Cheaper Oil for Fuel?

lowbrim

I always ring around all suppliers in the yellow pages and I always beat boilerjuice easily by at least a 1p litre. Most suppliers will beat a genuine price quote.

jnorris235

Like everyone else - scared stiff of the ever increasing oil prices.
And we're going to need a new oil boiler in the next year or so, as we put radiators in two unheated big upstairs bed rooms.
We do not have gas. We are heavily insulated (as is the house).

Has anyone done any clever sums that would help me decide whether to pay £1500 for a new condensing boiler plus higher oil prices for 10 years (this year £1250), or move over to electricity?

Hot water central heating is impossible to zone (I'm not running round every room twice a day turning valves on and off when I'm the only one left at home all day!) so I think it is wasteful.

Therefor my thinking is that fully controllable electric heating may turn out to be cheaper with perhaps a few storage heaters in central areas.

I have found it impossible to unfuddle my thinking on this one!

philkenning

If you have the big 47kg gas bottles these should last 6 - 9 months each and you wont be tied to a contract where you have to get it from. Shop around when you need some more, beware of switching to a supplier who wants to charge you a deposit for the bottles as you rarely get this back.

The worst thing about oil is the fact that you have to buy a whole load of it and pay for it in one big lump which is always a shock to the system. If you have oil in your tank when you move in make a mark on the sight tube on the tank at weekly intervals to give yourself an idea of how quickly you are using the oil and give you some notice of when you will need some more. Don't expect to be able to get a delivery the next day when you want it, it could be up to a week before you get your delivery so plan a bit in advance. Oil companies dont like delivering small quanties so charge more for quantities less than about 800 litres (always ask them whether the price changes depending on quantity) and of course always haggle.

all oil tanks need the water draining out periodically to prevent damage to your heating boiler and also it can freeze in the winter which stops the flow of oil and your boiler doesnt work! There is usually a small bowl on the outlet from your tank which contains a filter. Close the valve and remove the bowl (wear gloves because heating oil is not nice!) drain the water and clean the filter replace the bowl open the valve and hey presto its all done or alternatively get your boiler service man to do it every year when he is there (they should do it but never do)!
I hope this helps a bit

tlck9 wrote: »

completely new to oil in fact havent moved into the house as yet

are there any key tips anyone can suggest, we're moving from an old house with gas to one that is only 2 years old, with oil for heating and water, 2 calorgas bottles for cooking.

I'm keen to minimise my bills, currently pay about £85 for both electric and gas at the moment

the property is in North Cornwall

Thans in advance

philkenning

of course there is also the option of an lpg condensing boiler, you would need an lpg tank then though and the complication of being tied into a contract with an lpg supplier
electricity prices seem a lot more stable than oil prices and there certainly seems more competition in the market place than oil
difficult decisions!

jnorris235 wrote: »

Like everyone else - scared stiff of the ever increasing oil prices.
And we're going to need a new oil boiler in the next year or so, as we put radiators in two unheated big upstairs bed rooms.
We do not have gas. We are heavily insulated (as is the house).

Has anyone done any clever sums that would help me decide whether to pay £1500 for a new condensing boiler plus higher oil prices for 10 years (this year £1250), or move over to electricity?

Hot water central heating is impossible to zone (I'm not running round every room twice a day turning valves on and off when I'm the only one left at home all day!) so I think it is wasteful.

Therefor my thinking is that fully controllable electric heating may turn out to be cheaper with perhaps a few storage heaters in central areas.

I have found it impossible to unfuddle my thinking on this one!

peat

Try a search on this forum for "wet electric central heating"

owned_by_2_Siamese

Spent a long time wrestling with this before I actually bought a house with oil. This is how I worked it out (hopefully its reasonably logical!)

