Stick with oil or not??

florrie01

Having negotiated buying the house we rent from the owner we are planning to make a few changes.

The house is a 1930 semi with oil fired heating. The boiler is nearly 20 years old so needs replacing and we are wondering if we should do away with the oil all together. Is costing us a small fortune, almost £600 over the last 5 months. We know a lot of this would be down to its age but have no idea what alternatives are available.
We have no gas in the rural area we live in and our neighbor says he wishes he had never converted to lpg as he pays alot more than he ever did with oil!

Are we stuck with the oil??
Also we have a solid fuel aga that we wondered if with a bit of work could be connected to a new heating system?

Thanks for any advice you can give

ilikecookies

Hi florrie,

I'd certainly heed your neighbours warning about LPG and resist any juicy one-time offers that the LPG companies may try to entice you with. We switched from LPG to oil as the LPG costs were horrendous and our bills are certainly lower with oil.

A couple of options to consider might be:

1) Replacing your old oil boiler with a modern condensing boiler. Conceivably if your old boiler is 20 years old it may be in the 50-60% efficiency range whilst a new one will be in the 85-95% range. This will save you a fair bit.

2) Looking at how you could maybe source your oil cheaper - eg. are there any oil syndicates in your area? Maybe go for a bigger oil tank to allow you to fill up when it's cheap(er) in the summer and ride out winter increases.

3) Look at your consumption patterns - would it be conceivable to turn the thermostat down a little bit, use an hour less per day, etc? Every little helps!

4) Look at any low cost insulation options to go with the above - eg. loft insulation, cavity wall and simpler options such as hunting down any drafts, thick curtains, TRVs on the rads, etc. Of course there are costlier options like new double-glazing, etc.

5) Discounting LPG your other options are then some of the greener options but these will be expensive to install - eg. heat pump (see the threads on here though questioning their efficiency), biomass boiler etc. Expect installation costs from £10k plus though and it's not clear guaranteed that the running costs will be lower

I'm not too sure about connecting up your existing solid fuel AGA and so will have to pass on this. But you will need to consider that manually loading it will reduce the flexibility that you have with a traditional CH system.

I realise the above sounds like an advert for oil and trust me I know it's dear but I think it's still the best option for most folks.

Hope that helps a bit!

florrie01

Yes that helps thanks. We thought we would be stuck with the oil but just wanted to hear anothers opinion.
Out of our 5 immediate neighbors 2 have changed to lpg and the other 3 have stuck with oil and the coal fire and agas and the 2 converts have said dont do it under and circumstances!

I think shopping around for a boiler that will suit us and the amount we need to use it will be a priority

Many thanks

suki1964

Oil isn't so expensive, it just feels like it is when you have been used to mains gas. That and the fact you have to pay upfront

A new boiler, and work the thermostat

It's never going to be cheap, but no fuel is, so budget for it and buy during the summer months and learn to layer up and use lap fleeces in the evenings

bernithebiker

Part of the problem with oil heating is the oil price volatility, mostly upwards. All energy prices are tending to increase, but oil is the knife-edge one, it doesn't take much to spike it, just look at all the issues in North Africa at the moment.

If you go for a new oil boiler, maybe keep £1000 or so to buy a variety of oil shares, BP, Schlumberger, etc. This would be an imperfect but reasonably effective hedge.

macman

But since LPG is derived from the same source as oil, any oil price move is going to be reflected in LPG as well.

grahamc2003

You're in a fortunate situation being off gas.

Google Renewable Heat incentive, and see the generous payments you qualify for if you install a renewable technology such as Heat pump, pellet stove and even a qualifying wood burning stove.

Cardew

florrie01 wrote: »

Also we have a solid fuel aga that we wondered if with a bit of work could be connected to a new heating system?

Thanks for any advice you can give

Yes there are ways to incorporate solid fuel heating into an oil CH system.

However you need something like a Dunsley Neutralizer to overcome the problems.

http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/neutralizer.html

Ensure that you get a plumber with the knowledge to incorporate both systems. Unless it is done correctly you can have serious safety problems.

Incidentally personally I would never replace an old working boiler.

malc_b

Cardew wrote: »

Incidentally personally I would never replace an old working boiler.

Whoa. That's a very sweeping statement. I would suggest OP looks up your old boiler on sebuk to check its efficiency. As in a previous post old boilers can be 50-60% and a new condenser would be 90%. So if the OP used £600 in the last 5 months, say £1000 pa, then the change to a new boiler would save £300 pa. Payback in under 10yrs if the switch cost £3000 and really it should cost about half that. That's a good payback period compared with other improvements.

You can get a general idea of fuel costs from here . However, note that for oil the figures are correct in that the use the net oil kWh value and efficiencies are based on gross kWh, and the efficiency figure they use of 90% is not as good as you could get buying a brand new boiler.

Cheapest fuel mains gas and heat pumps, but, heat pumps require a low temperature difference to work best (i.e. underfloor heating or hot air) and I guess you have radiators. Similarly condenser heating works best with oversized radiators but if the CH is old and you've since had cavity wall, loft, double glazing etc. it's likely the radiator are now bigger than needed so should fit well with a condenser.

The other option is E7 storage heaters. Per kwH E7 is cheaper than oil, but not as controllable. You could have a mixed system with just a few storage heater for base load and then top up the heating with oil.

bernithebiker

macman wrote: »

But since LPG is derived from the same source as oil, any oil price move is going to be reflected in LPG as well.

Indeed, but LPG is such a no go area, I had kind of already exlcuded that....!

If no mains gas, the only realistic alternatives are heat pumps and wood boilers. Personally, I would beg, borrow, steal the extra to get one of those, and not risk oil. (This from an ex oil trader...!)

Cardew

malc_b wrote: »

Whoa. That's a very sweeping statement.

No it is not a sweeping statement!

In case you haven't noticed I wrote "Incidentally personally I would never replace an old working boiler." So that would be my view.

Incidentally I think your advice is questionable, in that 90% plus efficiencies are not achievable in practice.

That a 20 year old boiler will have a higher efficiency than 50% to 60%.

That £300pa(30%) is a high estimate for savings.

That the loss of interest on £3,000 - even in these days of very low interest rates - is around £100 a year; far more if you have to borrow the money.

That a 10 year payback, even if achievable, would not justify replacement.

Just my opinion you understand;)