How much oil do you use?

[Moonflower12]

We are moving to a house with oil (?) central heating. The water is heated by it too. There is a brand new Worcester boiler in situ.

Approximately how many litres should we expect to use per month?

2 short showers and a bath per day-shallow. We would only have the heating on in the evening and for an hour in the morning. All out at work/school etc. We don't overheat either.

There is also an open fire so that would be used too- as it's in the woods, the wood is free!

4-bed, 2-bath house.
1 adult, 2 teens.
I like the heating warm, but don't generally put on till Oct or later.

Relatively new (5 years, although I can't believe it's that long ago) combi boiler.

I tend to get through about a 1,200l tank per year.
Cost depends on oil prices, my last delivery a few months ago was about £520 for 1,100l.

oil is quite often cheaper per unit heat than gas. (although how come you don't know if it is oil - are you buying this place??). Of course it depends on insulation and what temperature you like the house at.

a new boiler should be very efficient but MUST, repeat, MUST be serviced annually by an OFTEC engineer. Never let the tank run dry, learn how to check the level. Don't sign up to a direct debit scheme, monitor prices and buy when it is cheaper. There's no rhyme nor reason to this and no connection with petrol prices. But if you are moving in before 31st October, get tanked up in case Boris stuffs up.

wood may be free but unless you really hate the next generation, at 20% efficient an open fire is criminal. If you own the place, get it replaced with an 80% efficient log burner. If you don't, put an old pillow in a bin liner, stuff it up the chimney and don't use the fire. Remember wood must be seasoned and stacked or you'll wreck your chimney, which you must also have swept at least annually and before you first use it.

Jeeze I fill my 1500litre tank about three to four times a year. It's Always cold in the house too ! Boiler must be 20 years old though.

we Are like you OP and we use approx 1500 litres per year (if it’s a cold winter). Concur about not signing up for direct debit, phone round for prices, join an oil club if there is one near you and also look at boiler juice. Always monitor your tank level (we have a monitor we plug in) and never run out. Typically oil is cheaper in summer, it also depends on the issues on the Middle East. I also have a solid fuel fire - handy in power cuts. If you use it may be get a carbon monoxide alarm.

USA, we have an electric water heater which we use in the summer, in the winter (Nov-Mar) we use oil and wood, we use 300 gallons per winter. Plus about 5 tons of firewood. (Firewood is free for us)

The wood stove runs 24/7 we let it burn out every 3-4 weeks so DH can sweep the chimney.

DH also services the oil furnace himself to reduce costs.

@mencken
We are renting the house. I know it's oil heating but had a sudden worry as I've seen it described as red diesel or kerosene too?

Sorry- pressed post too early.
As it is rented it will be serviced.

We also have a carbon monoxide alarm too. We are looking to put in a wood burner. The landlord is very open to it.

Thank you everyone for your answers. It'll be a great help to us.

Moonflower12

Heating oil, Kerosene and Diesel are basically the same thing with different additives, that allow them to be taxed at different rates.

If you ever run out of oil you can get some diesel from the local garage to keep you going......that’s what we have done in the past.

@Greatnorthwoods
Oh thank you for that. Might come in useful!

I think we use about 2,000 litres a year. 1,000 over winter 4 months and 1000 over the other 8 months. Ish

it depends on the standards of insulation and draughtproofing (house age gives a clue) and its size; then on how hot you like it to be; and then on if it is open-plan or has individual rooms with the doors closed.

Comparing usage with houses that are different to yours isn't going to help.

Red diesel is used by people who say they aren't going to use it on the roads (for example farm tractors and canal boats) and you can buy it in areas where such users are common.

3 bed house, 2adults and 2 nearly teenagers with an antique boiler. We use 1500l a year but are out during day and also have a woodburner for winter.

4 bed house & just the two of us.
1500 litres once a year during the summer when it is cheaper. 3000 litre tank so could go two years at a push.
Boiler 20 years old but serviced by a very good engineer who reckons we would only be 5% more efficient with a new one.
Have a wood burner for space heating in the lounge and enough wood in store to last for 5 years.

1800-2000 litres here too - but house is large 320 m 2 and we live in colder climate and house is exposed on a hilltop. But we do have insulation and triple glazing which helps - before it was closer to 3000!

I am amazed at how low all your oil consumption is! Admittedly we have a 4000Sqft open plan house but we get through about 4000-5500l/year. No AGA.

We are never really cold but have just spent a FORTUNE on improving the thermal efficiency of our house. Hoping that this will drastically reduce the amount of oil we get through.

yeah I'd say those using 2,000l is about what we use. Family of 4 showers only, heating on in the morning only - fire in the evenings. Our boiler however is ancient, we cant have hot water only its always heating and hot water

Two adults, two kids (11 and 6), 4 bed house. We use about 700 litres a year. DH works from home as well. However, our kitchen (which is at the back of the garage extension), is freezing, and suck all warm air out of the house, so we don't try and heat the whole house. Heating goes on in the sitting room in the evening (doors kept shut), and DH likes it tropical. Stick the rads on in the kids bedrooms for half an hour before bed and for half an hour in the morning when really cold. Bedrooms above garage get chilly but have electric blankets.

I would say I use about 600-700L per year.
2 adults and 3 teenagers in a 4 bedroom house.
Both showers are instant electric and we have an immersion switch for hot water if we need it so only use the oil for heating (because there is no hot water only switch)

Our house is triple glazed windows and well insulated so I don't put it on too much unless it's really cold then I can switch it off as the house gets warm and stays warm.

BTW your EPC will give you a bit of an idea of the energy efficiency of the house. Just ignore the crap about solar panels and wind turbines.

England - no actual rules about oil boilers (unlike gas safe) so make sure your landlord does service it annually. With the open fire/logburner there IS a law that a CO detector should be there. And I bet your landlord is open to you paying to install a logburner - why are you doing that on a rental?

make sure you read your how to rent guide.

About 1200 per year. 5 bed, 5 people. Log burner in the big room for top up in winter.

We have found it quite variable.

In a modern three bed semi with neighbours who had the heating on constantly we used 700l of oil over two winters.

Last winter in this four bed detached much older single glazed house we used 1000l plus about 750kg of coal.

We are moving soon to a place that we anticipate will go though a good bit more oil and two tons of coal per winter.

Old oil boilers are easy to service and many people round her choose to diy. New condensing things and gas boilers less so but the costs of parts and servicing over much shorter service lives make a very big dent in the reduction in fuel use. If renting your landlord will likely get someone to look after it for you.

Don’t use boilerjuice we have always got better prices phoning around.

Thank you so much for all your replies it has been a great help in estimating our consumption.

Our landlord is a decent landlord. The previous tenants are friends and we're in the house for 14 years. He owns many properties ( country estate) and does get everything serviced etc.

I’d say the house construction/insulation makes a massive difference. Our house is solid walls and despite our best efforts as we’re renovating, it’s draughty and takes ages to heat up. If for some reason the heating is off for a couple of days then it takes a couple of days of constant heating to get it warm again.
Detached house, 2 adults and 2 small children and our heating and all hot water comes from our modern boiler and we use at least 2000L a year (we don’t have a fire).

OP in case you don’t already know - you can haggle with the oil companies over the price. So get various quotes and then play them off against each other, you can normally save quite a bit. My record was about a £400 saving so well worth a few phone calls! We don’t have oil in our new house and turns out you can’t negotiate with mains companies in the same way

Blimey reading these figures makes me glad we're having our very old boiler replaced in a few weeks time. We have a very old, large house and we use about 3500l a year. Don't have the heating on very much, also use a log burner every day in winter.