heating oil

[psbarham]

Anybody else unfortunate enough to be heated by oil? if so how much do you use in a year, Ours somehow has used 500 lires in less than 7 weeks :o which at 250 quid for 500 litres is fecking expensive :(

[AlanDITD]

my folks do mate.....

the price is a joke, costs them a fortune!

[Turbo_Steve]

Jeysus! I think I'd be looking for the leak!

Also, how old is the oil boiler - the newer ones are a hell of a lot better in terms of fuel consumption - My folks just replaced theirs and have been surprised at the saving.

They managed to save even more when they replaced the copper fuel line, which must have been leaking a tiny amount somewhere.

[psbarham]

the pipe is 3 yrs old and double skinned, and the boiler is 4 and its serviced every year. It does seem incredably thirsty this year though. i wonder what the afr's are for kerosene? I might get the lm-1 out at the weekend

[HJM]

We do and I notice that it has gone up again recently - bought 500l back in December for £200, now about £240 :(

Never used 500l in 7 weeks - although we are very careful with how much heating etc we have on (read 'tight'!!) - but then again, there is only two of us and we are out all day ......

I would definitely be checking for a leak /yes

Jx

[richy rich]

Is some one nicking it?
Is it a condesing boiler?
I'd be checking for a leak as well!

[miller]

and it has been a particularly cold winter though! I notice our gas consumption is waaay up than last year!

That temptation to ''whack heating on for another hour''


God knows how the pensioners are coping.....shivering.

[shaun1978]

You had any visiting pikeys? lol
My folks are caning the oil at the minute, but yours does seem excessive!

[pezza]

Dint realise oil was so 'spensive!!!

[chris g]

Might be cheaper buying furniture at MFI...

and burn it in the corner of each room...

[HJM]

Dint realise oil was so 'spensive!!!

Oh yes!!

Its risen massively in the last few years too - I remember paying less than 20p per litre when we first started using it - now its 45p!!

Jx

[Jimmers]

Blimey, that is a lot.

I've only just had an oil system (condensing boiler) put in at the end of last year, but I was sort of hoping from what other people have said to me that 1200 litres would last me 12 months. Might be in for a surprise, then.

I better go and dip it in a minute. Yikes.

[HJM]

Blimey, that is a lot.

I've only just had an oil system (condensing boiler) put in at the end of last year, but I was sort of hoping from what other people have said to me that 1200 litres would last me 12 months. Might be in for a surprise, then.

I better go and dip it in a minute. Yikes.


I guess it will depend on lots of factors - size of rooms, insulation etc but we used 1500 litres last year and our place is pretty well insulated with fairly small rooms, although we do have a 17 year old dog to keep warm :baby:

I certainly wouldn't consider us to be large or reckless users - but I think we'd struggle using as little as 1200 litres a year ......

Good luck though :D

Jx

[Turbo_Steve]

As Jane says, it's more down to the size of the house and how well insulated it is, how high you have the thermostat etc, and whether you leave all the interior doors open.

[gazz]

Last year I used £1700 worth in the year, this year we seem to be doing alot better, had the whole house reinsulated and underfloor heaing installed seems to be much better.

[raph]

We use gas, and at our other house we modernized everything, fitting double and triple paned windows, we got a new heater set up that has an EGT of less than 45 degrees celcius!! meaning the heater/boiler had a Plastic exhaust!

It really pays off to modernize your home..the initial layout will come back in no time what so ever.

How about the windows? are the seals ok? does the heating have a central room thermostat or just on/off? you can also fit extra thermostats that conrtrol each room individually and they comunicate via bluetooth etc..an easy diy install is possible

I read that you bought 500 L of oil? best bet next time is to buy in bulk in the summer or when the demand/price falls ..like 3000 L at one time(if you have the capacity ).

I dont /havent used oil before.. but ive heard that many neighbours in the same street would organize a 15000 liter group buy and have the truck come at once and fill everyones tanks at a discount ..read about it in the paper

[raph]

Oh, i have my thermostats set up to heat the rooms between 5 and 8 7.30 am, then at 11am -2 pm then at 5 pm to 6.30 pm, then at 8 till 10 pm .. that way the temp ius constant between 6am and 10pm without being on all day (we are both at work anyway- bar the cat)

i used to have it heat constantly from 6am till 10pm.. with the method above the only difference is the bill at the end of the year

[Dom B]

Well i use 35 second gas oil to heat my building which is even more expensive, last year the heating bill was £4500 and i didn't even get the place that warm. Was wearing 5 layers on a lot of days. I can't afford that anymore so thinking about going to a wood burner.

[raph]

Those new pellet ovens are supposed to be good

[ANTHONY]

get your self a proper boiler and dont use a VR4 engine

[Turbo_Steve]

IF noise isn't an issue, the very best thing you can do is get a generator.
You run the heating loop into the building, and it burns the fuel (oil if it's a diesel, LPG or similar if it's a petrol) and heats the building up. As a side effect, it generates electricity which you can sell back to the electricity supplier (you have to arrange this first). Essentially, when it's generating, your electricity meter goes the other way, and counts down.


Better than burning the fuel for heat and getting nothing else: combustion engine is far more efficient than the most efficient of boilers if you harvest the electricity.

Look up "cogeneration".

[Dom B]

At uni we did a lot of work on the new chp (combined heat and power) boiler/generators that you will see in households in the near future. They are basically stirling engines that run off of the waste heat and produce a few kw to help out. Quite interesting stuff.

It's tricky to feed ac back to the national grid, i think they have particular standards where you have to convert to dc then back to ac with a syncronised psu that you have to buy or lease from them that you have to account for in the costs. You can still make money though even with the costs associated with the power generation. But for me the inefficiency of and engine <40% then the inefficiency of converting to dc then back to 50hz time signal ac just adds up to more cost than benefit.

You can get heat pumps now that use just air to source the heat but the irony is that when you need them the most you get the least temperature gradient and they become inefficient. Most heat pumps are around 200% efficient.

Right now i have free wood and the gasifier i will use it around 91% efficient in producing heat which is better than any oil boiler. The hree bit appeals to me the most lol, should sve a lot of money even with the outlay. Its a big space to heat and is a 1960's building so isn't what you might call well insulated lol.

The week before last it was 5-6degrees C inside the building, steamy breath and all lol. Heating is on the forefront of my mind every day at the moment, being cold isn't very productive lol.

[bluemooney]

we used to use oil mate i was shocked by the cost of it

i got used oil cooking oil from the local chippy strained it and mixed it 50/50 with heating oil worked a treat boiler serviced every 12 months .

no probs moved house and have lpg tank now much cheaper.

gareth.