We are down to a flashing "1" level on the oil monitor. Sitting on one room, with the electric fire on - me, the wife and two kids - watching 'Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium'. Too icy and cold to go out on the bike. Tempers are frayed.
Waited almost two weeks already for the oil delivery and if it doesn't arrive soon, it could turn into The Shining round here.
no, but a lot of people locally have come periously low I know with oil left in tanks. Happy burning locally sourced biofuels, AKA firewoods!! 
come the snowpocalypse, this baby means I can burn the furniture* when I run out of fuel.
*Or fell a tree.
Either way I dont have to rely on someone else.
Just had a delivery this morning, was running on empty with aga off and radiators turned down in front of the fire. When it arrived I turned everything back up aga should be hot soon!!
Rewarded driver with some beers I think they have been pulling some long hours.
Best thing might be to get on to the depot and let them know how dire it is
stoner what is that mad looking contraption??
is it a pellet hopper thingy majig??
my uncle has one in Inverness I think
pellets in the hopper on the right, augured up to the red box before droppign down the chute into the big red box where they're burnt.
On the left hand side of the boiler, that handle opens a furnace door where I can burn any dry timber instead.
We're on bottled gas here, currently going through almost a bottle a week on our house alone. That's £50-£70 A WEEK dependent upon prices. Blimey..
TS
Delivering oil is my job, when we can get any that is. Supplies have been held up getting to us and we don't know from day to day what we are getting etc. Having to ration it out to those who really need it when we can get to them. Prioritise those who are out/almost out.
If you stick a brick under back edge of tank to lift it a couple of inches you will get a few more days out of your tank if you desperate, assuming standard plastic type. Dont lift to high or all crap in bottom will be drawn in and also make it obvious to delivery man tank is propped up.
Hopefully we won't need to prop the tank up, but it's a good tip to know - we still should have more than 100 litres left but in this weather it is going down fast.
Nothing I've read or heard seems to explain why the price has jumped so much in 3-4 weeks though. When the price of crude was over $100 a barrel was heating oil at its current price? I hope it is not a case of greedy bankers in the commodities market trying to make some money.
We spent a 2 week period over last Christmas wrapped in blankets and huddled round electric heaters waiting for a delivery, it was miserable indeed, hope yours comes soon!
There was a segment on the news this morning discussing the price rise, its partly due to a supply and demand issue; although the companies are charging sky high prices at the monment because they can - the greedy bastids.
Stoner - what make of machine is that? Is it effective? How much was it?
Quite fancy one of those. Presumably you've a huge shed somewhere full of pellets?
We're next to Kielder where I understand a lot of the timber now goes for biomass although last I heard it has to go to Austria for processing. Ironically local industry is threatened because they can't afford to pay the subsidised prices that biomass folk can pay.
We're hoping thast what we have left, say 200litres, will get us throught the nxt few weeks until we can get a delivery...
Delivery here on Monday. I'm just not looking forward to the bill for it - 77p a litre FFS!
My folks were almost out this week - delivery delayed first by all the snow and ice up Teesdale.
It was then due when the oil tanker broke down and they didn't know how long it would take to fix.
When they rang round a few other places as a contingency, they were told the 1st available delivery date was late January!! Fortunately they got their oil yesterday as they'd been having to run the heating on so low that there was ice on the inside of the windows in a morning.
So....
My oil fired boiler is less than 1 year old and currently heating the water and underfloor heating. Both on digital timers
We also have option of using electric for heating water.
Which would be cheapest way for heating the water?
Water tank is Santon Premium Plus
The boiler is a warmflow with following details that baffle me!
Taken from sedbuk site
SAP 2009 annual efficiency:
90.7%
SAP winter seasonal efficiency:
91.8%
SAP summer seasonal efficiency:
80.1%
Comparative hot water efficiency:
53.9%
SAP 2005 Seasonal efficiency:
92.2%
Still got half a tank of really cheap oil I bought off a neighbour when he was ditching oil heating - I got ours full to the brim. I had hoped we would see out the winter, but not at the current rate of burn 
Seriously looking at pellet burners, but they're a bit pricey. Worth it in the long run I guess. I'm doing garage mods to get ready for it (and improve the bike storage of course 
).
Seriously looking at pellet burners, but they're a bit pricey. Worth it in the long run I guess. I'm doing garage mods to get ready for it (and improve the bike storage of course ).
Air or ground source heat pump if you have the space. I'm seriously considering it, just waiting for the feed in tariffs to be announced.
Have about 300litres left.Will get us too march,at the current useage
paul4stones - Member
Stoner - what make of machine is that? Is it effective? How much was it?Quite fancy one of those. Presumably you've a huge shed somewhere full of pellets?
