Advice on buying oil tank

whiskeybean

Hi, I'm looking to buy a 1300ltr oil tank for my house online. I'm a bit confused because the specific Harlequin oil tank I'm thinking, is available in either top or bottom feed.

Anyone know whether top or bottom feed oil tank is compatible with most standard house hold boilers? If it helps, the boiler I've looked at possibly getting is the Worcester Green star Heatslave 25/32.

Also, do you think it would be cheaper to order the oil tank myself and get someone else to install it with the boiler, or would it be cheaper to get someone to source the oil tank and boiler and install them?

Cheers for any help!

ilikecookies

I remember being confused by this. I believe either feed works but I couldn't understand the rationale for a top-feed. Ours has a bottom feed. Harlequinn have great customer service so you could give them a quick call to confirm or if you have a plumber lined up already give them a call to check (NB. you'll need an OFTEC certified installer).

As regards whether to buy the tank or not it's probably worth asking any plumbers to split out the material costs so you can see the cost of the tank. Of course they may be able to get the tank cheaper than you and even with their mark-up they you may still get it cheaper through them. Alternatively they may get it cheaper but still charge you above retail! It's hard to say unless you know what they plan to charge for this specific item.

But at least if you outsource it to the plumber and there is anything wrong with the tank it's their problem to resolve and not yours.

As a general rule of thumb though plumbers don't seem keen on you purchasing components as obviously it affects their profit margins. I don't think most plumbers will install a new boiler you've bought yourself.

Also do you have a suitable concrete base for the oil tank already? If not you could certainly save yourself some money doing this yourself. You'd need to ensure you follow the rules around the sizing, construction and siting though.

Hope that helps a bit!

reeac

ilikecookies wrote: »

I remember being confused by this. I believe either feed works but I couldn't understand the rationale for a top-feed. Ours has a bottom feed.

I suppose that top feed avoids possible problems with leaky joints and valves although I've never heard of any such problems. It could however, lead to an air lock if you run too low on fuel.

w50nky

Depending on your location you may require a bunded tank. Perhaps downloading the regs may provide some insight.

greyteam1959

w50nky wrote: »

Depending on your location you may require a bundled tank. Perhaps downloading the regs may provide some insight.

Bunded..........not bundled

Ebe_Scrooge

As a slight aside, it would be worth buying the biggest tank you can. I'm sure there must be rules about how much oil you are allowed to store, you'd need to check this out. But we have a 1200 litre tank, and fill it up roughly 3 times a year. Oil is generally cheaper in the summer ( I guess it must be a supply-and-demand thing ), but I've toyed with the idea of getting another tank so that I can fill up when it's cheaper, and get enough to last me the best part of a year. OK, you have a much bigger outlay when you do fill up, but overall you could make a reasonable saving by being able to time your fill when the price is cheaper, and not be beholden to the oil suppliers and having to buy during the winter months.

I don't know, I'm probably talking rubbish, but it's worth thinking about if you're buying a new tank anyway :-) And of course, if you have a large tank, there's nothing to say you have to fill it, you could still buy just 500 litres or whatever if that's all you can afford at the time. Just a thought.

highrisklowreturn

You're best bet is to buy one off gumtree for about 40 quid, and save a few hundred £.

As for buying a very large one don't bother - the oil market is the most volatile part of the energy market and prices can and do go down in winter (it happened this year) relative to summer.

The reason why oil companies may seem to be ripping you off is more down to the fact that they get too much business in winter relative to the rest of the year. Essentially each company will offer a cheap price until they get off slots on their run to empty the tanker, and once it becomes unfeasible to take on new business ie once they're booked for a couple of days to empty 20k litres worth of oil, they deliberately make their prices less competitive, then lower them again to a general minimum once their tankers are near dry to bring in more business.

Do not be buying, as the other poster advised, a large oil tank if you intend to only get small orders or expect to only be able to afford small amounts of oil. The larger tanks will have greater amounts of oil getting trapped at the bottom when the oil level is not parallel to the outlet feed. For example, in my 1300litre tank, this occurs around when there's 100 litres left, meaning I can't burn those litres unless I angle the tank by putting a brick at the end.

If I had a larger tank I would encounter this problem on a larger scale.

malc_b

You don't need an oftec installer but then you would need to go through building regs, or maybe you always need building regs. Building regs people would advise. I know I needed BR for my new oil tank. I didn't have one before. Rules would be different if it was just a replacement. And I was near a footpath too.

A larger tank is useful as oil is almost always cheaper in the summer (I run a buying group). Watch out for house insurance though as mine has £1000 limit which is under 2000l at today's prices. A larger oil tank allows you to pick and choose when to fill too so if, it is expensive in the summer then you can wait.

G_M

You'll need Building Regulations certificate for both the boiler and the tank. Frankly it's easier/safer to get an OFTEC engineer to install both, and provide the certificates.

Yes, get the biggest tank you can afford/fit. Then you can choose when to buy oil (ie top it up when it's half full if the price dips) instead of being forced to buy whatever the price because it's nearly empty.

Read the tank guidlines here from OFTEC.

I assume with a top feed tank you need a pump? One more thingto go wrong.....Assuming your tank location is higher than your boiler, avoid a pump and use gravity.

I looked at buying online, but in the end my OFTEC installer bought it - he gets volume discounts. I didn't get a breakdown from him specifying tank price, but his 'supply and fit' quote was cheaper than any other installer's 'fit only' quote + the cost of me buying the tank.

Also easier as he managed the delivery (and in my case pumped out the old rusty steel tank, stored the oil, cleaned it, and put it in new tank.