Husband won’t allow hearing to go above 16.

I feel your pain OP - we live in an old stone house and had oil heating which could be astronomical!! I appreciate you are in rented accommodation and also you are listed building which has its own limitations. But...if you are thinking of staying for the long haul, could you consider replacing your open fires with woodburning/pellet burner stove plus an eco fan. Much more efficient and they can be linked to the hot water system. Also could you consider paying for loft insulation? Or secondary glazing? I know it's money spent on a building you don't own but you may recoup the money quite quickly given how much you're spending!!
Also there have been a lot of oil thefts in our rural area, check it cant happen to you!!

Her husband does pay the lions share of the overheads to be honest. I'd let her have the heating on, and buy more oil.

The tenancy may seem expensive but if it includes acreage for the horses and shelter then it's a bargain. If they're rural there's always trees coming down. We pay £45 a ton get four tons at a time for chunks of trees but you need a chainsaw, log splitter to turn them into stackable logs. Our log splitter is shared between three households.

There's a lot of bartering of labour in our village

I think you have remained amazingly calm about this @C6H12O6
I would be losing it if I paid for the heating and the logs and was still cold!
You say DH is not controlling but turning off heating when you have already said you are uncomfortable and need to be warm is very controlling.
I don't know much about the costs of oil compared to heating but I know it is much more expensive. Even so, if you are paying you should be warm enough.

@C6H12O6 are your horses kept on your rental property?

Recently I listened to an interview from a uni professor about the effects of the cold.

I was really surprised when he said that the negative health effects kick in at 14 degrees. That is cold enough to be harmful to your health.

I’ll see if I can link it.

I think you need a metal tamper proof box cover with a key for the heating controls. Only YOU have the key 😉

Those costs are way high.

We live in a large house with oil for heat and water and we pay approx £100 per month into a “boiler juice” type payment scheme. We probably refill the tank (1000 litre) three times a year max and it comes out of the payment scheme.

We have our heating on all night, set at 19 degrees, and daily showers, baths a few times a week. Use the log burner during the day, to keep costs a bit lower, but switch heating on if one of us is using a different part of the house.

We buy kiln dried logs by the pallet for a couple of hundred quid. Have one delivery late summer when it tends to be cheaper and then another one usually part way through winter. We’re just running out again now and considering one more delivery as it’s still chilly.

Aside from the issue with your DH, I’d fix the base problem which is you seem to be vastly overspending.

HI op. Been thinking about your log usage as well. Wouldn't it be cost effective to buy a big load of logs rather than dribs and drabs. A trailer full of logs is loads cheaper per ton! And again cheaper in summer. ( essentially after a good summer gale)! If you get logs green you can dry them in log shed over summer and should be ready in a season ( or 2) so well worth the investment!

You say your DH likes the country life but he doesn't seem very clued up on it! We spend a lot of summer finding and storing wood ' hoarding in a way. We like it cause its that nice feeling of preparing for next winter ( and winter after that). Its the same mentality with the oil.

Are you able to ask for a wood stove to be installed they pump out so much more heat than an open fire.

My living room is currently 16 degrees and I'm OK with it but if I was cold I would light fire. DH once got us exercising and doing star jumps when we were running out of oil and feeling cold. But keeping active does help as i have reynards.

I think you need to discuss how to prepare for next winter together. And that might help for it to not get too personal and argument about thermostat.

This nonsense about amounts of oil people should or shouldn’t be using - it’s all about the size and kind of house.

when we first moved in here our oil was 1000 L a month. OH was moaning until I pointed out that him walking around in t shirts at the weekends, turning the heating up as a result was what was behind it. “Oh, so if I put a jumper on it would be cheaper?”

“Erm yes, of course.”

Heating bill is a lot less now. We use the fireplaces as well especially as we’re both WFH and home all day. My friend gave me an electric throw too as a Christmas gift, those things are incredible when you’re working and your feet/legs get chilly

@C6H12O6 should not be cold in her home. Her H has no business turning the heating off if she’s put it on, she’s not a child.

you can get a watchman thing to keep an eye on the oil level, it’s linked to a monitor you plug in and it gives a level. @C6H12O6 I think your H is being controlling and lying to you about the oil. you need to get the power back in your life.

Might just be OP pays husband the money requested and he 'takes care of it'.

You need to get your boiler and tank looked at, that's an insane amount of oil you're getting through! We have our oil heating on full whack 24/7 for half the year (and heating just the water for the other half) and only buy 1000l about once a year, if that.

And you need to talk to your husband, 16 degrees is far too cold for a house, it'll be damaging the house as well as your health. 18 is the bare minimum but around 20 is recommended as optimal

Remind him he's an arsehole and put your heating on. Change the setting to 19° so everyone's more comfortable.

Well that’s theft isn’t it, unless you own the timber? Do you advocate people helping themselves to other people’s garden furniture and heating oil when they’re hard up as well?

OP, you need to get an OFTEC technician out to review your heating system, 500l is insane, we use significantly less than that and are heating an old farmhouse on three floors with 6 bedrooms at 21degs from sept to April.

Horses and private school but no money to heat a house?! Give your head a wobble. Prioritise your children and not your status.

You’ll end up with health problems if you don’t live in a suitably heated house.

Pallets: every industrial estate is heaving with unwanted pallets. Look for ones marked HT or KD/KT: Good physical (warming) work to pull apart, chop up & put in wood burner.

Most small towns have an industrial estate. Dont' need to be a country dweller at all to get free firewood.

What is your roof / loft insulation depth, OP?

That's a crazy amount! Unless it's a mansion I suppose. Honestly? Move

I honestly don't think you can afford horses if you can't keep your house at a decent temperature (although as I've said, I don't understand how cooking oil is solid, as it solidifies at -18)

Not the point of the post but I'm gobsmacked that someone sends their kid to private school and have horses at the expense of a warm home and holidays, madness in my opinion.

How can you say he's not controlling in one breath & in the next say he won't allow the heating on, restricts it to 16 etc etc

the heating YOU pay for.
the house HE dictates you live in

you're the frog, he's in control of the pot.

I have lived in a freezing house for the last 10+ years.
Last October I told dh that this would be our last winter in this house as I wasn't doing it anymore. For reference my friends modern house was 16 degrees inside (without heating!), on the same day my house was 6 degrees inside.
I put the house up for sale and we will hopefully be moving this summer.
Being cold is awful, I have been so cold that my bones ache, I couldn't sleep at night because I would wake up freezing and if my dh had been randomly turning the heating off he would have been 6 feet under by now!

£350 a month is crazy for oil. We spend like £1000 a year for a four bed house and I like whacking it up to 22 whenever my husband isn't looking, I work from home a lot.
A you need to buy some oil so you don't get pneumonia
B you need some insulation. We did a lot of work on the insulation a couple of years ago and it made a huge difference

I couldn’t be with someone who wouldn’t allow the heating above 16 and turned it off after half an hour! Your house must be freezing and so must your child.