Is oil heating relatively cheap?

[Wagsandclaws]

Just that really, we love rurally and last summer 500 litres were £140 via boiler juice.

I've just paid £430 to fill up again ( have done a couple of times since summer ) but it was never this expensive.

Sorry to sound stupid but is it the same as gas in terms of how expensive it's likely to be?

We always lived in a place that had mains gas before so is Oil hearing the most cost effective way of hearing a house with prices being so high?

We have to keep the house warm at all times due to my 82 year old Mum living with us. Our electric is about £230 per month with utility warehouse so it's really adding up atm.

No, it’s not generally considered cheap. In fact it’s famously expensive after a massive leap in prices 10-15 years ago.

Maybe I’m behind the times and there have been fluctuations or the gas price rise has wiped out the difference?

It's historically been cheaper than electricity for heating, and if you don't have a gas supply your a bit stuck.

Oil is obviously v expensive atm, whereas electricity & gas is price capped.
I don't know how it compares atm.

Long term, May be worth considering alternatives, but these will be costly upfront.

So you’re paying more than £600 a year on top of electricity bills? I wouldn’t enjoy that any more than I’m enjoying the energy hikes, TBH, but changing your boiler will be ££££.

Oil prices have spiked due to Russia invading Ukraine. OPEC + were having a meeting about raising production, and releasing more oil, but I haven't seen prices dip yet.

No our electric is cheaper in the summer months as I pay for what I use each month.

We do have a high electric use though due to myself, Dh, two younger DC's and my Mum plus my older dd and her Dh live in our annexe whilst they are saving for their first house.

They do contribute but there are quite a few of us in a largish barn conversion plus an annexe. They have to use electric to heat the annexe as it's not on our oil supply.

Ok I thought as much with regards to oil - we are stuck anyway as we live rurally but maybe it's worth looking into solar panels long term for electric 🤷‍♀️

I did think it was bloody expensive this year as opposed to previous years. A tank of 500l lasts about 6-7 weeks in the winter I'd say as opposed to a tank will last most of the summer as only needs to heat the water in the main house.

Can you swap to mains gas? If not, isn't your questions what are the alternatives and is oil cheaper than them?

The obvious alternatives are LPG and air source heat pumps. LPG is very expensive if you need bottles, less if you have the space get a tank installed because then you buy in bulk. No idea how an LPG tank compares to oil at the moment, but you'd need a new boiler and a tank installing so it certainly wouldn't be a saving in the short term. For air source heat pumps, we got quotes 4 months ago when our oil heating broke. It's apparently as expensive as oil to run, would have been very expensive to install but is obviously better for the environment. I don't know with electricity / oil price changes which is better. If you don't have a well insulted house, I'd have thought you are better off investing in that rather than changing fuel source.

We have solar water heating which actually helps quite a bit, we don't tend to need the oil boiler to heat our water over the summer months. We also have a wood burning stove in the living room, so we run the house cooler and keep the main living areas warm with that.

500l was £320 last week. It's £450 today. Last March it was about £200

Prices have rocketed in the last few days.

I've just paid £864 for 1000 litres. Oil prices go up and down depending on the political situation. Over the last 25 years its been anything from 12p to 85p per litre. It's never cheap.

Mains gas is cheaper, LPG is more expensive, Electricity much more expensive, unless you can get mains gas you’re stuck with oil.

We moved from gas central heating to oil central heating and overall have found it slightly cheaper. It has gone up of course and this may change on the back of recent events, but we only ordered a few days ago and that still worked out cheaper than gas. I think you can get better prices if you are savvy and organised to order at the right times, we are not the best at that though!

I paid 890 for 1500 litres a week or two ago. The previous fill was about 580 for 1800 litres. I dip it every now and then and if goes below a third I get it brimmed.

Don’t use boilerjuice, it has never been cheapest for us, buy as much as you can store each time you want to top up. Our tank is about 2000 litres and brim to empty would just about do a year.

Oil is generally more expensive than mains gas but much cheaper than lpg or electric. Wood pellets are more volatile in price but at times have been very cheap, but you have limited suppliers for fuel.

Our tank came new with the property ( it was classed as a new build even though it was converted from a cow barn ) it holds up to 1000 litres but I usually only ever get 500 - will get 1000 next time if it's cheaper.

Lots of good advice on here - think we are stuck with oil but I was just thinking for the future if there might be a cheaper alternative.

Yes to the prices going up and down according to the political situation, I'm amazed at the difference in just less than a year, it's huge!

Solar water heating sounds great, we can't have a wood burner due to us all being asthmatic, we had one int he last house and it wasn't great for any of our chests tbh.

Lots to think about thanks for the advice on here. Where else other than boiler juice is good for oil? Might it be worth going to the suppliers directly?

My tank is 2500 litres as you get a discount if you order over 2000 litres. Boiler juice is cheaper than the oil supplier I have an account with, but the supplier will match prices if you point out that Boiler Juice is cheaper.

NRG or The Oil Club often offer good prices.

Great I'll check those out

Oil was really cheap during the pandemic. A colleague even got a second oil tank fitted on their farm to make the most of it!

Sadly that was a blip, and as per PP oil does tend to be more expensive than gas.

Yes I thought that price last summer was ridiculously cheap but didn't take advantage of it unfortunately.

I wish our tank was larger than 1000l but it is as it is.

There is no way to cut down on it either because of my Mum, I'd be quite happy in thermals tbh. She has heart failure so needs to be warm.

We've a 2500 litres oil tank, and buy approx every 15-18 months. This means I can shop around for prices and buy when it is cheap, I usually get 2000 litres to get a good price.
For hot water, our solar once churning out more than 2Kw, then heats the hot water to higher temp than the Rayburn will, meaning that in the summer rarely heats the hot water (it's on a time anyway). I also cook electric in the summer (solar), not on the Rayburn.
I think I last paid half what it is now , buying in the height of summer heat when oil sales are typically very low vs winter (kicking myself we couldn't squeeze in much at the start of the pandemic when it was super low).
Prices vary, but if you've a local buying group (basically WhatsApp when people need oil in our village) so 4 or 5 or more can buy together to get a cheaper rate or use boilerjuice or similar.

We use about 80 litres a month (average) to heat a detached four bedroom so it does sound like you are using an awful lot. That is with people working at home all day and not skimping. Have you had your boiler serviced, ours is less efficient if not serviced.

It fluctuates massively
We’ve lived here 7 years.I remember at one point paying 26p a litre. The price via the oil club couple of weeks ago was about 78p and I dare say has gone up more since.

Oil is cheapest in May-August.

Can you get together with your neighbours and place a single order? tends to be quite a bit cheaper.When I lived in a house with oil heating the whole village used to order their oil at once (one retired chap co-ordinated it all) and it was definitely worth it.

You could see if there's a syndicate you can join locally - they take orders every month and put in a bulk order for everyone at a better price. Saves you having to shop around too.

My 1000 litre fill in March 2020 was around than £190 (think it was about 17p per litre). Just filled again and it was 65p per litre so around £680 once VAT included). It's crazy now - obviously Russia situation isn't helping. I like the fact you can take advantage relatively quickly of falling oil prices like back in March two year ago, but conversely you're not shielded at all from rocketing prices, and if your tank is empty you have no choice but to put a very expensive minimum 500 litres in it. But those of us without mains gas don't have many other options!

(Sorry, just to be clear, I have filled at least 4 times since March 2020 - sadly my tankful definitely doesn't last for two years!)