LPG or OIL

Mister_G wrote: »

But don't forget the Environment Agency and other charges for cleaning up the oil pollution.:)

If you don't spill it there's no problem. A good quality bunded tank takes care of that. I had a MINOR leak neat to the boiler, smelt it, called my engineer, fixed, no problem.

I would say that judging by the propane supply problems this winter go for oil. I had oil for years - never any problem. This year - Calor gas at 40p per litre! - but have now almost run out with no delivery in sight.

Yup last twenty years or so I believe the sensible choices in order has been,


Draught prevention and insulation
mains gas
oil
wood/coal stove (plus lots of effort carrying)
lpg
economy 7 electric storage heaters
pure electric

If you put oil central heating in a house and used it plenty twenty years ago then it was the right choice.

Of course no one knows for sure what the future will hold. Oil may become expensive again or cheap. It hard to guess.

There are fixed costs as well. Central heating and a boiler, even if it lasts twenty years, requires a large upfront cost plus maintenance and repairs. So you have to use quite a lot of energy for it to be worth it. (Traditional UK houses leak heat so it has not been a problem for most, but a well insulated house might not use enough heat to be worth it). By comparison pure electric is dirt cheap to add a radiator but high marginal costs.

Just to complicate things electric heat pumps are currently being positioned as the future. Are they practical yet? Its hard to know. Small cheap ones produce hot air, medium expensive ones produce luke warm water to slowly heat up a well insulated house and expensive ones produce extra hot water. The costs of some may be defrayable with the rhi subsidy. But will they work/be installed correctly? You know where you are with oil. Heats pumps are more of a gamble.

So its tricky but good luck,

(And remember to stop up those draughts first, but remember the anti damp draughts....)