Anyoen got oil fired central heating? Tell me why you love it hate it please

[Piffle]

We have found another house - perfect village, perfect house - there is no gas to the village as yet. MAy never be
it has oil fired central heating and an oil storage tank
I know NOTHING about it
please any info would be gratefully rec'd

We get almost a year out of a 1200l delivery. I think it's actually easier to budget with oil because you can see the level dropping so you know how much you're using, rather than gas where you have no idea until you get the bill (if like me you are inefficient and never look at the meter). Also if you are organised (like my DH) you can monitor the oil prices (we use boilerjuice too) and fill up at the best time.

Go for it!!

My elderly parents have a sensor that orders the oil automatically for them when the level drops to 100 litres. They also have a remote control so that they can turn the heon and off from bed, sofa, where ever.

Our tank is 'bunded' (double skinned) and my parents had to replace theirs as it was cracked. It was about 20 years old.
My boilers in my kitchen, you get the odd whiff every now and then, but nothing worse that a small child couls produce!

Minty - you are absolutely right. We had ours installed when we renovated our house last year. The regulations are amazing - ours is a triple skinned whatsit thingummy which holds 1000 litres and is pretty big (but hidden well). Apparently the regulations change frequently - similar to the way that the regulations relating to gas boilers etc all change too.

okies will bear all this in mind when we go view...
DP only found out yesterday I wanted to move
HAHA

CantSleepWontSleep on Mon 05-Nov-07 19:10:54
Blimey - how do you all use so much less oil than we do?! We get around 2000litres delivered usually 3 times a year

are you sure it is that much ? We have just had that much delivered and calcualted it should last 2.5 years.

If yours is genuinely using that much I would :

1. look at getting a newer more efficient boiler
2. turn the thermostat down and wear more jumpers
3. look at insulation - easy one to do it double the amount in the roof.

another thing to consider when replacing your tank (if needed) - there are strict regs about where it can now be sited - many old ones are no longer in acceptable places (eg near opening windows).

Just a quick point about Boilerjuice - when I have compared their prices to phoning around local suppliers they are generally about 1-2p per litre more expensive I guess it might vary from area to area, but they def more expensive round here.

Smell isn't an issue as we have an outdoor boiler, which also saves on space.

We had our house re-insulated last year, have a fairly new boiler and only use about 600 litres a year for a 3-bed house.

we found that with boilerjuice too. The key is to ring round a number of suppliers - get the lowest price - then go back to the others and ask them to do better - it is amazing how much they will drop.

DH is brilliant at it - I don't have the cheek though

i have 2 companies that will always match my lowest quote, and one that will go lower. I am always tempted to quote a false price to them!

throck we have 2500l for the house about 4 times a year. AND half the house (literally) is electric underfloor heating . (And another 1200l for the swimming pool but that is just once a year)

I blame the aga myself

best not to work out how much that costs, ignorance is bliss I think

re oil suppliers, you should also have a little chat to your boiler/aga service man too. for instance, my aga man told me that houses who have oil from X supplier need their agas serviced every 3-4 months rather than every 6 months because they get coked up. really dirty fuel apparently. god knows what it does to their boilers. they are always a few p cheaper than the people we use, but I wouldn't swap now knowing that.

local knowledge, its worth GOLD

We get through 2000 every 7/8 months but our aga is electric as is our swimming pool heat pump. I'm quite sure that our annual electricity bill is bigger than that of most small nations. Swings and roundabouts and all that....

I've no idea how much oil we use in quantity, but we pay about £1000 a year. That's for a 5 bed house and we don't stint on heat. The CH is usually on 24/7 from Nov to April (in my defence, we're in Scotland!!) There's a thermostat on the boiler and each radiator has one as well. There's never a smell from the boiler although you occasionally get a whiff outdoors from the flue thingy.

If you don't like cooking on electricity, there are LPG gas cookers available, one of which I have. We use two or three calorgas containers a year so cost is minimal.

throck we have 2500l for the house about 4 times a year. AND half the house (literally) is electric underfloor heating shock. (And another 1200l for the swimming pool but that is just once a year)

I blame the aga myself

BLIMEY !

Even if it is the aga - the heat from the aga will be heating the house space - either the house is very warm, huge, or losing vaste amounts of heat.

That is a LOT of oil.

We have a 2000l tank - which is one of the biggest for sale - most people don't have one that big and normally only fill once a year (or at least most people I know).

Seriously - if I were you I would be trying to figure out where all that heat is going.

I'm staggered at how much oil some of you are using. Ours is a 1000l tank filled twice a year.

out the vast roof I suspect throck
have never asked people with similarly sized piles how much oil they get through
hmmm
would ask my MIL but actually I don't think she has heating
wonder how I can find out

maybe we only fill it 3 times a year?

throck - we put in that foam spray insulation thingy (renotherm??) in half the loft (is divided into 'old' side and 'new' side - we had the old side done) a few years ago, so our insulation is good. I also blame the range/boiler (one and the same thing), but to replace it (inc the building work that would be required to do this) would prob cost us around £10k, so I'm not even going to consider it, esp as I don't know that it would make any difference.

MM - you've been to my house - how does its size compare to yours?

I admit we do like it warm, and even before I became a SAHM, either dh or I would regularly work from home, so that would certainly account for us using more than a family where both parents were out at work all day every day.

Hmmm.

Well I asked DH how many times we filled it and he said "I don't know, 5 times a year? 6? 4 maybe?"

So I don't think its three

Brand new boiler as well

and we don't use the heating at all in the summer

I don't know

CSWS - yours is a bit bigger. Ours is only 3 beds.

Hmmm, so not enough diff to justify us using 2-3 times as much oil as you then!

CSWS - have you had your radiators bled recently? When we had ours done it made a huge difference to the heat that they gave off, and we turned down the thermostats by a few degrees.

Yup. All bled.
We have a bit of heating on in the night to keep dd's room at an even temp, and then I have the air con on in my room because the clear air helps me to sleep without getting all snuffly! That prob doesn't help .

I think we're a bit meaner with heating than you. Ours is only on for an hour in the morning, then 2 hours in the evening (officially, I have it on for about 4 hours if dh isn't here ).