Oil fired heating - thoughts?

[Snazzy73]

Cross posting for traffic. We’re looking to move home and there’s a lovely house but it’s oil fired heating. Would we be mad to view this home right now? On the description it says every 3 months for oil fired heating. EPC rating is E and it’s a Victorian semi. Thoughts welcome!

I've lived in houses with oil fired heating. It's fine. You can often join a local buying group and get a discount for a bulk order

I live in an area with oil heating (no gas available), and it's fine, but prices are very volatile. There are schemes where you can deposit monthly, or join local oil buying clubs. During Covid it was amazingly cheap, during the Iran invasion, not so much.

We have an oil-fired boiler. Fine when prices are low, not so fine when there’s any crisis affecting oil prices. It was here when we bought the house, so we stuck with it, and on the whole we’re happy with it. We always ring around to get the best price when we need to fill the tank. When you say it says every 3 months on the description, every 3 months for what?

You can also give consideration to alternatives - so check is there actually gas available in the area and you just need to be hooked up? Or a neighbour has a heat pump (installed as part of total house renovations). We also looked at another neighbour's biomass fuel.

Loved ours, join an oil club to help with prices.

Thanks for all your comments so far. Is there anything else we should be asking if we go to view? Partner is sceptical… I can see next door has gas so maybe we could switch. On the listing it says oil fired heating replenished every 3 months. I’m so used to having just electric and gas CH.

We have oil, works efficiently for us. You fill when you need to and it depends on the size of the tank. We shop around for each fill, as prices can vary per litre and we buy when the need is there, not on a top up. 1000 litre fill gets a better rate. You'll know when you need to fill, plus it depends on usage, so how long is a piece of string. Ensure the boiler is properly serviced prior to purchase, radiators tested, so you start knowing when to book in services annually, plus happy it is ready for you to use and efficient, so cleaned, filters and a good oil heating engineer / service well worth it . We have oil for heating / water, calor for a hob, electric oven / back up emersion heater for water, useful as prone to the odd power cut. Oh, check out the age of the tank and connectors too.

I doubt you’d need to fill up every 3 months, as it completely depends on how much you use for heating/hot water. In the summer, or if you don’t feel the cold, it could easily be 6 months between deliveries. Unless it’s a really small tank. Ours is 1200 litres, and I would say we have around 3 deliveries a year, 1 in spring and 2 over autumn/winter.

I have oil and no gas.
How frequently you fill up depends on the size of the tank and consumption. I might fill it in October, December and February but then not again until the following October.
As to the heating it runs exactly the same as gas central heating. The boilers are either combi or conventional. Mine is a conventional boiler with a hot water tank which I also heat with solar power.
The biggest drawback to me is the lack of gas for cooking or a fire. We have to have a stove which I hate. Would love the instant heat of a gas fire.

Three months doesn’t really tell you much - Will be dependant what the tank holds! Our house is a fair size, in the country so we have a 2kL tank that we fill up once a year/18mths or less and thats with teens who can’t possibly wear a jumper! but if we had a 500L tank we’d have to fill it more often…oil has always been our fuel source and for many years it was much cheaper than gas.

Either join a buying club or set up a DD with a local supplier if you can so you pay monthly otherwise you need a big chunk of money.

buy oil in the summer when it’s hot and Youll save a fortune.

prices fluctuate a lot.

I almost bought a property with oil heating.
Turned out the oil tank was past its recommended age. To replace it would have had to build a completely new oil area well away from the house to conform with current regulations.
A boiler that's 20 years old should still have good legs. With good maintenance.
The tank becomes a bit more complicated and it always smelled of oil in the area around the boiler.