[Closed] Oil for heating the house

Main point I can think off is price is far more volatile than gas, mainly due to the delivery system (i.e. a truck). And of course one always runs the risk of running out before a delivery can be arranged...and it does happen to a surprising number of people.

Good news is that the oil (kerosene aka unrefined paraffin) is a great cheap parts washer! 😀

Meanwhile in the land of those living with oil

Fit a watchman and order oil promptly instead of running to dregs and youll be just fine

My last 3 houses have all been oil , i did nearly run out in my first winter but then i did not anticipate than id have 3 months where the house was totally inaccessable by your average vehicle and even in a land rover it was touch and go......

Main draw back i see is theft 🙁

Pros: Cool plug in oil monitor which shows you how much oil you're using.
Cons: How much oil you're using. I swear I could actually see the thing in freefall at one stage during a cold winter in Teesdale.

You need to be more organised, club together with neighbours for deliveries, shop about. It ain't a cheap way to heat a house - if you can sort out a cheapish wood supply and run some rads off a burner, that will help.

Main draw back i see is theft

Which of course is highly dependant on tank location and accessibility. Ours is in the back garden, with privately owned land accessible only by the owners behind that. Not impossible to get to, but when some houses have oil tanks in their front garden hardly worth the thieves' efforts.

something to look at, the tanks can and do split. Not only will it cost you in terms of lost oil and a new tank i believe the environment agency can sting you for clean up.

Solution is a double wall tank.

Oh, forgot, one thing catching on around these parts is getting a few like-minded locals together and making a bulk purchase, healthy discount if the company can delivery to multiple local addresses on the same day.

Oil is fine, can be expensive, but still cheaper than all your alternatives for off gas supply, except biomass of course.

Downside biomass expensive to install so unless you have a large sum burning a hole in your pocket I probably wouldn't advise just yet unless you qualify for RHI payment. However I would look at it if your current boiler fails in the future and when the decision is made regarding domestic RHI payments.

Got some good spread sheets for lifecycle cost analysis (my spreadsheet wizard has tinkered with but haven't looked at them yet!)

I've nothing against oil either in fact have worked on more oil installations than gas probably but think there are better alternatives for the future.

Based on my experience oil, if you order as a when required is twice the price of mains gas for heating,

That said I monitor my gas cost quite carefully.

We've not used our oil fired central heating for going on 2 months now.
Our hot water is heated just once a day in the morning and then we just run it from the tank in the boiler.
Our consumption has dropped dramatically with not using the heating.
Boilers are more expensive to replace,been quoted £2,200.
I wish we had a fireplace or chimney as i'd get a woodburner as the cost of logs doesn't seem too bad.

Oil here. It is a bit pricey to run plus you really need to plan ahead i.e. the price of oil is in relative free-fall at the moment - looks like I'll need to fill the tank sometime soonish to get the best price - but 2500l will last 12 months.
Trying to run more wood stoves now and will give biomass serious consideration when it's time to replace the boiler (which is now about 25 years old).

Sharkbait - wise move, anyone on oil should seriously consider biomass when boiler replacement comes around, regardless of RHI payments!

Thanks all. Interestingly the EPC has a rating similar to what we'd get for the house we're in at the moment - so actual energy costs between our current house and this one should be similar (on paper!).

The house is on a small lane and a group of properties that are/were part of a farm, so maybe they already organise a group buy, it's one of the questions I'll ask when viewing.

I have thought about biomass/heat pump/solar thermal, but wouldn't do anything like that initially.

Oh, district biomass heating system. Now that would qualify for RHI payment now......

so actual energy costs between our current house and this one should be similar (on paper!).

i dont really get biomass maybe bear can explain ?

biomass i need to load it periodically and clean it out ?

sounds like alot of hard work to HAVE to do - i like my woodburner as i can heat the house when i want to but i can use oil when i need too .... realise its a convienance thing but really its much nicer not to wake up shivering because you forgot to load the boiler ?

i look at oil heating like a small price to pay to live in a nice area out of the city really.

