To ask how much you pay for oil heating?

[WhatIsTheCharge]

We are relocating from overseas in a couple of months, to rural Northamptonshire, and the three houses we’ve narrowed it down to are all on oil heating.
Every house I’ve ever lived in the UK has always been on mains gas, and I’ve paid monthly. From googling, the price and how often tanks need filling seems to fluctuate wildly depending on a lot of factors.

So for reference:

• We are a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 primary school age DCs)
• The houses we are deciding between range from 2200 sqft to 3100 sqft
• All the houses have a good EPC rating (all B and C)

Just trying to get a rough figure in my head for when I need to re-jig my super nerdy budgeting spreadsheet 🫠

Before we switched to air source and solar panels, we averaged approx £80 a month bearing in mind ours cost £400-500 to fill dependant on the price of oil as it can fluctuate rapidly.

This won’t be a permanent move for us, so we’ve just got to deal with the utility supply as is unfortunately!

We fill ours about twice a year, only 2 people tho. So around £100 a month but we don’t hesitate on putting on heating on a cold day.

This is the thing that’s going to be the issue 😂
I run cold literally all the time but DH is the total opposite.
So if he had his way, we’d never have the heating on at all. But I like it toasty 🤷🏻‍♀️
We currently live in a very warm climate and he’s the same with the air conditioning. But I might be able to use that to my advantage 👀 He’s kept our current house like a fridge, which obviously whacks up the electricity bill, so me wanting the heating on when we come back to the U.K. is the same thing!

Honestly, it’s all over the place. We’ve paid anything from £260 to £600 per 500 litres and we refill 3-4 times per year. Big 4-bed house.

We paid £200/month for ours but did get a lump sum back (£300) when we left as we’d overpaid.

We have an 1800L tank to service a big five-bedroomed house in the west of Scotland.

I fill it to capacity in June/July, when oil is cheapest - cost me about £1200 this year, but the heating is on twice a day and boosted when guests are here / when it's cold, and that will do us until at least the end of April. I'll refill on top of what's left in June / July again.

It would be helpful for me to know how big the tanks are on these houses 🫠😂
We have emailed the agents, but by the time we wake up in the morning, it’s close to end of play for the U.K. work day, so there’s always a delay on responses. I’ll ask about the size of the tanks now and hopefully get an answer on Monday or Tuesday

We buy about 3,000 litres a year. Old 5 bed detached, absolutely terrible epc

Newer oil boilers are massively more efficient than old ones so it’s worth knowing how old the boilers are.
Oil is cheaper over a certain volume so a tank size matters as well.

One of the houses is a new build barn conversion, so brand new boiler.
One is a much older house that’s been fully renovated inside - so maybe a newer boiler as well 🤷🏻‍♀️

I get mine in little bits at the local oil supplier as i cant afford the big outlay of 500l, I get 50l at a time and currently that's costing about £30-35 and lasts a bit over 2 weeks. We do try and stay conservative with our use though, showers instead of baths (electric shower), but our house is very heat inefficient

Red diesel. Boiler older than Methuselah. I get 1000 litres a time and it's usually about £800. Heating on all day from 07.30 to 22.00 as 93 year old parent lives here. I order three to four times a year, it's very weather dependent. All rads have thermostats too. Boiler is off over the summer as I use the immersion for hot water then.

The upside is unlimited hot water, so long showers and washing dries quickly as the utility is always hot.

Worry noting that the price of oil can fluctuate a lot! I do dread filling our tank, it feels like a massive hit. Invest in some thermals!

I think ours equates to about £100 a month for a family house heated pretty consistently to 19 degrees in the day and 20 in the evening. If you're new to oil, it's definitely worth putting a chunk of chase aside every month so when you do need to fill up the money is already there!

The prices fluctuate, but around £1500 a year max for 3 people

I have friends with a large draughty 4 bed house that spend £1500 a month on oil in the winter. They like to be warm!!

We have a DD set up with oil provider of £100 pm. That gives us 2 x full tanks per year and usually money left over in Spring which we get credited back.
However we never put heating on until 1st Nov and it goes off 1st April plus we have log burner and open fires.
NE England.

Oil prices are fairly stable at the moment. We had new boiler and tank six years ago and it's been much more efficient although the tank is smaller and I can only order 500l at a time now. I spent £300 in March and have an order coming next week for same. Will probably need to fill up in January if cold winter. Three bed bungalow, two of us here.

5 bed thatched house here.

We always have auto top up, so the oil company comes around and fills us up and leaves the invoice.

I reckon £2000 a year ish.
Our electric is £260 a month.

Yes I do realise this is a lot of money and now DC are about to leave for uni, we are downsizing. I wouldn't have changed a thing though.

Your best bet is to ask the current owners.

No, you really don't.

We have the heating and hot water on all the time and I think it would be impossible to burn that much in one month!!

Our house has listed building windows that don't fit, draughts, dogs constantly going in and out and underfloor wet oil powered heating. We might use £1500 across a whole bad winter like in 2018 beast from the east!

I can only imagine £1500 a month if you have a fleet of Agas going 24/7.

We have a reasonably modern 5 bed and buy around 2000 litres a year. Oil is quite cheap so we paid around £500 for 1000 litres last time. Use boilerjuice to get an idea of prices.

Many villages have an oil consortium or club which can be cheaper.

We have had oil heating and hot water since 2017, we typically get 2 deliveries a year ( try to get it at its cheapest) and have a log burner we use occasionally. We spend around £1300 a year in total ( tank is 1200l), house is poorly insulated 3 bed , older boiler and we maintain around 21 degrees during the day. Hot water set to come on twice daily. It took a bit of getting used to but all the council owned properties went to air source heating and had to have additional external insulation added as they were so cold

I used to work for a supplier. It's hard to say as the price of heating oil is directly linked to the global oil price. In 2015, it went down to about 26ppl! In the last 12 months, mine has averaged out at about £120pcm (large house). The price per litre for oil is lower when you order more so I never order less than 1200l.

Big well insulated house with underfloor heating. I keep the thermostats on 19 all winter (takes for ever for the heating to warm up if it gets cold). 4 bedrooms. I reckon about a 1500l tank per year. Also topped up with wood burning stove when it is really cold.