Oil heating financial help

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Newbie
Hello
I done a house swap last July to a rural house that has a oil boiler, I have half filled the tank up twice so far costing me 250 a time it needs doing again which I did not anticipate I have rang my oil man up & he said for half a tank it is £350 as its gone up I really don't know what to do as I only get money once a month from universal credit which I already struggle on I'm a single parent with a 15 & 8 year old, I've not has the heating on last 3 days only early morning as I'm worried it will run out..I see there is help you can get if you are with a company is there any help I can get ASAP with oil not being with a supplier? the plug on the wall is flashing stating I am on 1 bar.Any answers appreciated.Thank you
I done a house swap last July to a rural house that has a oil boiler, I have half filled the tank up twice so far costing me 250 a time it needs doing again which I did not anticipate I have rang my oil man up & he said for half a tank it is £350 as its gone up I really don't know what to do as I only get money once a month from universal credit which I already struggle on I'm a single parent with a 15 & 8 year old, I've not has the heating on last 3 days only early morning as I'm worried it will run out..I see there is help you can get if you are with a company is there any help I can get ASAP with oil not being with a supplier? the plug on the wall is flashing stating I am on 1 bar.Any answers appreciated.Thank you
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To be honest, if you are filling up the tank with just £250 a go, then that is a very small amount. You don't say how many litres it is but its probably only around 400 litres. So, its possible you are paying a higher price for ordering such a small amount.
Unlike gas or electricity, you pay for oil as you use it. You dont spread the cost over the year. So, in the winter months, you use around 80% of the oil. Whilst in the summer months, you use virtually none. If you have a small tank or you refill with smaller amounts, you would typically fill up three times over winter and once in Spring. For example, mine is generally around November, December, February and May for fill ups. So, there is a 6 month period i pay nothing and then three in quick sucession.
Ideally, you should have been budgeting for the winter months during the 6 months that you didn't spend anything on oil. That is what you do with gas and electricity but with Oil, you have to do it yourself.
What size is your tank?
How many litres is that £350 getting you?
Kerosene suppliers don't tend to 'half fill' a tank... rather delivering a fixed volume (e.g. 500 litres, 900 litres etc.,.). Nor have I - to date - ever been offered a delivery based on the value (e.g. £300-worth). It's not as easy to get a 'fill the tank' order in nowadays as it used to be (pay before delivery is the 'norm', but some suppliers accept Credit Card payments).
OP must phone round for best price(s) and may need to seek advice from places such as Citizens Advice with respect to hardship type loans for this winter refill? Some Kerosene suppliers may be sympathetic also and offer payment terms? Assuming that no one else the OP knows can help financially, in the short term at least.
The alternative of using electricity to heat the home and water would be even more costly.
Stay clear of signing up to a single supplier's DD scheme. Over the past 6 years I have used 5 different suppliers, each time selecting based on the lowest quote.
On one of those occasions BoilerJuice did come up with the lowest price. When I asked my other suppliers if they could match it, they all declined. The company who actually delivered the oil was based miles away, has since been taken over and no longer delivers to my area. Perhaps they were struggling and desperate for business at any price.
Locking yourself into one supplier means you can't shop around or possibly time your deliveries to coincide with periods when the price tends to drop. Typically prices do seem a bit cheaper in the Spring/early Summer as mentioned above. I read somewhere it was to do with higher demand for oil in the USA over winter, but I don't know if this is fact or fiction.