. In fact I know that my last house which was heated by gas, considerably smaller and had a 'B' rated gas boiler actually cost about the same. You cant under estimate how much difference good complete insulation, double glazing and 'sensible' use of heating can make.
I can measure my consumption in litres, convert a litre to a useable amount of heat ( 1 litre = 10.4 KW) take away the heat my boiler wastes (90% efficient) and I know I get 9kw of useable heat from each litre. Call it 60p a litre on average and I know each KW costs me around 6.5p. I can compare that to electric or LPG and its clear oil is significantly less. However if only I had mains gas! But I dont!.

So the real 'cost' changer is the use - and like most on oil we have a wood burner - that costs me £150 a heating 'season' in wood and coal - but saves me a significant amount in the time the central heating is on. I have a super insulated loft, modern standard wall insulation, radiotors turned low in unsused rooms, heating goes off 45 mins before we go out (using residual heat) windows all double glazed, doors draught proofed. We have the main thermostat set on 18 - hardly tropical but not 'cold' . Overall in a year we will use around 2000 litres max, and that includes the -20 we had most nights for December (a balmy -13 average during the day one week!)

I'd love to explore ASHP - and GSHP - but the technology is not mature enough - and neighbours experience of it has involved massive electricity bills (one quarter exceed two years of my oil consumption!)

Not sure where I'm going with this - but for those of us without gas there really is only oil with all of its problems, price volatility and finite supply that can work for most of us and the way we live.Roll on the OFT investigation into the pricing of Heating Oil !

lovesgshp

To owned by 2 siamese.

A couple of questions:
Why is ASHP and GSHP not mature enough. It has been going for many years and is known more in Scandinavian countries than in the UK, where temperatures get far lower.
What was your oil consumption over 2 years, + your £300 for additional heat from the fire, plus your electricity bill, as they probably included everything?
Size of your house and temperature settings (18C you say) against theirs.
So many variables that are not defined, so unable to compare.

SammyFace

owned_by_2_Siamese wrote: »

I can measure my consumption in litres, convert a litre to a useable amount of heat ( 1 litre = 10.4 KW) take away the heat my boiler wastes (90% efficient) and I know I get 9kw of useable heat from each litre. Call it 60p a litre on average and I know each KW costs me around 6.5p.

We've recently moved into our self build and went OTT with the insulation whilst we had the chance. We installed a Grant Vortex 26/36 Kw Outdoor Oil Boiler which runs our heating and hot water. Our electricity appears to have dropped approx £50 per month and our oil approx £50 per month less than running a multifuel stove driven central heating at our last house - which was a smaller 200 year old listed property.

owned by 2 Siamese - how do I work out the cost per kw to run my boiler which I believe runs at approx 94% efficiency?