What is your average monthly spend on heating oil?

Emrose1985

Hello, We are in the process of buying a new house which has heating oil. I am a bit concerned about news of significant price rises for heating oil and customers not being protected by price caps.

Could you let me know what your monthly spend was on heating oil last winter? And what you anticipate your monthly spend to be on heating oil this winter. Thank you.

Rodders53

It doesn't work like that.  In any case my usage will be different to yours.  
One buys oil in bulk - 500 litres is a minimum legal delivery by tanker.  It's cheaper if you buy in larger quantities and timing purchase can save a bit, too.

Last year Aug 27th had a delivery of 983 litres at 41.7p/l  £430.41 inc 5% vat.  (Ordered 1000l but the tank would only hold that much!).  I missed the really cheap oil due to the pandemic, though.

Will be ordering soon and it might take 900 litres at around 89p/l = a bit over £840.   Price is creeping upwards again - I should have ordered less oil at under 80p a month ago.

It was a mild winter last year so use was down.

Ask current owners for their records of usage over the years?

Van_Girl

I have a 3 bed detached bungalow with solid walls and floors, loft is well insulated.

I used approx. 800 ltrs in the 6 months between October 21 and April 22. The cost was 55p p/l so £440 inc VAT

I've just filled up the tank at 86 p/l so if I use the same, I'm looking at £688 inc VAT

From Oct ish, I heat the house to 19 between 6am and 10am, then 17 throughout the day (WFH), then 19 again 6pm to 10pm. Overnight, it's set to come on below 14

I have an electric shower, so oil used for hot water heating is only for the sinks. 

My boiler is about 5 years old so quite efficient, or so I'm told

It was quite a mild winter though, so if it's colder this year I'll use more. I also have an LPG fire in the lounge, which does get used on the colder nights.

mark_cycling00

There are some very useful replies to other messages in this forum section that will help. 
My finger in the air estimate for a 3-4 bed is £1,600. 

One statistic mentioned recently, is that per-KWH of energy released: for 1 litre of heating oil (at say 85p a litre) you'd need to buy £1.50 of gas. So effectively it's about half-price right now compared to non-subsided gas

This might be out-of-date now, so hopefully one of the clever people on here sees your message and can give better info.

The cost seems to be linked to oil prices (heating oil is the second biggest product refined from a barrel of oil) and panic-buying.
You're right, there isn't a "price-cap" and no government will ever care about you enough to implement one. You basically don't exist.

A new boiler will be 95% efficient, an older one could be really inefficient. Important to check this!

You might get a slight discount by ordering through a club to minimise delivery costs. The man who runs our buying club has noticed that the amount of oil used by different villages varies considerably due to wind exposure as well as exposure to sunlight

Reed_Richards

Four bedroom timber-framed bungalow built in 1980.  Between 4/2/2019 & 6/2/2020 I used 1936 litres of oil.  You'll have to work out what that would cost at current prices.  

dunstonh

I am a bit concerned about news of significant price rises for heating oil and customers not being protected by price caps.

Oil is just under double its recent long term average at this time.

Could you let me know what your monthly spend was on heating oil last winter?

Oil doesn't work that way.   You pay as you fill it up.  So, if you fill up three times a year, you pay three times.  If you fill up once, then you pay once.

 And what you anticipate your monthly spend to be on heating oil this winter. Thank you.

3000 litres a year on a large old farmhouse.  Filled up as 3x 1000 litres each year.   Our tank is too small for the size of the house at 1470litres.  So, I have to do multiple fill-ups over the year.    Others will have tanks that see them through the year.


 Typically we use virtually nothing between May and September but then fill up around November, January and March.   Winter was mild last year and usage was a little lower, which was good as oil was priced higher last winter than it currently is. We got into April before refilling, and it has only used one bar on the oil monitor since.  

Many people that are on oil keep their own records.  e.g. via a spreadsheet or notebook.   It gives you the opportunity to measure trends and use.    You could ask the existing owner how much they use.  However, be wary of what they say.  The previous owners to us said they filled up once a year and there was enough oil to see them through the winter when we moved in.     In reality, it was enough for just one month.   They lived with virtually no heating on, whereas I had three women in the house and that was never going to happen!

lohr500

@ Emrose1985 :  There are too many variables to decide if your running costs will be similar to anyone elses.

It will depend on many things, like how big and how old is the house, how old is the boiler, will the boiler be used to heat the water, how warm you like the house to be, will you want heating on all day or just in the evenings/weekends, etc, etc.

But to give you an idea of our consumption :

We have an old converted Yorkshire farmhouse with 5 bedrooms in a reasonably exposed location with older double glazing.

We run the heating at 18 deg in the winter evenings and weekends, setting it back to 16 during the weekdays and 13 deg overnight.
Once it gets warmer outside, we don't use the heating at all..

Our water is heated by Economy 7 overnight, but with a short boost using the boiler at 17:30.(Boiler cheaper than peak rate electricity)

For a full year ending March 2022 we got through 2970 litres of oil.

I have an in-line fuel counter which appears to be reasonably accurate when checked against separate monitoring of the tank levels between known volume top ups.

This coming winter I plan to run the heating a little cooler to try and reduce our consumption.

I also spent a lot of time after our new boiler was installed in February last year balancing the radiators and making sure I had good flow and return temperatures to ensure the boiler runs in condensing mode.

Ebe_Scrooge

To add to the previous comments (I agree that there's no one-size-fits-all).  But what it is worth doing is to have a separate bank account, and put a sum of money aside each month into it.  Then when the time comes to order oil, you've got the cash available.  We tend to fill up about 3 times a year - very roughly it's kind of October, January and April/May.  We use a heck of a lot in Winter, and barely anything through the Summer.  Obviously it depends on how big the house is, how well insulated, whether the heating is on all day, and a host of other variables.

