the most cost effective way to use oil central heating

sharlxx

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I live in a large 3 bed house and currently have the heating on for an hour in the morning and again at night, then for an hour around lunchtime if i am in. I was wondering whether it would be better to have it on constant with the thermostat set at 18/20? would there be much difference in how much oil i use?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

That is a variation of the most often asked question on MSE!

With any form of heating(oil/gas/electric/LPG) the lower the temperature in the house the cheaper. The longer the heating is off the cheaper.

It is impossible to say how much more expensive it will be to have the heating constantly at 18/20 rather than the 3 hours you present have it heating. That depends on the insulation of your house and efficiency of your boiler - but, sy, 14 hours against, 3 hours will be a lot of money extra.

[Deleted User]

sharlxx wrote: »

I live in a large 3 bed house and currently have the heating on for an hour in the morning and again at night, then for an hour around lunchtime if i am in. I was wondering whether it would be better to have it on constant with the thermostat set at 18/20? would there be much difference in how much oil i use?

I guess what you are trying to do is balance comfort against cost... Tricky one to answer as that would depend on insulation levels, is the house occupied during the day, do you have supplementary heating such as a woodburner, what you percieve as warm etc

Our system is set for 17c overnight with 20c during the day but that is an ASHP not oil but guess the same principles apply. We were on LPG prior to ASHP so can appreciate running costs.

With these settings running cost very low however we find 20c a bit cool for a lazy eveing in front of the telly so burn mainly free wood in the livingroom/gallery to top up to mid to high 20's

Simply put keep the thermostat sensible and insulate as best you can to keep the house at comfortable temp.

I've met and know a lot of heating engineers and they all say they are trying to re-educate their customers away from e.g. an hour in the morning and full pelt two hours in the evening to having the house at more constant temp between parameters like we have.

I was skeptical at first but prefer it this way now...

sharlxx

JEEPJUNKIE- Our house is newly renovated so I'm assuming it is well insulated. With oil its really hard to tell how much were using, it not like we get a monthly bill, when its gone its gone! and to re-fill its a minimum order of £318 where I am! I just hate feeling cold during the day, and with 3 young kids I'd rather it be warm all day! Maybe I'll just try it...

macman

But you know exactly what you are using by checking your invoiced litres against previous bills and the current level showing on the tank.

sharlxx

I only moved into this house 6 months ago and have only had one delivery of oil so I can't really work it out from previous invoices! I've always had gas central heating before!

macman

So you know the level before that delivery, the amount delivered and the level now. Very easy from that to work out your actual consumption since moving in, and so your monthly average. However, what you won't know is your winter consumption.

[Deleted User]

sharlxx wrote: »

JEEPJUNKIE- Our house is newly renovated so I'm assuming it is well insulated. With oil its really hard to tell how much were using, it not like we get a monthly bill, when its gone its gone! and to re-fill its a minimum order of £318 where I am! I just hate feeling cold during the day, and with 3 young kids I'd rather it be warm all day! Maybe I'll just try it...

With kids, like us, it's best to keep the temp at more of a constant not to mention the health of the house and it's contents.

From this forum I figured out my house has a lot of thermal mass... The benefit is the fabric of the house is warm so takes very little heat to keep the place topped up. When in previous houses I used to time the mains gas boiler with the result of burning huge amounts of gas to get the house up to temp morning and night so the house has big temp swings with big winter bills which these days I could not be bothered with...

When we were on LPG [prior to renovations and more insulation] in the current house it was not cost effective to keep the house at 20c during the day and 17c at night as it could not even manage the 17c :rotfl: at frightning cost. Another thing with big temp swings I don't think the fabric of the house gets warm but of course this is very much property dependent.

With your newly renovated house it's certainly worth trying to see how you get on.

Mayflower10cat

It might sound strange but our oil/electricity bills have dropped comparatively; year on year, since we built the conservatory. I work from home and used to stick the central heating on low when, even in a woolly jumper, I felt too cool to work (I work with my hands, repairing costume jewellery). Our conservatory comes off the kitchen (which is warmer anyway) and we use it as the dining room, but also we use it for painting/drawing/working/interneting etc. We have a small convector heater (with timer & thermostat) turned to it's lowest thermo setting - and as a result I spend almost all my time in the one room. The light is good and the insulation is better than we'd have hoped. The central heating is on twice a day for about 2 hours each time, and it's actually plenty warm enough even on unexpectedly frosty mornings. We have snuggly warm dressing gowns and an open fire in the lounge (soon to be a log burning stove when our busy builder gets round to us!!) It isn't a big cottage, not really and I suspect that really makes a difference. The walls, even internal walls are double-thickness and the modern extension at the front and to the side is super insulated. To sum up, I think insulation makes a massive difference and more, smaller rooms rather than fewer, larger rooms also helps.

suki1964

Put a thermostat in the rooms you want to heat. If temps drop below your minimum comfort zone then your heating is going to kick in and cost you = simple

Using oil is no different to using a gas boiler - the only difference is you pay up front and you can see your oil draining away which makes you more conscience of how much heating costs you.

If cost is a major factor ( as it is for so many of us these days) then its back to dressing warmer in the house, learning to live in a cooler house and perhaps using supplement heating in one family room in the evenings

carcon_2

We have recently moved into a 4 bed detached cottage/house. We have never had oil heating before so all very new. We had the 1200l tank filled up about 5 weeks ago. We have the heating and water on for a total of 4 and a half hours a day. We also have an oil filled aga, which uses 40l a week. We have realised tonight that the aga had gone out and on inspection of our tank we were astounded to find it empty!!! Surely we can't have used that much oil in just 5 weeks??!!!