Would oil central heating put you off a property?

thriftytracey

Hi everyone

After a few weeks of not much coming on the market we have actually seen something we are considering viewing.  It has come back on the market as "Reduced" but there is no Property Log entry against it so maybe it is a new estate agent.  It also has the dreaded "offers in excess of".  Anyway, although it is 15 miles away from our desired location it does tick quite a few more boxes.  However the downside is the oil central heating as it is in a village in Somerset.  We are currently on gas and are very careful with energy bills, have recently switched supplier, paying a higher DD due to the recent increase and I understand that another hike is in the offing next winter.

Maybe at the way things are going gas costs will be on parity with oil.

So - would it put you off buying a property?  

AdrianC

No.

If you want gas, you can still have gas - albeit in a tank in the garden (as we do).
Or if you don't want to change the boiler, you can have gas bottles for the hob.

Personally, I much prefer bulk gas to oil. Yes, there's downsides - two year contracts rather than spot price, but that balances in less volatility. And no stink. And no theft risk. Yes, mains gas would be nice... but trading the location off? Nope.

"Reduced", "OIEO", all marketing guff. View it, decide what it's worth to you, offer that.

Keep_pedalling

I don’t like oil fired CH, but I would not rule it out on that basis, and would at kicking out and installing a heat pump solution.

lonibra

It would put me off as I much prefer mains gas supply. But at a sufficiently discounted price (to a similar property with mains gas) I would consider.

Spreadsheetman

Depends where the property location is. If there is no mains gas service then oil or tank gas is it.

Don't count on changing to a heat pump unless the house was designed and built with that in mind, a lot of older properties would require very extensive (and expensive) insulation adding for this to be economic to run.

user1977

If I was considering a property which had oil heating I'd expect that its competitors didn't have mains gas either.

lucypilates

As you have no mains gas option, (because there is no mains gas in the village) you have to consider the other options that are available to you.

as an ex- energy assessor, I can tell you the order of ‘energy efficiency’ regarding costs to run went thus - best at the top:



Mains gas fired central heating

oil fired central heating

electric storage heaters

lpg (liquid gas)

Ordinary tariff electric room heaters (would include electric under floor heating)



 so oil fired CH is second best option in terms of cost.

i’ve not included any renewable energy sources as they would obviously affect the efficiency of the property  as a whole. Also you could potentially increase insulation levels which would make the property more energy efficient.

 Best practice is to view the building holistically - ie try not look at a single item by itself but look at all the measures you can effect to make the property better as a whole.


If the property ticks all the other boxes, location, size, schools, would you be happy there ..  then the oil ch shouldn’t really be a deal breaker in my opinion 

The_Real_Cheddar_Bob

This is my full time trade. Oil is easy to manage and runs just like mains gas. The price does fluctuate, but you only hear winging when prices go up, never down (funnily enough), you also never hear winging when it becomes the cheapest form of heating your home... it has done so three times in the past 5 years. 

LPG is stupidly expensive and those on it have little or no idea of how much they are being fleeced. 


Find yourself a local firm, get yourself hooked up to their topup service and pay by S/O or DD. If you are price conscious, you can ask them to notify you prior to delivery, check the market if it pleases you to do so and they will usually match the price.

Be warned, whilst we are on a money saving forum, those customers who I know ring multiple companies every time, I have less of an urge to get to them over other customers who do not. So plan well in advance and i'm not talking a week, be a month ahead of yourself and you will be fine. 

AdrianC

The_Real_Cheddar_Bob said:

LPG is stupidly expensive and those on it have little or no idea of how much they are being fleeced. 

This is simply not true, except when people are daft enough to fall onto default tariffs.

ss2020jd

It wouldn’t put me off but then I live in an area where there is no gas and whole villages are run on oil fired central heating. Before I became familiar with it I would have probably had the same doubts. 

Although I don’t have it myself at the moment where I am renting, all my friends and neighbours do and I haven’t heard of any problems, apart from a faulty gauge once which meant they ran out of oil sooner than expected. Some are part of a syndicate to get better prices.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will have to have it in the place I have found and am in love with. I checked the epc and it doesn’t seem to have affected the rating for that. It was helpful to see @lucypilates comments as well. Although I would rather have an air source heat pump, in an older property this does not seem feasible.  

comeandgo

Never had anything other than oil heating, nothing wrong with it other than cost fluctuations.