For us, 5 bed detached, reasonably modern (so decent insulation), but heating on pretty much all day in the winter, we've averaged 2200 litres per year.  That's an average over the last 13 years.  So that includes some mild winters and some bitterly cold ones (2010 and 2011 were particularly bad).

For what it's worth we used to put aside £100 per month and that pretty much covered us on average.  Obviously we've been increasing our monthly savings since the prices rocketed - though we did have a nice surplus when the prices hit rock-bottom during the pandemic.

But one tip - always ring around half a dozen local suppliers each time you order.  The prices can vary significantly from one supplier to another, and many will offer to match the best price you've been quoted.  And the supplier who's cheapest one time won't necessarily be the cheapest next time you order.

For that reason, don't sign up for a direct-debit scheme with one supplier (most of them offer this).  But this means you're effectively tied to that supplier.  Much better to have your own "oil savings" account as I mentioned earlier, then shop around each time you order.

Oh, and I don't know if it's universal, but round us the minimum order is 500 litres, but the price-per-litre drops a little bit if you order more than 900 litres.

Getting_greyer

I'll offer my usage and cost over 2 years.  I was wringing my hands worrying before moving but hasn't been catastrophic so far.

Tl;dr: I use bout 1300l a year so far. Probably use most of that in winter. Coupled with electricity bill I still think lot cheaper than mains gas (current price). 

2 adult and 3 kids moved into 4 bed detached 1970's property in normal residential area. Oil is for heating and hot water.  I think i used more in winter 20/21 due to lock downs. This winter all family will be out the house during normal working/school hours.

Tank hold 1200l (it says 1220 on it so I assume but never want to push this to the limit incase its lower)

I had maybe  80-100 litres in tank on moving in late Dec 20.

Dec 20- 500l - £266
Feb 21- 500l- £208
Sep 21- 500l- £245
Dec 21- 600l- £318
Feb 22- 500l- £336 (ordered the day Russian invasion- couple a weeks later would have been £900-1000!).

I have enough fuel to get to December 22. So averaged 1300-1350l a year. Though the average cost per year has increased. And current price is higher. That's with a house that stays toasty as hell upstairs but is a bit drafty downstairs.

I started putting cash aside each month in a separate account so I could buy oil. With oil you don't have standing charges but I guess changing the tank is the hidden cost. Not sure how often needed. Getting boiler serviced soon so will get an idea on life remaining in tank. No doubt new regs mean the only place a new one could go is just where I've dug out a nature pond.

Ideally you want to fill your tank when oil is cheaper. Generally this is summer months.  I haven't had the knack of buying the corrects amounts or cashflow that leaves me generally near empty come summer but I bigger tank would solve this.

I am considering heat pump in future but I believe I would need extensive insulation in this house for it to be viable. I've kind of assumed there will be a huge government drive+incentives in the next few years due to climate targets and/or post recession tool to increase employment.


I'll add i have solar panels, I use c.2600 kwh per year. Currently £900 a year or so. All in I think I've lucked out- my mate on mains recently fixed for a year with £250 a month DD.

Longwalker

Right now there is no way anyone can give a cost, oil is up and down quicker then a !!!!!! drawers 

Last week we paid 82p a litre, this week its 101p a litre, last year we were paying about half that cost.  We average 3000 litres a year

You have to keep an eye on the price per litre, and kind of guess when its going to be cheaper. We paid 82p but had ordered at 81p and now prices are so volatile they arent giving web prices, you have to ring, order and pay

Hopefully we now have enough until December but we keep an eye and top up when prices drop. We used to just buy 1000litres at a time but this past year, we just buy smaller amounts 

magickmagpie

As other posters have said, your oil consumption will depend on your house and your lifestyle. I live in a 130 year old stone 4 bed farmhouse in an exposed position in Mid Wales. I have a fairly modern condensing boiler. I'm semi-retired and mostly work from home when I do work, which means that I have heating on from around 7am - 5pm very day in the winter (and light a wood fire in the living room every evening when the heating goes off). In very cold winters, I leave the heating on set to 5 degrees overnight to prevent pipes from freezing. My hot water is also heated by oil, which means I use some during the summer, but very little. I usually fill my 1200 litre tank 3 times during the year, and usually take 800-900 litres on a fill. Looking back over the past few years, I've used around 2700 litres every year. This winter I plan to light my wood fire earlier in the day to save on oil as I get dry firewood for free.

I keep a very close eye on both the price of oil per barrel and how the pound is doing against the dollar - as both of these affect the price of heating oil. I usually try and fill my tank in July/August as heating oil is normally a lot cheaper in the summer, and then I'll need to fill again in Dec/Jan and Mar/April. When I place the order depends on the price of oil - if I see it falling significantly, I'll start phoning around for prices. It also helps that I can sometimes order in conjunction with my neighbour, so it's a bigger order and therefore a penny or so off the price per litre. It really is important to phone around several suppliers for prices as they do vary, and it's also helpful to be flexible and not insist on an urgent delivery because you have nearly run out - you'll get a better price if they can fit your delivery in sometime in the next week or so, rather than wanting it next day!

When I filled my tank this August I paid 78.5p per litre for oil - which wasn't too bad considering what prices have been earlier this year. I was very lucky to have ordered my previous fill 2 days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine - so only paid 62p per litre - I believe it went up to over £1 per litre immediately after the invasion. Prior to that I'd been paying between 38p - 45p per litre for most fills (with an amazing 25p per litre in the middle of the pandemic when the oil prices crashed!!)