oil getting WAY too expensive

ravenlooney

Ive just had my oil tank filled (1300 litres) and its cost me £436.17 including VAT. The price of oil is getting ridiculous. Has anyone got any ideas on how to cut down my fuel consumption as to heat our old drafty house it is costing us over 17% of our total income on electricity, oil and coal (we need the coal fires as the heating alone is often not warm enough to heat the place) I cant afford to heat the house if oil prices keep going up like this.

Debt_Free_Chick

Is your house sufficiently insulated? There's a thread on the Board about grants, here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=44219&goto=nextoldest

Many people seem to be getting loft & cavity wall insulation through a scheme subsidised by nPower - each costs about £100. Could be worth a phone call and a free survey. You don't need to be an nPower customer - they are not doing the work, just subsidising the cost.

Other consideration is double glazing

ravenlooney

Thanks for that DFC, but we've already had the house looked at for the Warm Deal thingy, and they said that all they could do on my house is unsulate our windows and doors. So they put the brush thingys on the bottom of the door and on the windows. Apparently it is impossible to insulate our loft as theres not enough space to do it(our house is 1 1/2 storeys) and cavity wall insulation cant be done either as we dont have wall cavities (??). Double glazing is out of the question as the landlord wont even consider spending that sort of money, and we really cant afford it either. And if we could the landlord would put up the rent as soon as we had double glazed anyway (he has previous for doing that whenever tennants do any sort of improvements!)

I have been thinking of getting a back boiler put in so we can use the fires for the central heating and hot water instead of the oil. Anyone got any thoughts on this. Is it easy done??

Im glad its coming into the summer, but it will be a cold winter after that if oil prices dont stop rising!!

slowjam

I've just had a load delivered as well - scary prices! We were going to fill the tank completely, but the delivery guy said we should hang fire until the summer, as he reckoned heating oil prices are getting cheaper, and we'll save around £100 for a full tank (currently about £750). Not much, but it'll help a bit, perhaps?

ravenlooney

slowjam, I did fill our tank completely thinking that the prices are going to get higher. Your tank must be much bigger than ours at £750 for a fill!! This oil HAS to last us 6 months as the cost is 6 months worth of oil budget for us (our budget is down to the last penny!!) so lets hope the prices go down before it need filled again and its nearly autumn

Debt_Free_Chick

I've just paid 29.75p per litre :eek: And, supposedly, that includes a 2p per litre discount for settling the full account within 2 days.

£290 for 900 litres ggrrr!!

N9eav

The price of crude is now falling again. It may take a few months to get to the suppliers prices, but may be buy a little and hold out checking the price from week to week

powie69

Working for an oil supplier myself I would recommend getting quotes for heating oil from a couple of different companies. Sometimes the company you wish to go with might be able to price match your existing quote. Also not all companies give the VAT on the price per litre quoted. ( Currently 5% VAT on Kerosine and gas oil on quantities under 2300 litres - unless you have a VAT exemption form signed).

Debt_Free_Chick

N9eav wrote:

The price of crude is now falling again.

[cynic mode on] yeah, it would do. Now that it's summer and I don't need so bloomin' much [cynic mode off]

realistically.... I can't store it for Winter. My tank is only about 1,000 litres. A good idea if you can store it, though