AIBU: The government is failing alternative fuel users

[Olivetreebutter]

We, like many rural villages, rub completely on oil. We have no gas mains and don't have a choice on how we heat our homes. For months now we've been promised a £100 payment to off-set our oil purchases (not that it even begins to offset it! Two years ago we paid £250 for half a tank of oil. We've recently paid £490)

In all press releases the government say they've 'realised' making the payments is complicated. As if they shouldn't have foreseen that. Now they are suggesting we will get £100 off our electricity bill to counter-act the oil costs. But still nothing confirmed or provided.
As we go into winter families are having to pay out over £1000 for a full tank of fuel, or £400-£500 for a minimum order. With no support or help.
AIBU to think the government has completely let us down, and should have come up with a solution before winter hit??

I appreciate everyone is struggling with rising costs, not just those on oil but I feel we often get forgotten in all the discussions!

YNBU, it’s very often the same for other initiatives etc. Its a version of the Pareto principle in that it only takes 20% of the resources/time/effort to include 80% of the population/cohort but to include the last 20% takes a further 80% of the resources/time/effort.

Other examples are the roll out of 5G, fibre optic, smart metres. However, this applies to many other areas of our lives. The winter fuel allowance is paid to all in receipt of state pension, including millionaires because it is far cheaper than trying to means test. The idea that everyone on £50k would lose Child Benefit was changed to allow the taper between £50k and £60k which makes it more difficult to administer.

The £400 payment is given to the electrician/gas companies based on the number of users. They then apply it to each user’s bill. This minimises admin and reduces the possibility of fraud. It also ensures consumers don’t spend it on something else. This will capture 80% of users/homes but then they need an admin system to liaise with the remaining 20% to ensure they get the payment.

I feel for you and hope you get your payment asap.

I'm in this position, but we're getting the £400 rebate applied to our electricity bill. I'm not really sure how we're missing out? £100 would be nice, but the oil price increases are not any higher than those that gas users (who also just get the £400) are facing, are they? In fact, I think they are rather less. The problem with oil prices is that they fluctuate hugely; before the energy crisis, we'd paid between £250 and £680 for 1000 litres at various points over the years, and that wasn't a steady rise but a lot of up and down.

I might be wrong, but I think the logic is that gas + electric customers get the £400 and benefit from the rates on both being (temporarily) capped. Oil + electric customers get the £400 but there is no cap on oil prices per L, so overall can (/will) pay a lot more to heat an equivalent home to an equivalent temperature just because they are unlucky enough to have no gas supply.

This might be a silly question but how do they know that you have oil central heating. Is everyone without mains gas going to get extra off their electricity bill or do you have to claim in some way?

Thanks for this explanation - that makes sense.

They don't. That's why, as the OP says, the government are saying it's too difficult to administer.

You could tell reasonably easily, I expect, who does not have mains gas supply, but many people around here don't use oil as they have air or ground source heat pumps.

I learnt this the hard way.

Align yourself with the 80%, not the 20%.

I'm surprised there is a name for it !

Government could have cut the 5% VAT rate to zero I guess. Problem is it is always people who use the most that benefit from this.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. We have an oil tank too. It sucks. It was 34p a litre in our rented house when we moved in, it went over £1 for a bit and now is just under. The real problem for us is having to pay out so much at once as there are minimum orders but also trying to buy it at the right time is tricky, we let ours run out accidentally because there’s no working gadget to tell us when that’s going to happen! For renters it may also mean paying for very expensive oil you can’t take with you if you have to leave before using it.

It was 34p a litre in our rented house when we moved in, it went over £1 for a bit and now is just under.

There was a brief point in March this year when it spiked to £1.70. I pity the people who had to fill up that week.

I know. It’s horrible trying to monitor the price and buy at the best times while trying to budget for the huge amount you need up-front. It’s not like a monthly electricity bill. We got 1,000 litres last time because we didn’t want to get stuck buying it at £1.70 or something but it was hard to find the almost £900 we needed, and that was at a good price. It’s fucked up.

We don’t have a working gauge so we check ours with a stick!

@WahineToa just so you know, there’s a sensor that you can get to insert into the tank and plug into a socket inside that tells you how full your tank is.

Sorry that was for @WahineToa

@Myeyeballsareonfire thank you, I’ll check that out! Is it expensive? We rent, our LL didn’t really care about our concerns around trying ti figure out what’s left and what to do when we eventually vacate. Hopeless!

@OrganTransplant123 so do we, it’s not the most accurate way but it’s ok.

@WahineToa we have a Watchman one. I’ve just googled and they seem to be about £95. We have it plugged in in the kitchen to monitor levels. It seems accurate! (We’ve had it about 4 years)

@WahineToa sorry also re moving, if you contact your local oil company they may be able to move the oil in the tank for you. I definitely have heard of people doing it.

Thank you so much for that. I can’t afford that £95 and I don’t think my LL would pay for it considering the things he doesn’t attend to already- 6 months overdue gas cert! We have gas for the hob, oil for hot water and heating, electricity for everything else. We do have a fire but it hasn’t been swept in years so we have to pay for that ourselves and then hopefully using the fire can be our main source of heat. I wish I had thought more about all this before moving in but it was June 2020!

They really need to do something to help people get heat pumps installed, subsidised, payment plan where it's rolled into monthly bills. Then people living rurally would have a genuine choice. We are electric only and love our air source heat pump, but it came with the house and the house was built for it.

Yeah heat pumps are so expensive, our LL looked into it but it was tens of thousands according to him. In NZ they’re so cheap in comparison. I don’t understand it.

Heat pumps are not going to solve the problems for many people who live rurally. A lot of houses are like ours, old, cold, drafty and listed which really limits the options. We can't move somewhere else as the property is linked to the job. This winter we will be heating one room with an open fire, all curtains are being lined with fleece blankets and hot water bottles and blankets are on stand by. On the plus side I'm finding the menopause helpful as I am very hot at night.

Glad to hear we are not alone in our frustration (though sorry we are all going through it!)
We had a quote for an ASHP - £16k not including plumbing work to change our current microbore system. We were also recommended to upgrade our cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and double glazing if we wanted it to be efficient.
It's definitely the direction we want to go in, but the suggestion we swap from oil to these sources is just unrealistic without government backing. Proper government backing, not like previous green levies - we tried to apply for a past option which paid, I think, about £5k towards green improvements but we had to tick the 'basics' off the list first including cavity wall, which a specialist said we weren't suitable for. So we went back and forth for months and then the levy was pulled. Also lots of reports of suppliers not receiving the government payments and chasing homeowners for the remainder which put us off. We drive two electric cars so we are desperately trying to be more green, just hitting our head against a wall constantly.

I appreciate oil and gas ha lve both gone up as PP have said, but as others have pointed out it's impossibily hard trying to save and budget for a cost that changes day to day. We limped along in April when prices went over £1000 for half a tank and chose to wait out the good weather. Glad we did now.

If everyone in the village is in the same boat, is it possible for a group to club together and put a large order in... Would that be cheaper/get round the min order issue... Or is it a practical nightmare?
You do seem to have been forgotten in the government's energy frenzy 😔

We can get group prices and we actually have an oil distributor in the village who gives very good local costs - but they've still got to be market prices.
I think it's more being promised some support by the government and then being told month after month "it's coming..... At some point". You can't hold off buying forever with winter coming quickly. If we end up with a cash payment of some kind it won't matter too much (apart from still needing to pay upfront for the fuel) but if we end up with a voucher or similar it will be next to useless by the time it arrives.

Oh it's definitely too late for voucher business, we are past equinox, that would be subsidising your oil for next winter.
Which I can't even think about, yet.