[Closed] And the heating oil cartel swings into action once again

*prods bag of wood pellets*
you still 4.4p/kWh?
yep.
Good bag of pellets 🙂

oil would appear to be about (5.5p/kWh if you're looking at 55p per litre)
[img] [/img]

That's all well and good stoner, but how the hell is that going to fit in my kitchen cupboard?

[i]unrest in Libia[/i]

you were only an 'a' substituted for an 'i' away from disaster there...

no idea, but you'll be wanting a fire extinguisher in there 🙂

Texaco /shell seemed to have our local market all stiched up over here in wild west wales till back oct/nov a guy who worked for OJ,S texaco went independent n stung em with big undercuts heating oil n fuel to large haulage companies.
Set up as OIL 4 WALES last week they were 7p litre below texco n 14p below what some shell customers paying,
I saved £70 .00 on 1000 litres ,that a tank of fuel for the car saved at least.
So if your west wales look em up ,depot Carmarthen.

[img] http://www.boilerjuice.com/includes/echoPriceGraph.inc.php?d=183&s=XL&min=0&max=0&avg=1 [/img]

two steps up, one step down...

you were only an 'a' substituted for an 'i' away from disaster there...

Libaa............ 😐

Stoner that looks mightily impressive. It's got lots of doors too - is it a cooker?!

*prods bag of wood pellets*
you still 4.4p/kWh?
yep.
Good bag of pellets

But you can't burn woodpellets in a diesel engine can you....ahhemm 😯

Boiler.

The left side (middle door with handle) is a furnace that burns logs etc
The right side (Red burner) burns wood pellets.

It acts just like any normal boiler. Firing when there's demand for more energy in the thermal store (F***-off big tank of water) and drawing fuel (pellets) from the hopper via the auger to dose the burner.

Stoner that graph is all the more surprising as the price of crude has been climbing steadily since September last year. I guess there must be a pretty competative market if the retail price has come down despite the increase in price of feedstock.

😛
[img] [/img]

http://www.automotto.org/entry/duch-john-converts-his-volvo-240-to-run-on-wood-gas/

gonefishin - the spike was obviously not really as a result of crude prices, but of the weather and road conditions creating supply and demand mismatch in the retail market. Once that cleared then the price fell back as the only structural change in the heating oil market was the ongoing crude price rise.

http://www.automotto.org/entry/duch-john-converts-his-volvo-240-to-run-on-wood-gas/

Eats hat 😀

Can someone explain this to me?

BP/Texco/whoever extract and refine the oil.

They also sell the oil in their garages.

So, why do they have to reflect the open market oil prices? Surely they dont have to "sell" the oil to themselves?

So, why do they have to reflect the open market oil prices? Surely they dont have to "sell" the oil to themselves?

The industry doesn't work that way. Not all producers are refiners and not all refiners are producers.

Yeah stoner I know, but looking at that graph in isolation could lead one to concluded that prices were put up in winter but not reduced later in the year indicating that there is price fixing going on whereas in fact it's a bit more complicated than that.

Can someone explain this to me?

BP/Texco/whoever extract and refine the oil.

They also sell the oil in their garages.

So, why do they have to reflect the open market oil prices? Surely they dont have to "sell" the oil to themselves?

They run the drilling/refining/retail businesses as separate accounting entities. This allows them to move all the profits to the end of the business that pays the lowest tax and claim there is no profits in selling petrol.

Stoner - is that two pumps in series?

opposing.

they move hot water back and forth between the 200 litre boiler tank and the 700 litre thermal store depending on the program requirements.

(i.e. sometimes you need to move heat back in to the boiler prior to it firing to stop lots of condensate forming, or just to keep the temp up in the boiler if there's surplus in the store - the boiler feeds the rads, the store the UFH)

[b]Stoner [/b]- gonefishin - the spike was obviously not really as a result of crude prices, but of the weather and road conditions creating supply and demand mismatch in the retail market. Once that cleared then the price fell back as the only structural change in the heating oil market was the ongoing crude price rise

That and the [url= http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/household-bills/article.html?in_article_id=520998&in_page_id=510 ]profiteering[/url] by BoilerJuice under the guise of being a price-comparison website, when it actually only gives prices from a group of companies that are all owned by DCC Group..

