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 🫠

We have an 8,000 square feet house and an oil Aga (on for 6 months of the year) but only spend around £120 a month on oil. We have a wood burner and the combination of that and the Aga means we only need the central heating on when it is particularly cold. We have a 2,500 litre tank which means I can fill it right up when oil is cheap.

We have solar, which generates enough to heat all our hot water from March to about now. I also only use the electric cooker in summer, we have a Rayburn which does both heating and hot water as well as cooking. Our house is well insulated and double glazed.
For oil, we have a local buying WhatsApp group and we shop around as a group. When I last filled up I paid less than 43p/l which took advantage of buying in a heatwave with the bulk buy of the road/area. This is a LOT cheaper than eg 2014 prices! I enjoy trying to get the best price of the year when we do buy!
We use about 1000 litres every 18 months on average. We do live in the sunny/mild Thames Valley, so although cooking mostly on oil since the beginning of the month, we have not yet had to use heating. We have a 2500 litre tank, and I usually run it low until a heatwave/summer bank holiday/time when nobody will be buying to fill right up at a low price.

They’re not. On current prices they’d be burning through over 2500 litres a month, which they’re not for a four bedroom house, no matter how drafty.

Your main variables will be:

Size of house
How good the insulation is
Age/efficiency of boiler
Whether showers are electric or run off hot water from the boiler

and a bit more niche:

Whether there is any solar thermal or PV solar with a diverter feeding into the tank
Whether you have woodburners and/or an Aga/rayburn/everhot for topping up ambient warmth

A newish boiler and efficient hot water system will make a massive difference to usage - we’ve gone from filling a 1000l tank 3x a year to 2x a year after replacing the boiler and hot water tank (big old stone-built farmhouse).

I put aside £100 a month for oil for a 1960’s single skin 4 bed house with crap double glazing

Our 5 bed house is 3000 sq ft roughly. I track our oil every year and we average about 2500 litres per year but the price varies wildly. Cheapest year was £1100, most expensive year was £2200.
we have a new boiler (about 3/4 years old) and smart heating but actually the usage is pretty similar to the old boiler we had before anyway!

I'm in Ireland in a 3 bed house. The oil comes on twice a day for half an hour all year around to heat the water, and during the winter we'd have the radiators on every day. The 1100 litre tank is filled once a here, and we have a second tank of 1000 as a backup.
So we average about 100 litres per month.

There is an ongoing perception that oil is expensive ; we rent out a cottage and the tenant continues to switch on the immersion half an hour before a shower etc on the basis that running the boiler is “expensive” as its oil. It’s a brand new boiler, I e tried to explain the pricing difference between oil and electricity but to no avail.

I find oil heating quite cheap. Our house is quite new and well insulated which may make a difference. It is always kept warm and the oil costs about £50 a month.

Didn’t know this was an option - this probably sounds like the most sensible option for us, while we are just finding our feet with it!

Yeah….we’ve passed on a couple of house I really loved just because I don’t fancy an Aga and all of them had one 😕

One of the houses (my favourite one!) has a log burner in the living room. That’s also the older house that’s been renovated inside, so I’m hoping it’s also got a newer boiler!

Approx £2500 a year
Try to fill tank in summer when cheaper
Three bedroomed two reception house timber framed highly insulated .
Usually just the two of us
Husband who refuses to ever feel cold
Previous homes have had gas coal or electric . Love oil the most quick clean and efficient .

Same here.
Also don't forget you will use more electric as you cook with it.
You don't get a cosy room without a wood burner or electric fire.
Overall it's probably no more expensive than heating with gas, just varies.
Electricity bills were higher when DC were at home (showers)
Just to add we have heating on a lot. The house is difficult to heat as it's a barn conversion.
I shop around for every oil top up as suppliers vary.

£500/600 worth lasts about 8 weeks and that's being super mean with it 🥺.
Big house though and it's in Scotish island so cost per litre probably more to factor in transporting.

4 bed thatched house here, well insulated. We fill up in early summer and usually top up late summer but some years don’t need to. So around £800 per year, but we have an efficient boiler, wet underfloor heating, a log burner and solar for hot water in the summer. Otherwise I would say that the oil cost would be 50% more. You will probably find a local oil buying collective.

We spend about £1000 over a year. 1000l new tank. Don't use a lot of heating. Havent had it on this year yet.

We live in a bungalow and order 500 litres in October and again in February. 2 adults, 2 teens at home much of the time (WFH and EHE) and we keep the house between 16 and 20 in colder weather, definitely dont want to be cold as it can encourage damp. This for heating and hot water and we pay 700 per year at current prices. Just had a 500 litre delivery at £312, so I think the ppu has dropped a little.

Our tank is 2,500 litres. House is 3000 square foot. We had 2000 litres of oil delivered last week and it was £1,150. That’ll last us a year. We’re same size family as you OP. Same age kids too.

I live in a big draughty 5 bed house with oil heating. We have single glazed sash windows with glass secondary glazing.

We fill our 1300 litre tank 2.5 to 3 times a year. Filling the tank can cost £360 or £750. One scary time it was £1300! I save £200 per month into a savings pot so it is there when we need to buy oil. The pot generally has surplus money in it, but I am always wary that the scary £1300 tank payment might reoccur!

I use the heating and hot water without thinking about it. More jumpers, more log burner, shorter showers and less baths would reduce our oil bills if we needed to.

We fill ours two or three times a year. I try and follow the prices but not always possible to get a good deal. Costs have varied between £250-450. They were giving it away during COVID iirc! Have only just put it on this week.
Four bed semi, two adults, two at uni that come and go.

It really depends, if they already have deliveries in your area then the price will lower a bit. It's much lower in summer than winter because of supply and demand (sorry, not helpful advice at this time of year!)

We are hoping to be in our new place by the second week of December, so I’m fully expecting our first oil purchase to be at the higher end of the price range 😭

I have just ordered 900L at £479. Our tank holds 1000L and would last nearly a year. Last fill was December last year. Though not a big house probably 1200 sq ft. It's good if you have different zones. We only heat upstairs for 2 hours in the evening whereas we heat downstairs for longer.

The house we are leaning towards appears to be on two different systems: underfloor heating downstairs and old-school radiator central heating upstairs. We are like you: as long as the bedrooms are warm when we go to bed, upstairs isn’t a bother. We spend more time downstairs so that will be heat d more than upstairs