Houses with oil tank

graduate

We are considering a bungalow which has a oil tank. The tank looks like it is made of metal and is rusty on the outside. There is no gas supply. I have a few questions:

1. How much difference is there in energy costs between oil and gas?

2. Does having oil central heating effect property prices or the time it takes to sell? The reason I ask is that a few properties in this village have been on the market for a while and I was wondered if oil heating put people off or is it the fact the properties all need 'some work' / updating.

3. Would checking the condition of the tank be included in a survey or would you need a separate person to have a look?

4. If it did need replacing roughly how much would that cost?

Thanks
G

x-posted in oil forum

G_M

graduate wrote: »

We are considering a bungalow which has a oil tank. The tank looks like it is made of metal and is rusty on the outside. I have a few questions:

1. How much difference is there in energy costs?
What - between storig the oil in a steel Vs a plastic tank? None.

2. Does having one effect property prices or the time it takes to sell?
Don't see why. Is it the presence of the tank that worries you, or the use of oil for heating? Is there also a gas supply?

The reason I ask is that a few properties in this village have been on the market for a while and I was wondered if oil tanks put people off or is it the fact they all need 'some work' / updating.
You mean the properties need updating? Or the tanks?

3. Would checking the condition of the tank be included in a survey or would you need a separate person to have a look?
You'd need an OFTEC engineer. He will tell you the tank is old (x - y years) has some/a lot of external rust, may have internal rust (can't tell, and will need replacing 'at some point in the future'

4. If it did need replacing roughly how much would that cost?
Google oil tanks - see below

Thanks
G

http://www.tankdepot.co.uk/which_domestic_oil_tank.htm?

I paid £2500 for supply & installation but that included:
* a large tank (2500 litres)
* access via farmers field, using (paying for!) farmer's fork-lift tractor
* construction of new concrete base
* moving oil from old to new tank
* 2 days work in all - an easy job is less than one day

Depends on size of tank. Get the biggest you can afford/fit.

See also

http://oftec.org/

and the oil forum here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=78

Argghhh

surface rust can be removed and repainted - next door has a big oil tank in back yard, however house has been converted to GCH so its basically redundant- it might be in your case too so can be removed and sold for scrap

AdrianC

Oil is more expensive than mains gas, so if the place is on oil it's unlikely that there's a lot of option locally, so - no - it won't make much difference. Bulk LPG is also an option, with a gas tank in the garden. Cost of LPG vs oil depends on who you talk to.

Oil, you have no contract, are at the mercy of spot markets, and it's easy to nick.
Gas, you're tied to a two year contract, so can't shop around every fill, but the tank is somebody else's problem.

Obviously, if you're on oil now, changing to something else would require a new boiler. Any new tank now would be a double-skinned plastic one - MUCH better, since not only do you not want the expense of the steel tank spilling all your oil everywhere, you really don't want the pollution either.

Paul_the_Painter

Oil actually cheaper than gas at the moment. Spot price is low, gas prices are high due to most having been bought 1-2 years ago on forward contract by the energy companies providing it. (When energy was expensive)

moneyistooshorttomention

Thinking longer-term than present oil prices, oil is EXPENSIVE and going to get a lot more so. As I understand it, it looks as if oil prices are only temporarily lower in order to knock the frackers out of the market (I spelt that word very carefully;)) and then will revert to normal prices and start shooting up again.

I had that on my current house when I bought it. I wouldn't have dreamt of buying the house if I couldn't have got it removed and all "normalised" (ie electric and mains gas only). That was possible with this house, so I bought it.

If there'd been an equivalent house nearby without the oil tank set-up, this one wouldn't be the one I would have gone for.

Don't know what other fuels you could use for your central heating if you are in a village? Personally, if forced to choose a house without mains gas, then I'd have whipped out the oil tank anyway and put in solar panels and/or storage radiators.

Your house will be more "self-sufficient" in one way so to say if you don't need oil lorries rocking up at intervals and making a delivery to you. Electric storage radiators = no worries about deliveries/no risk of theft of fuel.

princeofpounds

Thinking longer-term than present oil prices, oil is EXPENSIVE and going to get a lot more so. As I understand it, it looks as if oil prices are only temporarily lower in order to knock the frackers out of the market (I spelt that word very carefully;)) and then will revert to normal prices and start shooting up again.

Not really. Long-term there is a gas/oil energy equivalence price, given they are both to some degree substitutable (with regional differences and change over time of course). Prior to this oil fall, that was way out of line with historic norms. A recovery from this levels is quite possible but the oil forward curve points to oil regaining less than half the drop since last year.

Shale gas from the US rapidly increased gas supply, shale oil is now doing similar things for oil.

Oil is somewhat more expensive than mains gas. But it's not that bad, way better than electricity for example. Things like thefts tend to be way overstated risks, especially now prices are lower.

Often it puts of townies much more than rural people, loads of rural homes run on oil.

AdrianC

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Personally, if forced to choose a house without mains gas, then I'd have whipped out the oil tank anyway and put in solar panels and/or storage radiators.

Unfortunately, peak solar panel output and heating requirements don't tend to coincide, as our solar hot water panel proves.

Mattygroves2

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Don't know what other fuels you could use for your central heating if you are in a village? Personally, if forced to choose a house without mains gas, then I'd have whipped out the oil tank anyway and put in solar panels and/or storage radiators.

Your house will be more "self-sufficient" in one way so to say if you don't need oil lorries rocking up at intervals and making a delivery to you. Electric storage radiators = no worries about deliveries/no risk of theft of fuel.

I'm not sure solar panels would be very effective as an alternative to oil. I've got both solar PV and solar thermal and whilst the solar thermal does provide most of the hot water in the summer you don't get much (if any) benefit over the winter. Similarly with solar PV - the amount of electricity generated drops significantly over the winter months - lower sun and less daylight hours - so it won't help with providing power for storage radiators.

In most rural areas the alternatives are usually oil or LPG - I've never seen one with storage radiators round here. I suspect they are more expensive than oil and certainly less flexible. Having an oil boiler is just like having a gas one except you've got a tank outside to feed it and it will need servicing twice a year.

In terms of deliveries the trick is to get the biggest tank available and then you'll probably only need one fill a year (we have two for a big 4 bed house which includes running an AGA). You will get a better price for a larger delivery as well.

Better_Days

Actually I was advised by a tank installer that a well maintained metal tank will likely outlast a plastic tank. In his experience plastic tanks would last around 10 years. Keep your metal tank painted and it will likely last decades.

The other thing is that when metal tanks leak they 'weep' oil. Plastic tanks are more likely to split resulting in a much more serious leak into the enviroment. Cleaning up an oil leak to the standard that the EA require can be very expensive.