First time with oil heating.

Hammyman

We're moving to a house in the sticks in the next few weeks. Never been off mains gas and this is oil fired heating. Can't remember what they said the size of the oil tank was.

When buying oil, is it possible to say buy 1000 litres and then if you've got a 250l tank, have it delivered in 200l or whatever as required until you've used that 1000l?

Just wondering because the prices seem to drop off through summer so it would make sense to buy bulk in advance.

MidlandsGas

Hammyman wrote: »

We're moving to a house in the sticks in the next few weeks. Never been off mains gas and this is oil fired heating. Can't remember what they said the size of the oil tank was.

When buying oil, is it possible to say buy 1000 litres and then if you've got a 250l tank, have it delivered in 200l or whatever as required until you've used that 1000l?

Just wondering because the prices seem to drop off through summer so it would make sense to buy bulk in advance.

To cut a long story short - it will be cheaper for you to move to an Air Source Heat Pump

Cardew

The oil supply companies give a cheaper price for bulk delivery; so if you buy 500 or 1,000litres it will be all delivered in the one visit.

Most domestic oil tanks are a little larger than 1,000 litres capacity.

Cardew

MidlandsGas wrote: »

To cut a long story short - it will be cheaper for you to move to an Air Source Heat Pump

What a strange post? Are you sure you have posted it in the correct thread?

Waterlily24

Most oil tanks are 1000 litres or above, you can get smaller ones though.
I've never heard of any firms doing what you ask. We've had oil heating for about 12 years.

chris1973

I spent some time in a rented house which was oil fired, the difference in cost compared to my own mains gas fired CH in a similar sized house made me determined, when I returned home to never to criticise the cost of gas ever again!.

Of course it all depends on the boiler, how new or rather energy efficient it is when it comes to storage and quantity but I would consider getting a larger tank if possible, so you can buy and stockpile when its cheaper. Another problem I had was running out during a cold snap, so make sure you have a working level indicator and that you keep an eye on it as well as the weather forecast for any extended cold spell - my oil level didn't half drop fast, when the thermometer fell.

Most of the suppliers in my area would only deliver a minimum order of 500 litres. Although I could have picked up a 205 litre drum from them, but that won't be practical for everybody.

Cardew

chris1973 wrote: »

I spent some time in a rented house which was oil fired, the difference in cost compared to my own mains gas fired CH in a similar sized house made me determined, when I returned home to never to criticise the cost of gas ever again!.

That of course depends on the price of oil - and that has been highly volatile.

A litre of oil contains approx 10.2kWh

At the moment oil is about 46p/litre so perhaps 30% more expensive than gas.

However early last year it was 26p/litre so considerably cheaper than gas. Go back a bit further and it was double the price of gas.

Next year????

oysterman

The minimum delivery for oil is 500 ltrs. Obviously you will pay the most for the minimum amount. Don't order more than 2300 ltrs or the vat changes from 5% to 17.5 %.
Just imagine the cost to the oil company doing 5 journeys for 200 ltrs each, not going to be any profit there.

Dusty_Vinyl

yes, in the UK the smallest amount of oil you can deliver into domestic oil tanks is 500L as per the weights & measures fuel delivery act. kerosene has a calorific value of approx 10.5kW/litre but your boiler is probably only 90-95% efficient (9.45 to 9.95 L/kW) so an 18kW boiler at 90% effiiency will give you a burn of 1.9L fuel per hour at full capacity. A 500L fill will give you enough to run your boiler for 263 hours. heating oil is cheaper in the summer.