Working out the cost of a KW of heat from oil (so you can compare to electric/gas)

- a litre of heating oil (kerosene 28 sec) burnt at 100% efficiency will release approximately 10KW of heat (this was a consistent figure from various internet/oil websites I searched in March)
- You now need to know the SEDBUK efficiency of your boiler (always given as a %) (if you're buying a new condensing biler the manufacturers website should tell you this)
- mutiply 10KW by the SEDBUK Efficiency (this is how much you'll get as useable heat from your boiler)

I have a condensing Worcester Danesmore boiler - (1 year old) quoting 92% so for every litre of oil I get 9.2KW of useable heat (if your boiler is more efficient you get more - and vice versa)

So a litre of oil (currently an eye watering 38.9p, plus VAT at 5% = 40.8p
take this figure and divide by the useable heat (9.2 for me) = 40.8/9.2 = 4.4p

This means that in effect each KW cost me 4.4p - and I can compare that to electricty (I'm paying about 8.5p inc VAT) so all told, comapred to standard daytime its cheaper to use oil - if you know your offpeak tarrif then you can compare (but remember to add on any increased day tariff if necessary).

When I looked LPG had a lower KWH per litre - but can find my notes to say how much - all I know was it worked out a lot more expensive.

Not sure if this proves anything other than how sad I am - or if it would ever pass any kind of 'review' but its the best I could find!

Strapped

Hello all. New to the oil buying game, having moved to a house with oil heating earlier this year. We joined the village oil buying consortium, first delivery last week (1000l) was 39.4p + VAT...I about fell off my chair when receiving the invoice. Is this about right, because it seems expensive to us! (We're in Devon). Thanks

noonesperfect

Strapped wrote: »

Hello all. New to the oil buying game, having moved to a house with oil heating earlier this year. We joined the village oil buying consortium, first delivery last week (1000l) was 39.4p + VAT...I about fell off my chair when receiving the invoice. Is this about right, because it seems expensive to us! (We're in Devon). Thanks

No that's about right. I just ordered 900L at 35.9p per L + 5% VAT.
Prices quoted up to 41.9p It alters daily.

titus.a.duxarse

The current price of heating oil is ridiculous. We've just ordered 1000L @38.70p per litre. That's over 30% higher than we paid in March this year.So much for inflation at 4 point something per cent!!!

Martin100

owned_by_2_Siamese wrote: »

Spent a long time wrestling with this before I actually bought a house with oil. This is how I worked it out (hopefully its reasonably logical!)

Working out the cost of a KW of heat from oil (so you can compare to electric/gas)

- a litre of heating oil (kerosene 28 sec) burnt at 100% efficiency will release approximately 10KW of heat (this was a consistent figure from various internet/oil websites I searched in March)
- You now need to know the SEDBUK efficiency of your boiler (always given as a %) (if you're buying a new condensing biler the manufacturers website should tell you this)
- mutiply 10KW by the SEDBUK Efficiency (this is how much you'll get as useable heat from your boiler)

I have a condensing Worcester Danesmore boiler - (1 year old) quoting 92% so for every litre of oil I get 9.2KW of useable heat (if your boiler is more efficient you get more - and vice versa)

So a litre of oil (currently an eye watering 38.9p, plus VAT at 5% = 40.8p
take this figure and divide by the useable heat (9.2 for me) = 40.8/9.2 = 4.4p

This means that in effect each KW cost me 4.4p - and I can compare that to electricty (I'm paying about 8.5p inc VAT) so all told, comapred to standard daytime its cheaper to use oil - if you know your offpeak tarrif then you can compare (but remember to add on any increased day tariff if necessary).

When I looked LPG had a lower KWH per litre - but can find my notes to say how much - all I know was it worked out a lot more expensive.

Not sure if this proves anything other than how sad I am - or if it would ever pass any kind of 'review' but its the best I could find!

Thanks for that information. I found it very useful as it is good to compare heating oil prices against other fuel considerations. In your calculations we assume the heat output is converted into the radiators of the house.

However in the past I have considered that it might be better to heat up a tank of the hot water by using electric. One main reason for this was because of the inefficiencey of heating up all of the ancillary pipework before full heat from the boiler is transmitted to the indirect heating coil of the hot water cylinder. You could argue that this is ok as some of that heat will go off to heat the house aswell but this is not necessarily heat where you want it. Also during the summer months, heating with electric directs total 100% efficiency to the heating of the hot water tank with negligable spill off to unnecessarily putting heat into the house.

My costs per litre of oil calculate at 5 pence per kilowatt and my electric heating unit cost are 8 pence per kilowatt.

What I am presenting here are considerations of how we use our oil as for some it might be better in terms of heating water by using electric.