Strangely, the prices seemed to drop off again right about when the story broke and the bad publicity started..

oooo. didnt know that, but then I dont have to buy oil 😉

naughty bastards.

Stoner - how much did that cost to fit and how much does it cost to run compared to oil? Also, how stable are prices?

(Asking as we are currently considering a house that is oil fired).

frogstomp - that's a bit cheeky.

25kW capacity
£10k to supply and install in boiler room.

Assuming RHI incentives come through OK then it might generate between £500 and £750 pa index linked for the next 20 years in payments.

The pellet boiler is about 89% efficient when burning pellets.
Pellets are in the range of 4.7 - 5.1 kWh/Kg

Cost is about £2.35/10Kg bag incl VAT

So per kWh of energy output it's

£0.235 / 5.1kWh x 1/89% = 5.1p/kWh

Heating oil has an energy density of 11.8kWh/Kg and a density of 845Kg/m3 which breaks back to 9.97 kWh/L

If you pay 55p/litre for your oil and your boiler is 90% efficient, then your energy output is:

£0.55 / 9,97kWh x 1/90% = 6.1p/kWh

Since wood inflation is going to be below oil inflation for the foreseable, RHI's are more than likely going to be paid at some rate anyway, and the system is already more efficient in terms of £ per kWh output, then I reckon it will work out well in the longer term despite the hefty capital cost.

Of the £10k price on the way in, you can assume that a similar capacity oil boiler with fuel tank, thermal store and pipe work might cost about £2500-£3000 I suppose.

The thermal store makes it suitable for phase II which is the solar water panels. I think Im going for about 3kW for around £1k. These also get an RHI payment, probably somewhere up to £100 a year, index linked, for x yrs (10 is it?) but they obviously provide free energy for the summer months and also reduce the net cost of energy during spring and autumn a bit too but Ill have to do the maths for that once they are installed and I can measure their performance.

They should be going in in the next few months.

I wil reckon air source heart pumps are the best bet for the next 10 years, assuming your house is suitable

I dont 🙂

I think they work best if you're in a 1980's block of flats without mains gas. As a direct replacement for electric storage heaters, they are relatively efficient. Compared to gas, oil or wood central heating they arent.

ASHP have coefficients of performance of say, 3 or 4 at their very best. If electricity is costing say 15p/kWh, then the energy being output from the ASHP is between 4 and 5p/kWh and thats only when at their optimum, and elec prices are probably going to keep rising a fair whack too.

Mains gas is still the most efficient fuel by price in this country by a considerable margin (about 3p/kWh IIRC)

For the next ten years Id say the best investment would be a micro CHP combi boiler - cheap heat and 3p/kWh 1kW of electricity too 🙂

I expect Stoner has read this but for others worth a read. As is the entire site. Buy the book even and give the man a little money for all his efforts.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c21/page_140.shtml

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0954452933/davidmackay0f-21

Ive not read that Brick - but I will now. Thanks for that.

Interesting stuff Stoner.... you've obviously put some serious thought into it.
We live in a '50s farmhouse with no gas nearby. The oil boiler is about 20 years old but has been pretty reliable for the 9 years we've been here, but the price of oil has more than doubled since we moved in!
Our boiler isn't going to last forever so I'm looking at the best alternatives. Your's look good (and we've got the room for it) but I'm also holding out to see what CHP brings in the next 18 months or so.
Thankfully we put an 8kw stove in last May and I think it must have saved us about £500 in oil this winter alone..... thankfully.
Will be doing some reading up on your system.

Insulation is the main saver though. Going beyond the obvious like double glazing and roof insulation

Even with single skin walls, think about dry lining and insulating internally each room as you refurb, or even external stud insulated cavity and cladding.

Bit like sharkbait here, no gas, with an aging, but still reliable oil boiler. Also have a wood burner and free wood, but no space in the house or garden for the pellet burner.
So I guess in the next few years we'll be replacing the boiler but not sure what to. I also looked at ASHP a few years ago but wasn't convinced, plus concerned about the noise they make. So hope something comes along in the next few years (a gas pipe line?).