We're next to Kielder where I understand a lot of the timber now goes for biomass although last I heard it has to go to Austria for processing. Ironically local industry is threatened because they can't afford to pay the subsidised prices that biomass folk can pay.
paul i have good mate that lives between wark and bellingham who sell's and installs stuff like that for a living
http://www.thecentreforgreenenergy.co.uk/
he part owns this place, sound bloke and a mountainbiker aswell(was hard as nails when i used to ride with him.)
ask for Ali.
not the sort of bloke to call you a time waster if you dont buy straight away.
Same here. Discovered our watchman was not correctly sync'd.
Not much left. Called over 20 places yesterday. Anyone know of a firm in the NE prepared to sell 25l drums of the stuff to get us through to the 4th of Jan.
If you are in the north west star oils in Bredbury ask for mike or chris they run 24- 7 they also run three 4x4 pick up trucks that will deliver in any condition along with 5 or 6 tankers
yup flashing watchman - will get out and tip it up a bit with a brick tomorrow
our delivery was supposed to be 2 weeks ago - soon as the snow hit the truck refused to come into our drive - we wont even take the car in atm .....
my neighbours in the same boat .....
am i fussed - i just turned off the heating and use coal - (found a place very very local that has mountains of the stuff and cant get his trucks out to deliver !picked up 100kg today ) .... on hot water only for an hour in the morning and at night 100 litres last 3 months !
Unsponsored
My folks are near Alnwick and just got some through (trying to get more) my Dad was mentioning drum sully but not heard much more. Apparently (Check with a professional first) you can thin it out a bit with Diesel etc (not for Aga's though) he was also saying they couln't even get through to the suppliers for a bit.
As for ours Tuesdays price was 47p, Sat morning was 53p boiler juice were quoting 77p
If you are really struggling i think you can run them on red diesel instead of heating oil.
Looking on the Net seems to agree
"If you are really struggling i think you can run them on red diesel instead of heating oil.
Looking on the Net seems to agree"
Heating boilers will run on diesel but not without burner fuel pump pressure,air and nozzle adjustments. It may fire up but it will eventually soot up and stop and then you will perish and die lonely.
I was in the oil distribution business for 12 years in various roles including out on the road selling oil for 2 years. I don't think you can shove diesel into a tank that feeds a kerosene boiler without some potential problems. Diesel is less refined than kerosene. A modification can be made to your boiler by a heating engineer. If you do end up using diesel then Gas oil/red diesel/tractor diesel is exactly the same as diesel, but much cheaper as it doesn't have road tax added. If you do buy Gas Oil/red diesel/tractor diesel, you need to ask that it has additives (in some cases you might have to pay extra for the additives) otherwise it will just wax up and not flow thru pipes in the current temps (-11 here tonight in Yorkshire).
Paul - its a Finnish Jaspi biotriplex boiler with a Swedish Ulma pellet burner married to a FInnish Jaspi 700 litre thermal store
more on the set up here
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anyone-on-here-know-anything-about-thermal-stores
geoff - IMO GSH isnt neccesarily a great idea because your are still pegged to electircity prices and at COPs of 3 or 4 and elec prices of 12-15p/kWh, youre still paying 4-5p /kWh for energy, which is what I pay for biomass and Im sure elec inflation is going to be higher than biomass of coming years.
You also get payments under the RHI initiative - mine's just going through certification, we'll see how much money I get for it, but I expect it wont be as much as was talked about a year ago.
FYI set up cost about £10k to install, including the thermal store but excluding the flue (£1300)
q]\]\q
If you are in the aberdeen area there is a bio-diesel firm that is selling heating oil.
Im in the same boat oilwatchman flashing on 1, oil deliverys expected 2nd week in Jan, Oil prices round by me varied at 63.9 upto 80ppl
Shocking so all i have on at the moment is the woodburner to keep warm.....hard to tell how long the last bit of oil in the tank will last...
Thought about mixing a bit of cheery with what i have left?????
Thanks to nonk and stoner for the info.
Think I'll go have a chat with Ali sometime. We've got an old oil burner which was fitted as an emergency 2nd hand 3yrs ago for the cost of installation only but we've made contingency plans (High Pressure HW with immersion heater and wood burner/open fire) so we should be ok although not ideal if the oil fails. I wasn't worried but then having looked think that we maybe have 2-3wks worth of oil and suddenly with Christmas and NY and reported supply problems, maybe I should worry.
Got 100 litres using the Landy for a stranded friend (and her little girl - hubby in Afghanistan) on Saturday - they had no heating at all!
However I think the clothes I wore will stink of the stuff forever! Very hard pouring it from 5 gallons tanks into the main one (at head height).
It's rocketed in price too - paid 47p a litre for 1200 litres about two months ago. This was 70p a litre!!!
Ordered last week, told delivery would be this week. Checked this morning after weekend of snow - 12 days!!!!! Will deffo run out over xmas. Problem is I can't preorder by far because we've got a smallish tank so has to be nearly empty before we can fit in minimum order!
Same here.
I've heard various prices from 75p to £1 a litre! I remember it being 11p and it's not that long ago. Mind you, I can remember a bag of crisps being 2p.
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