Finally I have a mortgage I can start to pay off!

Karmacat

Enjoy Oxford!  Wonderful place  

Fortune_Smiles

We use The Oil Club for our oil.

Fortune x

newgirly

Have a great time in Oxford 🙂

QueenJess

This is the kind of thing you forget when you move house. There’s always a learning curve somewhere, even if it’s just how to work the washing machine!

We only have electric, but have an air source heat pump and the people came round for a couple of hours to explain the whole system to us! I think a lot went over my head to be honest and I remember thinking that I hoped DH was paying more attention!

ooh Oxford is nice. Not too far from me… give me a wave as you pass by!

Suffolk_lass

Thinking ahead (as you do) we considered not replacing the oil tank and going for an alternative heating system. It's not looking good for our place. It is c1640 (unlisted - shh!) and does not lend itself to an air source heat pump, cannot support solar or PV cells (on the main house, and the cart lodge is orientated the wrong way too) and does not lend itself to conversion (one end is brick floors on sand, the other a concrete platform) and with ceilings that are about 6'6 downstairs - this means DH and DS can stand up and just duck under the beams at the moment, so installing ASHP and underfloor heating might work for others but not us - and with no foundations, digging out the floors to lower them really not straightforward and losing 75mm head room not an option. Our options are other fossil fuels - gas (tank) or wood pellet - we are still looking into these but it will be a replacement oil tank this time.

Kittenkirst

How exciting Enjoy Oxford and your takeaway too!

themadvix

SL (and anyone else who is interested), don’t give up hope yet - check out this episode for ideas of options that are coming to market soon. There’s also the possibility of charging batteries on cheap renewable energy overnight for electric heating options. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NNITlK7HW0Q

themadvix

Morning all,

First of all, thanks for all the good wishes for our trip to Oxford. We had a lovely time - would definitely recommend a tour of the Oxford Artisan Distillery - very interesting stuff as they make their own vodka (most don't) and use medieval rye to do so. The hotel was rather hit and miss. We stayed at the Malmaison and there was a litany of small things that were wrong (for instance, having to rearrange the furniture to get the tea tray out of the wardrobe!) but because our room wasn't ready when we got there and they'd booked us in for dinner when we were meant to be at the distillery (I'd paid for a dinner package, so not really an option to go elsewhere - did eventually get a table at 8.45pm), I did get breakfast for free and then on check out they gave me a £40 refund too. They're oblivious to the many other small things that disappointed, so I'm undecided as to whether to enlighten them (not expecting more money!). Was impressed that they gave me the refund for what was a relatively minor inconvenience in the end though.

SL, thanks for that really detailed and informative post - so much really helpful information in there about all the different sources of heat etc.! We know we'll need an oil delivery when we get there as it's only 20% full at the moment and I doubt the owners will fill it up just before they leave. My main concern is they don't let it run right down to the gunge at the bottom (I have some idea about oil as I managed a building that used it - but we always used the same company for oil and I don't even know what we paid for it!). Will definitely check out if there's an oil club in the village. I think the tank is bunded - we had info on that in the property information form. The kitchen has a range cooker that runs on calor, so the info about how much of that you use (and how much it costs) was useful too! Thanks for the info about the chimney sweep too. I'm guessing you'd have it swept more often if you used it more. I'll investigate the Guild status of the ones I've found. It's a whole new world to me!

Fortune - thanks for the tip for the Oil Club too - they have a 'New to Oil' section which was very useful too.

QueenJess - you're so right about a learning curve, but a new challenge is all good! Just wait until we switch to something really unconventional for heating! 😂

So yesterday we went to Fully Charged Live, which was really interesting. DH didn't find anything for work, but some really good stuff for the new house - including infra-red wall paper (can go under the floor too) and a solar installation that looks attractive and doesn't have to go on the roof. SL, I think we're very much in the same boat wrt solar not on roof and ASHP/GSHP not being suitable for our new house, so it was really exciting to find alternatives. Remember you can use one of the EV overnight tariffs to get cheap electricity (e.g. 5p/kWh from Octopus Go) to charge batteries/heating source. Sadly the company we're interested in, who make the Warmstone thermal battery weren't at the show (it's possibly not entirely on the market yet), but we found so many other useful things. And by the sound of it, the Renewable Heat Incentive is going to be replaced by a Clean Heat Grant next year, of between £4000-£7000. Whether this will cover alternatives or just ASHP/GSHP it's not known at the moment.

Also squeezed in an Indian takeaway from our friend's business with other friends - was delicious again and great to see friends (I had leftovers for dinner last night).

MS things:
* Clicks done, won £2.10 on the HW this morning
* DH won the lottery 😂 He won £5 and a free lucky dip (we don't play regularly, but with the £20M that had to be spent, we thought it worth a punt)
* Partial refund for hotel
* Leftovers for dinner last night, took a supermarket picnic instead of buying stuff at the show
* Mileage and tickets for show covered by DH's work
* Even squeezed in some cat sitting too Saturday night and Sunday morning!

Gratitudes:
* Great time in Oxford
* Nice to catch up with friends over delicious curry
* Really enjoyable day out yesterday

Have a good Monday all!

rtandon27

Love that you ended your post with gratitudes Vix!

We are about to move out of our current place in the countryside & back into a town - the oil tank is about 25% full, but we are determined not to leave it as empty as when we moved in, so have not turned the heat on even though it's been chilly at night over the past week.  Have just had a whole weekend learning about gas and electric as fuel sources!  We've purchased a Victorian terraced cottage in a town & it's such a learning curve.  Also determined that our new place has south facing roofs, so can foresee an adventure with solar at some point over the next few years!

themadvix

There's always something to be grateful for RT 😉 although sometimes I have to look much harder!

I love that you're doing the opposite in terms of fuels in your new home. There's something very exciting about new home research though, isn't there? Have you started a diary yet? I'll definitely subscribe if you do (you may well have done, I'm not great at keeping up with the main board, just the things I subscribe to).

Invoicing, paying myself and money shuffles mostly done. Some very creative accounting needed though! 

£2 Populous survey done too.