To think oil fired central heating is a bollocks

[FrostyTheCrunchyFrog]

and to want to KILL IT DEAD?

I've run out of oil. Again. In a total catch 22 - can't afford to fill the tank, so am putting in 200l a month, and at the moment, that is lasting 3-4 weeks. (costing £135 a pop). To fill the tank would be £603.

It's unbeliveably expensive - compared to gas, in London I was paying maybe £50-60 a month in gas through the winter, and was always in credit.

ARRRGH. I've just asked them for a direct debit, but the way that works is you pay each month until you have enough to fill the tank. So basically, for the next few months I'll have to pay double what I am now, then we'll be OK. Except I don't have that.

And I'm COLD. Stupid house.

I used to have oil fired heating in my old house. It was awful.
I used to run out frequently because the reader on the side of the tank didn't work properly. Everytime I'd have to get a heating engineer to bleed the boiler to get the crap out! A couple of times I had to stay at my parents with dd (then a few months old) as we'd run out of oil and it was freezing and it took them a few days to deliver the oil.

I learnt a bit of DIY boiler repair- cleaning filter, bleeding the boiler and syphoning the oil to get it flowing again (not to be recommended- yuck!) It was that or freeze as I couldn't afford to get it serviced. As it was partly my XPs fault that the thing didn't work well (Biodiesel into a 20yrOld rusty tank- result= losened all the crap from the bottom and blocked the pipes) LL wasn't willing to help. (Understandable, But XP hadn't been there for a year by this point)

Don't tip the tank to get the last drop out as it brings all the gunk with it and blocks it all up.

As soon as I moved out the LL changed the system to gas CH. Figures.

We have Oil and have lived here for 7 years. I don't have a problem with it at all. If your house is badly insulated it will eat through ANY form of heating, whether it's gas or oil!

I do agree that the oil prices have shot up though. However we bought through a local oil syndicate that has just been formed and we got it for 57ppl - this was only last week. It was much cheaper than any of the quotes we got from other suppliers.

You must ring round everyone, every time as the price can vary wildly. We live in a 3 bedroom cottage, it's not huge but some parts can be drafty. We put 500 ltrs in last week and that will probably last until march or April depending how cold it is. Then we will put another 500 ltrs in and then that will do us all summer until it gets cold again. Probably use 1200 ltrs a year so 100 ltrs a month so approx £60 a month - which I don't think is too bad for a family of 5. Remembering though that we have no gas for cooking so have a halogen hob and a power electric shower so our electric is bill is high.

We have our heating and hot water on for about 2 hours in the morning and about 4 hours in the evening and that's it. We wear a jumper the rest of the time.

We've only run out once and that was during the hideous snow when the tanker couldn't get to us. We put money aside every month as if we were paying a gas bill so that we can afford to fill it up so it doesn't come as too much of a shock!

The thing that scunners me is just how variable it is. 2 summers ago, we bought oil at a time when it looked like prices were keeping on up, only if we'd waited 7 days longer, we'd have spent £130 less for the same oil. Just doesn't happen with other fuels.

We have been paying out huge amounts for oil for years and have just put in a planning application for p/v panels. It's a big outlay at just under £18,000 however we hope to recoup the value in about 10-12 years.

I have heat! YAY. Doing WOE down the phone to the company clearly worked!

Right, this week is Insulation Time.

YAY! Glad to hear it Frosty!