Benefits for households on oil

Linsomer

Why can't those households using oil as their main source of heating and hot water, usually low income, use the £400 towards the cost of refilling their tank rather than offsetting their smaller electricity costs?
Without a decent upfront sum of money, we cant buy oil for the winter.
Minimum purchase is 500 litres which amounts to hundreds of pounds upfront or we freeze

MattMattMattUK

Linsomer said:

Why can't those households using oil as their main source of heating and hot water, usually low income, use the £400 towards the cost of refilling their tank rather than offsetting their smaller electricity costs?

The government have chose to administer the scheme through the electricity billing system. Is your monthly electricity usage below £66 pcm, as the payment will be made monthly from October. If it is below that amount then you can just cut your electricity payment to zero for the months whilst it is being paid. Also oil fired heating does not mean low income, it just means rural, many of the largest, most expensive properties are off the gas grid.

Linsomer said:

Without a decent upfront sum of money, we cant buy oil for the winter.
Minimum purchase is 500 litres which amounts to hundreds of pounds upfront or we freeze

How would you have paid for this up front in previous years? Some of the providers may offer credit schemes, local buying clubs etc. are all going to be worth looking at, as would be putting it on a zero interest credit card and spreading the repayments over time. If you are on a low income are you eligible for any of the other cost of living handouts as they are all paid in lump sums rather than paid via energy bills? If you are on Universal Credit you could also take an advance and use that to buy in bulk, which would then reduce your future UC payments but allow you to have purchased in advance. 

pochase

The £400 that is paid into the electricity accounts is the help for everybody.

There are other grants available that are paid directly to the consumer. Question is just if your understanding of low income matches the one of the government. You need to be on means tested benefits for the £650 grant.

Astria

Linsomer said:

Without a decent upfront sum of money, we cant buy oil for the winter.
Minimum purchase is 500 litres which amounts to hundreds of pounds upfront or we freeze

As it stands at the moment, the upfront sum of money will be £66, then the same each month until the full amount has been received. It's not £400 in one go.

Robin9

@Linsomer -   how much have you been quoted ?  50-60-70 ppl ?

If you put the £150 you've already had  -  then your tank costs about £200 

Phones4Chris

Robin9 said:

@Linsomer -   how much have you been quoted ?  50-60-70 ppl ?

If you put the £150 you've already had  -  then your tank costs about £200 

Are you joking, prices are running at around and above £1 per litre!

Jyana

Phones4Chris said:

Robin9 said:

@Linsomer -   how much have you been quoted ?  50-60-70 ppl ?

If you put the £150 you've already had  -  then your tank costs about £200 

Are you joking, prices are running at around and above £1 per litre!

Yep, just over that at present I think. Round £1.05 when I checked a couple of places yesterday. So, £550+ odd for the minimum order with vat and fees.

I will be using my £326 payment that comes in July towards it. I would be stuck without that coming this year I think and dread to think how I'd be affording it. And once the £400 has been fully paid towards my electricity bill I'll be asking for some of that to be refunded so I can get the tank topped up for the new year too.

Ultrasonic

MattMattMattUK said:

Is your monthly electricity usage below £66 pcm, as the payment will be made monthly from October.

Has there been any definitive confirmation of this yet? I really don't think there has been. It may very well be paid like this but I don't think we know and I don't think this should be being stated as fact.

MattMattMattUK

Ultrasonic said:

MattMattMattUK said:

Is your monthly electricity usage below £66 pcm, as the payment will be made monthly from October.

Has there been any definitive confirmation of this yet? I really don't think there has been. It may very well be paid like this but I don't think we know and I don't think this should be being stated as fact.

As far as I understand it the idea is solidly set on the credit being applied over six months rather than as a lump, the theory being that it will cancel out some of the October rise and hopefully stop people trying to withdraw the amount if it were to be applied in one go. As far as confirmation, no it has not been confirmed, I don't think that is expected until August at the earliest, the negotiations as to how everything is funded are dragging on. The government wants energy companies to fund the credits themselves and deduct the amounts from their VAT and Corporation Tax bills, the energy providers have pointed out that would take them 2-4 years to recover the amount via VAT and that at the moment most are breaking even or losing money so they want the government to reimburse them directly. 

It would not surprise me if it is not actually confirmed until September, but I also expect that Boris will get caught out again before then and so we will see an increase in the amount as another distraction. 

maisie_cat

Does your oil supplier offer monthly payment options? You won't need much oil now until October ish, our oil ran out in March last year and we did without until the new boiler was fitted in July.

lohr500

As others have mentioned above, some suppliers do offer monthly payment plans to cover the cost of oil.

The main problem with these schemes is that they prevent you from shopping around to find the best price when you need to fill the tank.

But if finding the lump sum each time you need to buy the 500 litre minimum order is a challenge then a monthly scheme might be your best option to help manage your cashflow.

Unfortunately a monthly payment scheme or zero % interest credit card won't help if you cant afford to pay the monthly amount due to a lack of income. 

How much oil do you use a year? If you take the current price per litre of +/- £1.05 including VAT, multiply £1.05 by the annual number of litres and divide by 12, this will give you a rough estimate of the monthly payment.

Not sure if the suppliers do any checks on credit history or require income information before opening these budget accounts. 


Have you taken steps to minimise the amount of oil you are using?

• Turning down the room thermostat by a few degrees.
• Running the central heating for fewer hours.
• Reducing the water temperature thermostat.
• If you have a condensing boiler, make sure the water return temperature is less than 54 deg C. (Helps the boiler to run more efficiently).
  
• Fitting thermostatically controlled radiator valves (TRV) particularly in rooms that aren't used often.
• If you have an Economy 7 or other off-peak electricity tariff, heat the water using off-peak electricity, particularly in the summer when the central heating will be off. With oil at £1.05 per litre the break even point for using electricity is around £0.12 per unit or less.
• Making sure roof spaces are well insulated and doors/windows are draught proofed.

With the exception of fitting TRVs and insulation/draughtproofing, the above cost nothing to implement. Stick on door/window draught proofing tape costs very little from the DIY stores. Roof insulation is more expensive but can be done on a DIY basis if you are competent to fit it.


Other things to look at on the boiler include :

• Ensuring the boiler output is matched to the requirement. An oversized boiler will not run efficiently and ends up using more oil than needed. Many oil boilers can be down rated by fitting a smaller fuel injection nozzle and resetting the airflow mix.
• Consider the age of the boiler. If it is more than 10 years old, it could well be a non condensing design with poor efficiency. (Our 30 year old boiler had a theoretical efficiency of 70% when new. The one we replaced it with has a 94.5% theoretical efficiency.  
• Review the control and valve systems linked to the boiler. 

These will cost more to rectify, but if you plan to stay in the property for some time, they can give a longer term payback.

The list of energy saving measures is long and I am probably only scratching the surface.
Well worth looking at all your energy consumption to try and reduce where you can.

I had hoped oil prices would fall back to previous levels after the initial impact of the tragedy going on in Ukraine, but it seems unlikely. The longer term forecast doesn't look good. So anything you can do to reduce consumption becomes even more important.