Oil fired heating... Advice please!

[Ab31]

Hi all,
We moved into a 3 bed rented bungalow 2 months ago which has oil fired central heating and hot water. We got 500 litres of oil delivered at the beginning of jan (£338) and it has just run out. We have the heating on for around an hour in the morning and around 4 hours jn the evening but don't heat every room. In terms of water... Two showers a day and a bit of washing up and that's it. Does this sound like a normal amount to be spending?? If so I can't believe how expensive it is.

Maybe there's a more efficient way to use it - we've been leaving the boiler on all the time then just turning the heating on/off with the thermostat. If anyone has any advice or experience I'd love to hear what you think...
Thanks!

500 litres in 2 months sounds about right to me.

You are right - very expensive, but then your summer bill should be low as you don't balance it out through the year as you would with gas.

Yep, oil is nastily expensive. It sucks.

Amount sounds about right to me too. Sorry.

We have our hot water on all the time and the heating on timer an hour in the morning and 4 hours in the evening but we also have a woodburning stove so we turn our boiler off when that's going and circulate that heat instead.

We bought 1000l in early October, still have about 350l left but only because we don't run the heating so much now.

Turn your room stat down a degree, any radiator stats to 1 or frost except in the room you're using.

You could buy a couple of electric heaters and use them instead on all but the coldest nights.

that sounds alot to me.

when we lived in a house with oil heating 500 litres would last about 3 months and we had the heating on constantly and had the water on all day too.

is the boiler an old one?

Don't forget that the price of oil fluctuates and although it's lower now than it was, it's still on the high side. I always fill our tank in the autumn (not much help to you) as the price always seems to go up in the winter) and then again in the summer.

Also, it pays to shop around with suppliers - they're often a similar price but there will be variations.

sounds a lot to me - although I do know people who use similar (1000l lasts about a year for us, but we have a woodburner too).

Could you ask the landlord to look at insulation - relatively cheap to make a big difference with loft insulation.

It sounds quite a lot to me, but don't know how high your thermostat is set.

We've had the heating set to 'on' on the boiler all the time and just turned the thermostat up to 20 and down to 0 to turn the heating on and off. I know nothing about how boilers work....is it still burning oil when the thermostat's down at 0???
Thanks for the advice!

Sounds quite a lot to me too. We've a 4 bed/2 public bungalow, and heating on in the morning for about an hour, and a few hours in the evening. I have it off and on during the day when I need it. The hot water is on for an hour in the morning, maybe a couple of hours in the evening, and I'd expect 500 litres to last about three months. We're pretty well insulated though. I'd check the insulation if I were you, as someone else mentioned.