Oil Fired Boiler

MX5huggy

I wouldn’t consider LPG. But look at the Renewable Heat Incentive RHI scheme, you get payments for 7 years if you swap to a Air or Ground Source heat pump, biomass, pellets chips or logs and solar hot water system.

Davesnave

MX5huggy wrote: »

I wouldn’t consider LPG. But look at the Renewable Heat Incentive RHI scheme, you get payments for 7 years if you swap to a Air or Ground Source heat pump, biomass, pellets chips or logs and solar hot water system.

While all this is true, the up-front cost of these things and other considerations may rule these out for you, even if the RHI looks a good incentive.

For us, it was an up-front choice between £21k for pellets or around £9k to have a full new oil system. The pellet people wouldn't actually touch the plumbing; that was extra.

Some ASHP people screwed over a friend with a system that didn't work and then went awol. There was no choice of anyone local and established to provide any of the RHI backed systems, unless one included an outfit 12 miles away, who got into a lot of bother selling cheap pellet boilers, badly installed, that constantly broke down. Their story reached the courts and the papers.

I sound like a Luddite, but I'm not making this up, although the situation may have improved as it was 5 years ago now. Living in the sticks ain't like living in town. I'm happy we stayed conventional.

We got an extended guarantee with the new boiler for a one-off payment of £200, but we've not needed it so far. Service once a year is under £100. We do have free or cheap logs and a wood burner to take much of the strain, however, and we're prepped for solar too when we have the spare £££.

I wouldn't see any advantage in LPG at all; rather the reverse.


Edited to add: Of course, if Corbyn gets in there could be a whole new raft of promises, promises!!!

babyblade41

No to LPG here too.

Always lived rurally and have had oil fired boilers up until last move.

My MIL up the road has had the same OFB for 50 years, my OH services it and its still working fine

Dan-Dan

Mistral001 wrote: »

Well forgive me for not complying with the manufacturer's and OFTEC's recommendations while doing maintenance on my own boiler. I am also probably guilty of voiding the warranty on my now almost 50 year old boiler.

Did you miss the word efficiency ? Its you that benefit from it :rotfl:

Niv

I echo what many above have said.


I have an oil boiler and recently had the pump and one other thing replaced (cant recall what it was now but it was also around £100 so for both was around £200) - the guy that changed them said that I have basically replaced the boiler now so no point replacing it as only other moving parts were things like a fan (which is a solid piece of metal - nothing to go wrong etc.) and consumables that get changed annually like nozzles and flexi pipes.

Mistral001

Niv wrote: »

I echo what many above have said.


I have an oil boiler and recently had the pump and one other thing replaced (cant recall what it was now but it was also around £100 so for both was around £200) - the guy that changed them said that I have basically replaced the boiler now so no point replacing it as only other moving parts were things like a fan (which is a solid piece of metal - nothing to go wrong etc.) and consumables that get changed annually like nozzles and flexi pipes.

Many people here have mentioned that they have had their pump replaced costing a £100. It is a fair an reasonable price for supplying and fitting a pump. But is a new pump always needed when a fault develops?

Last year when I switched on the boiler for the first time after the summer, I noticed that there was a very loud noise from the pump. In true moneysaving style, I went on youtube to try to find out if really was the pump that was broken or was it just something stuck in it. In fact it was the latter. A simple loosening of the small screw cap on the top of the pump and a turn or two of the pump's impeller with a screwdriver, fixed the problem in about five minutes. The pump is now still going perfectly.

sgun

We get two emergency call outs a year with our oil provider as long as we order over 1500 litres a year from them, which we do. I do check prices with other providers each time we order but haven't found any more than a couple pence in the difference so for the call out cover its has been worth sticking with them. TBH there isn't much that can go wrong in the old boilers - the last time it was serviced we discussed getting a new one but the engineer said cost wise it would be better to wait until it started failing and then get it done.

A new boiler would be about 9% more efficient; I can live with that for now and will just start saving for the day when I need to replace as I would then maybe have it moved from the kitchen too and get everything upgraded to comply with new regulations.

I've looked into ASH but the technology just isn't there yet and our house cant have cavity wall insulation as we are very exposed. A friend down the road fitted a GSHP and solar panels when she moved in to hers, the whole system cost around £30,000 without storage battery. She knows she wont save that back, it was for environmental reasons. I definitely wouldn't go for LPG, oil is more flexible although having a 2500 litre tank helps.

scaredofdebt

Thanks again, interesting comments everyone.


So, another issue today.


We had a oil delivery, tank was down to about 100 litres, they put another 500 litres in and it wouldn't fire up.


I had turned the boiler off when the delivery driver pulled up and switched it on about an hour after he left. I have since learned via the internet that you should leave it off for longer.


The water trap next to the oil tank was full of black stuff, so drained that off but the boiler wouldn't fire.


I then bled the system at what I assume is the filter next to the boiler, it actually didn't seem to need bleeding as oil came out straight away, but still wouldn't fire.


I bled it again for good measure and then after 3-4 more attempts it fired up and is running OK now.


A neighbour reckons I might need a new oil tank as ours is old (no idea how old but certainly 10 years plus) and they fill up with stuff over time.


Do I need a new tank? They're how much fitted? I imagine not cheap!


Thanks again for any further advice, fairly new to this oil boiler stuff.

Davesnave

If the tank is plastic and single skin, there's the chance that deterioration via UV light will eventually lead to failure and spillage. With metal tanks, failure is usually less serious and sudden than with plastic, so it's a good idea to think about changing a single skin tank that's over 10 years old for a bunded (twin skin) one.

A large spillage of oil is a serious matter which might cost £thousands to sort out.

We changed our old 1200 litre tank a few years ago when we replaced the boiler. The old tank didn't meet the newer regulations for siting and it was on the small side, so I built a new concrete pad and stand for an 1800 litre bunded tank, which itself cost around £1000. Having dug the channel etc for him, it didn't take long for our heating guy to install the line and connect-up.

The cost of a new tank is partly down to whether re-siting's required and exactly what it involves. We needed a 0.5m up-stand, which I was able to construct from s/h building materials and paving slabs, so it cost very little; in fact I was able to save on disposal costs by hiding a load of old concrete blocks etc inside it as it was built!


After draining the old fuel into a few 25l containers, I eBayed the old (10yrs +) tank and got £80 for it.


https://www.oftec.org.uk/consumers/domestic-oil-tanks-and-storage

scaredofdebt

Our tank is plastic but no idea if it's single or double skinned, I suspect single, is it easy to tell?


It's on a raised concrete/stone plinth, hopefully it's going to be OK for another tank, current one is either 1,000 or 1,200 litres capacity.


The tank is behind a fence so sunlight doesn't shine on it directly apart from the very top of it, the exposed side is north facing so hopefully it won't fall apart.