Any mumsnetters out there with oil fired central heating?

[kitsmummy]

Hello all

We're in the process of a rural move (just sold and had our offer accepted) and the new place is a (large) 3 bed old converted pub which has really really thick walls, all double glazed, with a log burner and with oil fired central heating. Now I know Oil fired central heating costs more to run than gas, but can anyone give me an idea of how much more expensive it is? I'm hoping that the house is going to be quite a warm house, given the thick walls, double glazing etc, and I also hope that the wood burner would heat up the ground floor on its own (the rooms all flow nicely off of the main room, eg they're not miles away from it along big corridors etc), so I'm hoping that we might get away with just using the oil fired heating for upstairs and for hot water. Can anyone give me some clues of possible usage/bills? ta

[bronze]

We fill ours up about 3 times every two years (3 bed semi)
It does vary wildly and is best to shop around.

It is more expensive than gas . The worst bit is needing the bulk amount of money up front.

We probably pay aboy a grand a year but we use ours very sparingly

[bronze]

aboy about

[kitsmummy]

Wow, a grand when used sparingly, it's LOADS more expensive than gas then?

[bronze]

no youre right I calculated that wrong
its about 1200 for us over two years

its because we dont buy exactly yearly I got confused

[bronze]

and agian Ive got it wrong
I need to look at a bill and work out how much oil we actually get as we dont always fill up when empty etc

does this help?

[bronze]

though those figures are 09 and it had gone up again

sadly a lot of rural places dont have much choice. Here a large majority of the gas in this country comes in a pipeline onto our coast but do we have gas available...no

[thelunar66]

I think it was 41 pence a litre when DH looked at buying some more last weekend. Our tank is 2,000 litres, but we never ever fill it up... 1,000 is the most we've bought in one go, which was just before xmas. So that has lasted us 8 months.

[kitsmummy]

Oh wow, so that's saying oil's cheaper than gas? Thanks Bronze

Anyone else use oil, or have gone from gas to oil?

[kitsmummy]

thanks Lunar, this is all good news, maybe the bills won't be too horrendous after all!

[CornishKK]

Mmm, we spend about £1k a year to heat a four bedroom, well insulated, double glazed granite cottage. I dislike oil central heating, it's a pain in the ass, the oil company has let us run out four times in two years but there is no gas in the village. Sorry!

[bronze]

remember oil is cheaper the more you buy too
though of course you then have to find more money up front

that sounds right lunar which would make my latest (and final) calculation of 1200 about right

[bronze]

I mean for two years btw

[kitsmummy]

Oh CornishKK, did you have to spoil my illusion of a cheap, warm new house?

[bronze]

let you run out? Don't you just order when you're getting low?

[thelunar66]

It is cheaper the more you buy. It is also cheaper when the weather is hotter.

We are going to buy now as we find it tends to go up come October.

[GrendelsMum]

I'd fill the tank up now, as you'll get it cheaper, or you can look at joining a local oil co-op and buying monthly, if there is one.

If you're going to use your woodburner for heating, you also need to buy in a load of logs - we get a "half-load" of seasoned wood which does us for the winter, but we don't have the woodburner on all the time. Don't underestimate how much space you need for your wood store, and of course it all needs to be kept dry! Woodburners actually get through a huge amount of wood, and I think you're optimistic to hope that you'll heat the ground floor from one (unless it's massive, or you don't mind not having your kitchen etc not heated). In order to heat a house using a woodburner, I'd say you have to allow at least an hour from having the stove lit to having a reasonably warm room, so it's really only by having it on all day that you can use it for heating. We found that it works at the weekend, but in the evenings, we tend to have gone to bed by the time the room's warm!

[GrendelsMum]

Oh yes, you need to make sure you really know how to read your oil meter, not just think that you know how to read your oil meter . Get the previous owner to show you. If you run out of oil, your boiler needs repairs...

[kitsmummy]

We have loads of room (cellar and garage) to store wood, so that's not a problem. My mum thinks she gets through about 3 loads of wood (£80 per load) to last the whole winter, with her log burner on most of the time, so I hope that would be about right. I think the big sitting room and dining room would certainly be warm from the log burner, but I guess it may not heat through to the kitchen. Anyhow, it doesn't seem that the oil central heating will be as much of a drain as I thought it would, so that's great!

Grendel, I'll get my parents to help with the readings - they've been country bumpkins for years and are used to no gas, crappy internet connections etc, all the kind of stuff that it's going to take a while for me to get used to

[BikeRunSki]

IF you are somewhere very rural, difficult access etc, get your oil tank filled up in about early November before snow/ice makes accrss for the oil tanker difficult or impossible. I have several friends/PIL on oil fired heating who were unable to be filled up during all the snow and ice last winter, in several parts of the country.

[FiveGoMadInDorset]

Hi we live in a very rambling farmhouse and can use 1000 litres in 8 weeks,

[occyelf]

we filled up 2000l 3 weeks ago in prep for winter, cost £1200, that would normally keep us going til feb/march. I use a stanley though which does everything cooking/water/heating in 4 bed barn con. and have a log burner for being extra toasty. :o

[scaryteacher]

You may also find that the Oil company will charge less per litre for an order over 2000 litres; and if you ask them, you can set up a D/D and pay monthly. That's what I was doing for years. It worked out at £60 per month (this was back from 2000-2006) each month for a large 4 bed 1835 thick walled Cornish house.

Make sure your logs dry out before burning - and check if the cellar gets wet - the wood may be better outside.

[kitsmummy]

thanks all, v useful advice for a city girl

[SaorAlba]

Whatever you do, don't take out a contract with an oil company. If you do this, you will have to pay the price that the oil is when they decide to top up your tank, rather than having the option to buy when It's cheap. Obviously oil is cheaper in the summer than in the winter.

We have a household account that we pay into monthly that our bills all come out of. We let this build up for a while then buy oil when we have some surplus. I call all the oil companies in the area to get quotes.

Clearly if you do it this way you need to keep an eye on how much oil is left in your tank so that you don't run out.

We have spent £600 on oil in the past year, but have enough to last us until Christmas (we will probably top.up in Sept or Oct as it's cheaper). We live in a 3 bedroom house. We did have snow on the ground here for 3 months over the winter, so I'd be expecting our next year to be cheaper.

[dustythedolphin]

We have used about £600 worth since 1 January. However, it was the coldest winter for 50 years, so I am hoping that the cost will reduce. I have to be honest and say I find it horrifically expensive compared to GCH. We are thinking of moving to a house which has an electric heater in each room, which will be easier to control, though probably at least as dear.

We use the open fire a lot, to try and keep the cost down.

The annoying thing is that if the oil runs dry, you then have to get all the radiators bled (which happened to us once), which hikes up the overall costs, so we are constantly checking the amount we have left.

The downside of rural living, but there are loads of benfits to make it worthwhile.