What is the point of heating oil?

intex

A lot of homes in the UK seem to use heating oil. These homes are usually a little bit out of town. Why?

Since a home with heating oil also has electricity, why not just make the whole home electric? Surely it would be cheaper, more convenient and less hassle to maintain? (My home is all electric and my electricity bill has been about £17 a month for many years).

Is there some technical reason why certain homes cannot have heating provided by electricity?

alleycat`

Heating a house for £17 a month on all electric is a fairly good trick to pull off especially if you have been doing it for "many years".

Electricity is up 60% in real terms costs since 2003.
You are obviously managing to do a lot more with less under those circumstances.

More power to you in that regard.

For most people heating oil is a lot cheaper and a lot more flexible than all electric.
(i'm talking about E7 and storage heaters with regards to flexibility and lack thereof).

Cardew

Whilst electricity charges have rocketed in recent years, your bill has remained at £17 monthly for many years??

The average household bill for those with gas heating in UK is over £1,300pa(£110 monthly) and with electricity being much more expensive than gas, all electric properties are considerably more expensive.

So I can't think what size of all electric property and lifestyle you have to manage on £17 a month. In fact the average electricity bill in UK for properties that don't use electricity for heating and hot water is double your £17.

There isn't a big difference between the cost of electrical storage heating and oil central heating. However many people dislike the inflexibility of storage heating, and they 'leak' heat during the day, so can run out of heat in the evenings.

Moneysava_wannaB

intex wrote: »

A lot of homes in the UK seem to use heating oil. These homes are usually a little bit out of town. Why?

Since a home with heating oil also has electricity, why not just make the whole home electric? Surely it would be cheaper, more convenient and less hassle to maintain? (My home is all electric and my electricity bill has been about £17 a month for many years).

Is there some technical reason why certain homes cannot have heating provided by electricity?

What sort of size house do you have? chicken coop?

Stratus

It's not cheaper.
Energy Saving Trust have the following (slightly outdated) figures per kWh for different fuels:
Gas: 4.64p
Oil: 6.02p
LPG: 8.77p
Electricity Economy 7: 9.08p
Electricity standard: 15.32p

tberry6686

Stratus wrote: »

It's not cheaper.
Energy Saving Trust have the following (slightly outdated) figures per kWh for different fuels:
Gas: 4.64p
Oil: 6.02p
LPG: 8.77p
Electricity Economy 7: 9.08p
Electricity standard: 15.32p

Only thing is these numbers are not the whole story. factor in maintainence costs etc and gas is a lot closer to electricity than you think. LPG and probably oil will be more expensive.

System

thats a lot for e7 night rate mine is about 5.75 and day is 12 ish per kw

macman

Cost of an annual boiler service: less than £100. Even with that added, mains gas or even oil CH is going to be cheaper than all-electrric.

fishybusiness

Since a home with heating oil also has electricity, why not just make the whole home electric? Surely it would be cheaper, more convenient and less hassle to maintain?

Here is your answer, look at the orange line. In the middle of February this year we had an oil boiler installed.

http://i978.photobucket.com/albums/ae268/fishybusiness2/Useage_zpsc81522a3.jpg

G_M

intex wrote: »

A lot of homes in the UK seem to use heating oil. These homes are usually a little bit out of town. Why?

It is either because they are in villages, or farms, that pre-date the expansion of towns, or because some townie saw the land, bought it, and built a house.

Why else would a home be a little bit out of town?

tberry6686

macman wrote: »

Cost of an annual boiler service: less than £100. Even with that added, mains gas or even oil CH is going to be cheaper than all-electrric.

Add in installation costs, likely boiler replacement costs etc and you will see what I mean. The energy savings trust numbers for E7 electricity are just wrong. E7 for me currently is around 5 p, and daytime rate about 12p.