Having just had a quick look at the (very good) article linked to by Brick, he makes a pretty convincing arguement for heat pumps. I'd thought about this also - well, ground source heat pump as we've got the space for it - but the air source sounds like it might be better.

he makes a pretty convincing arguement for heat pumps

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c21/page_147.shtml

Id beg to differ SB. He makes the case for heat pumps as an efficient multiplier of electrical energy input but not a case for when compared to other energy sources, or indeed the price of the energy source. I stand by my arguments.

The point is, if you don't have gas, or wood pellets, heat pumps are ok. This is the situation for many of us.

Sure, a few wood-scavengers can burn wood. But there is not
enough wood for everyone to do so. For forest-dwellers, there’s wood. For
everyone else, there’s heat pumps.

I agree. But pellets is a good alternative for anyone with oil (you can get much smaller boilers and losing the oil tank, space for storing pellets) and gas is cheaper for those who arent on oil if they can get it.

I wonder how many people are on gas, and how many on oil in the country?

Stoner's right from a financial point of view. It must be said though that gas and oil are more carbon intensive than electricity so whilst cheaper (at the moment) gas and oil are not more efficient or "greener" than ASHP, which with the efficiency advantage (COP/EER of 4 compared to 0.89) makes ASHP quite attractive to the "green" types given the correct application. If you want to reduce your CO2 footprint with biomass, you would need expensive carbon capture filters at point of burn. Stoner, you do have carbon capure on that biomass boiler don't you? 😀

bh - CO2 footprint is a record of non-renewable carbon conversion isnt it 😉

Stoner, you do have carbon capure on that biomass boiler don't you?

Does a pair of Mrs Stoner's knickers stretched over the flue pipe count?

I concede Im looking at this from the money side of things at the moment and ASHP are great [i]if you're pegged to electricity in the first place[/i].

no need for carbon capture on a wood boiler - wood is biogenic/short cycle carbon so not a fossil fuel. essentially carbon neutral

Not so sure about carbon efficiency claim above for air source, unless you have renewable electricty powering the pump

Kev

In the sense that you get 3 or 4 times the output energy per tonne of CO2 than you would if you just used the electrical energy to heat the room directly it does improve carbon efficiency.

I have been looking at houses to buy in Sweden and they have all of the above except gas. Cheapest of course is good insulation but pellets are ok but take up a lot of space and they need to be cleaned out a my mate has had problems with bad pellets. Ground heat exchange needs a big garden, many houses have air heat exchange which they say is cheap. Insulation wins everytime though.

air heat exchange is a heat recovery system (catching the heat from warm dirty air and moving it to new intake of cold clean air before recirculating in the house), not an energy source. Ive put it in here too. To work at its best it needs an airtight building so my converted barn isnt perfect but I reckon I get quite good performance out of it, harvesting a lot of the energy that is usually lost to vent loss. It also keeps the air fresh in the house.
[img] [/img]

its the blue and grey thing top left. Its now connected up properly. Must get a photo.

no need for carbon capture on a wood boiler - wood is biogenic/short cycle carbon so not a fossil fuel. essentially carbon neutral

sharkbait - Member
Thankfully we put an 8kw stove in last May and I think it must have saved us about £500 in oil this winter alone..... thankfully.
Will be doing some reading up on your system.

If you have a 8 kw stove you should make sure it's linked up to you c/h system with a back boiler. Parents had this don last summer via multi coiled thermal store. They have done all of there hot water and c/h with ease off of the wood burner this winter. Ok only two of them living there at the moment but my girlfriend and I were there over Christmass and it still kept up with 4 peoples heating and hot water need. They haven the gas boiler linked in as a backup and during the spring / autumn when the solar thermal might not quite give enough heat..

To be honest it would be quite a hassle to link it to the CH. At the moment the CH thermostat is set to 18 degs (with the thermostat in the hall) but the stove is in the snug (separated from the hall by the kitchen and two doors and we can open/close various doors to allow the heat to spread depending upon how cold it is.

2 points from a Scandinavian persepective. We pay about £1 per litre for heating oil so it is a big part of our budget (£200-£300 per month) so alternatives are popular and there have been some rebate schemes in Denmark over the last couple of years.
The air and or ground heat exchanges have been popular, but over the last 2 cold winters, it has turned out that they don't have the power that was promised and there have been quite a few people having to buy inneficient electric heaters to keep warm enough.

Looked at a zero energy house a couple of months ago. it is definately the future.