Doesnt mean when i put my new boiler in soon i wont be looking at solar thermal capacity for future.

Some suppliers will add a monitor to the oil tank, and keep it filled. Maybe not the cheapest way, but it never runs out.

Oh for the luxury of oil....

I live in a village without mains gas (next village has it...). In their wisdom, the previous owners installed LPG central heating. If you think oil is expensive, try anything up to £500 a month in the depths of winter.

I wish we had a fireplace or chimney as i'd get a woodburner as the cost of logs doesn't seem too bad.

No chimney here either. The stove installers are here right now (though we've agreed that they're not cutting a hole in the roof in this rain).

Sharkbait - the graph and rating on the EPC is the SAP rating, this is the measure for comparing fuel costs per square metre. The old EPC had two graphs, one was the SAP, the other was the environmental impact which was a measure of the CO2 emissions (again per square metre).

It does take into account seasonal price fluctuations, but you are right that they're not completely accurate. They use a 3 year rolling average as a basis for the comparison, which is updated about once every 6-12 months (last update was April).

For my sins I work for a company that is involved with energy certification. We have lots of people who can tell me a lot of theory/models about oil heating - but very few of them have any experience of living with it!!

I stand corrected 🙂

The other thing I should say about the fuel costs on an EPC is that it's based on standard occupancy. There are statistics that say how many people on average live in properties of certain sizes. The SAP rating takes this into account.

So yes take the rating with a pinch of salt. It's a reasonably good indicator, but never going to be bang on accurate.

I used to work for a national oil distributor, with regards buying oil, the larger quantities you buy the more interested in negotiating/price matching they'll be, so def try clubing together, 900L is about the min to buy and get a reasonable price.
I'd say always phone around every local distributor and let them know you're phone around, try and do COD, you'll get the best price. only set up a DD arrangement if it's to pay them instantly on a COD price, you don't want to get tied into anyone. It's worth trying in the last week of the month as some of them won't have hit their budgets and might be desperate. When you've phoned round and got the cheapest price, phone that distributor back and tell them some guff about being quoted 5ppl cheaper elsewhere, but because you like them, they can have it if they price match, it's worth a try, again, if you're a COD customer they're more likely to agree.

Trail Rat

Biomass using wood pellets can be fully automated, with only really remembering to order pellets. You may want to clean the boiler out once yourself too. Not the full service as you need an engineer to do that, but you can do the interim clean out.

You could have a log boiler connected to the same system as oil boiler via an accumulator so if you can't be bothered to light log boiler oil will take over. You could of course do the same with pellets too.

For me the real advantages of pellets are the automation, people are used to oil should not notice much difference really. Other than hopefully cheaper running costs. Capital costs are a nother issue though.

For all the people installing wood burners to help supplement the heating, why not fit a pellet stove to do all the heating?

Not the full service as you need an engineer to do that,

only on those terribly expensive ones, snorf 😉

For all the people installing wood burners to help supplement the heating, why not fit a pellet stove to do all the heating?

pellets = 2x price logs still...?

Maybe per tonne, but with wood burners you are paying lots of money for flues and a stove that heats one room, maybe think of putting some of that towards a whole house solution?

often wood burners are quite large kw rating which is far too big for the room they are in, surely better to invest in something correctly sized. Or if you want to use logs a proper gasification boiler and accumulator. But of course you cant't look at it and say how pretty it is, therefore people aren't interested. I see too many people that are interested in pretty things rather than spending money on getting a proper solution.

ah you mean pellet boiler, not sotve.
Sorry, though you were implying a single room pellet burning thingy.

Thing is you can install a wood burner with a flue for around 2k.

Even the cheapest pellet boilers (and flues) dont come in much under 6k ish.

Perhaps more sense is to install a back boiler and load charger on a wood stove.

What about space constraints ? BiomAss requires a fair ole floor space no ?

