We're in the process of planning major renovations at home, including installing oil central heating and a super-efficient condensing boiler (I know oil is not the most efficient fuel out there, but we're not on the gas mains and are in a listed building, so solar panels/ground- or air-source heat pumps are not an option for us). We've got permission to install the oil boiler in the first-floor bathroom, but our heating engineer has just told us that in order to do this we'll need to put in an oil lift pump because the tank is in the garden and the boiler on the first floor. The heating engineer who originally drew up the designs failed to mention this (in fact, he was generally useless and we dropped him a couple of weeks ago -- hence the new advice from a new engineer).
I've been doing some research into oil lift pumps. It seems unlikely that we'd be allowed to install one on the outside of the house, because of the listing. It's possible to get internal pumps, but I'm wondering whether they are very noisy, partly because 'low noise' options seem to be available. We could move the position of the boiler to a downstairs room -- but that will probably mean going back to planning and possibly applying for Listed Building Consent all over again, and another 8-week wait for an answer from the Council.
Does anyone have any experience of oil lift pumps for boilers? Do they make lots of noise? Any advice would be much appreciated.