My house is 8 degrees. 8 degrees

[Bonecold]

Heating oil ran out yesterday. I have £200 in the savings pot with boiler juice. For a minimum order I need 500 litres which is £468.

So I’ve left the heating off until either the price per litre drops, the weather gets better, or my savings pot reaches the amount needed to do an order (£65 DD a month).

In the meantime I have a fire place so I can heat one room (but no wood so have to outlay for that).

I can’t work out if I should:

a) remove the £200 from the savings account and spend it on wood/coal to get through to warmer weather. Pro - would be warm now, Con - even further away from filling the tank

b) heat one room with wood, live near a wood so could scavenge enough wood weekly to do this?

c) plug in electric radiator. Pro: heat, con: eats electricity

D) small loan for £300/400 and top up oil. Pro: heat, con: small loans have huge interest and would be another bill each month

I’m at work all day and kids at school usually so it’s not like we would be freezing all day and can boil water for cooking and have electric shower for washing. But it’s Easter holidays here so they’ll be home for the next two weeks now

What would you do?

I'd buy logs/coal. You need a warm room. Hopefully the price will drop. I feel for you. I really do

Do you have hot water?

Wear more clothes and only heat one room . ( Use wood; electric heaters will cost)

Back to how we all lived in my childhood.

No hot water, but can heat on the stove and luckily have electric shower so can wash

Off to collect wood now and have just found a bag of coal in the woodshed so that’s a start!

Hm, it doesn't sound too cold to me, but I appreciate that's not helpful. Jumpers and hats?

8 degrees C in your house? Do you live in an igloo?

@Bonecold

No hot water, but can heat on the stove and luckily have electric shower so can wash

At least warm showers can help warm you up too. Its like weve gone back a century.

It’s supposed to warm up a bit after the weekend OP. I’m on LPG and can’t get a delivery until Monday so am surviving the weekend on slow cooker stew, hot water bottle, extra clothes, 2 layers of duvet, keeping all the curtains closed and using the electric fire in the living room. Doing the ironing has also helped a little!

I’d search for anywhere that can give you a smaller amount of oil so you can just top up for now. We will hopefully only need heating for a month or so more, this current cold snap is horrid.

@Patented

Hm, it doesn't sound too cold to me, but I appreciate that's not helpful. Jumpers and hats?

What? How cold is your house?

Hm, it doesn't sound too cold to me, but I appreciate that's not helpful. Jumpers and hats?

Oh stop being so silly with this nonsense.

Is there anything you can do about insulation? We got cavity wall filler stuff for free through some kind of incentive programme a couple of years ago, and there are usually various grants available. Our house never ever goes below 15, and I can't even remember when it went below 16.

No suggestions here but I feel for you OP; we are the same. Everyone in my house has got jumpers, coats and scarves on indoors. The heating has been off for a couple of weeks but this cold snap is testing us. In our case we live in a very old house that is never going to be efficient and we are now paying per month more than we used to pay in a year. I think in your shoes I would do what @AwkwardPaws27 mentions and look into a loan.

Also op, you can buy canisters of kerosene and use those instead, you don’t need to use your bulk tank. You can Google to find suppliers near you, many service stations often sell them. Current pricing is about a fiver for ten litres I think,

Some (mainly rural) areas have wood "banks" where you can get seasoned dry wood for free (a bit like a food bank but for fuel) - might be worth googling to check if there's anything like that locally?

There's loads of wood on the ground after the storms if you live near any woodland and have something to cut it up with. DH has brought loads back, enough to fill the entire log store. Good luck OP, it will be warmer next week.

@RebeccaCloud9

Is there anything you can do about insulation? We got cavity wall filler stuff for free through some kind of incentive programme a couple of years ago, and there are usually various grants available. Our house never ever goes below 15, and I can't even remember when it went below 16.

This. ^ There is something seriously wrong if ANYONE's house is 8 degrees C. As I said, does the OP live in an igloo?!

Do your neighbours need oil too?

My sisters little hamlet used to buy their oil together and the company did multiple drop offs for a nominal charge.
So the minimum order was irrelevant on an individual level.

Heat one room and then have hot water bottles to take to bed/ thick pajamas and fluffy socks.

@MurmuratingStarling

8 degrees C in your house? Do you live in an igloo?

No I live in a very old house which the landlord refuses to insulate and which I pay £1200 a month for

It’s single brick so can’t do cavity wall insulation.

I am so sorry OP. That is a very cold indoor temperature.
I woukd scavenge would.

Take a bit out of the savings and buy smokeless coal.

Probably only helpful when you're sitting around at home but I have an electric heated blanket / throw which is very cheap to run and saves me putting on heating all day when working from home. Could be another option together with wood fire?