But that is it 2K for one room!. 1K of that is on the flue probably.

Add the back boiler and other controls and you are narrowing the gap, pellet boiler will provide whole house solution. If you have good supply of cheap logs then proper log boiler, again whole house.

My point is people are prepared to spend on pretty things rather than looking at bigger picture.

TR - not all require space, there are some boilers that are designed to be on show in a lounge etc.

youre preaching to the choir here 😉

as t_r alludes to I think space constraints are a big issue. Fuel storage needs to be fairly close by - oil can be gravity fed from 100s of feet away. An auger cant be more than say 10feet away and vacuum transport is limited to maybe 50-100ft I guess. Also foot print is big. How many people have a boiler room or scullery with space to sacrifice? Whereas a stove is at least a room feature so space can be given up to it without resenting it.

EDIT, cross post

designed to be on show in a lounge etc.

got a link, would love to see?

http://www.windhager.com/int/products/pellet-heating-systems/firewin/

no more space than some solid fuel stoves. Hand feed into day hopper, no more storage than pallet of pellets. Think there is an option for an external hopper system that is far more reasonable than the other bulk storage options.

what size tank in that? does it have its own pump inside?

you know if you google "firewin windhager", not one reseller site quote a price for it 🙂
If you have to ask, you cant afford it, is that it?

hell im all for it if its a viable alternative.

I have a coal store and a drying room attached to the house that could be utilised.

How ever i still dont think i would be without my stove. Its the focal point of the room for us most of the time.

the back boiler and thermal store thing - from my limited understanding and light reading on the matter i think the limitation are getting your thermal store high enough to use the gravity solution to shift the water as oppose to having big bore pipes and pumps moving it around , then you have to question if you use the stove often enough to warrent that heatsink attached - quite alot of mass to heat before your actually contributing to your thermal store no ?

i assume we are typical users in that we work all day and come home then light the stove for 4 or 5 hours at night - we spend most of the night in that room and our bedroom is directly above so heats up also. I think for folks like my grandparents who are retired and run off their stove for heating all the time using their boiler only for hot water then the thermal store with backboiler would be a more viable alternative.

link back boiler with a load charger (pumped themostatically controlled distribution box) - no need for 28mm gravity link.

Thermal store can then go anywhere.

geoffj on here has done one.

quite alot of mass to heat before your actually contributing to your thermal store no ?

issues designed out of them.

handy site
http://www.boilerstoves.co.uk/

http://www.boilerstoves.co.uk/laddomat-heat-charger.html

ok that intregues me more - clearly i was reading old information 😉

ill need to look into it more then as i have a multifuel stove that takes for ever to heat up due to the bricks in , and taking them outs not an option as ill likely burn through the sides 😉 so if i can incorporate it then a thermal store comes back into the equation as im not really liking the sounds of condensing combi boiler reliability.

makes plumbing in solar thermal off my garage roof at a later date a much easier process and probably a much more worthwhile one !

Whoa Stoner - that does not remove the need for a gravity circuit - be very careful!

From the very link......

If there is a power cut or if the pump fails, the heat charger allows heat to circulate through the orange circuit by thermosyphoning. It is as if it were not there.

Generally 30% of the load of a solid fuel appliance should be an uncontrolled gravity circuit.

Bear - where are you based, as we need to look at heating options for a couple of places (on the same site)?

South East, although do travel a fair bit. Where are you?

Mail me on timATj-twren.eclipse.co.uk

If there is a power cut or if the pump fails, the heat charger allows heat to circulate through the orange circuit by thermosyphoning

fair point.

[i]Where are you?[/i]

Unfortunately in this case, Scottish Borders...

well it is nice to see parts of the country......I might travel if project was interesting and worthwhile!

Your properties - are they both owned by you, in other words do you want them to be heated from one central boiler on a district heating system? The reason being as this would qualify you for RHI payments.
Also keeps costs down as only one boiler to buy.