From today’s budget:
Support for people who use heating oil or alternative fuels will double to £200.

🥳

The question is when will the Govt instruct the electricity suppliers to pay this directly to the consumer?

Still not seen any method of getting that.

We are still on 4/10 bars currently expect that’ll go down quickly once the heating starts in Ernest.

The scheme has been trialled in Northern Ireland.

It’s quite good because you can have multiple oil providers so paying that way is difficult and open to fraud. Plus if you’re skint you might not have filled your tank for 2 years.

99+% of  houses only have 1 current electricity supplier.

The advice is to keep filling your tank when appropriate and the cash will arrive eventually.  My parents get a phonecall every 8 weeks from their oil supplier and they come out if below a certain threshold eg 70% full

My parents get a phonecall every 8 weeks from their oil supplier and they come out if below a certain threshold eg 70% full

I don’t doubt it. Nice little cash cow that .

Constant topping up of small amounts keeps the bills high.

I don’t doubt it. Nice little cash cow that .

Not really. I’m on a similar top up scheme for my LPG but my monthly DD is the same. It just means I don’t have to worry about running out as the tank has telemetry to report back to base and they top up to around 80% when it drops to ~30%.

It’s a bit like electric car range anxiety really.

your dd doesn’t represent the cost of a unit of fuel though does It – it represents a fixed cost your prepared to spend to have heat on tap.

Oil can be 30-40 pence a litre dearer in small amounts. <500l than say 1200l

Two people in this life. Those than keep the car brimmed and those who know exactly how far their reserve gets them 🙂

your dd doesn’t represent the cost of a unit of fuel though does It

Yes it does. I signed a 2 year fixed price deal this time last year so I guess that’s the major difference between LPG and Oil.

It depends on your local supplier. I’m sure North Wales is not the same as Scotland

If anyone is interested Boilerjuice have a £10 off code (BFRI10EL) available today for new (use a different email) customers. Was going to hold off but as it’s dropped to 76ppl thought it was worth topping up 500l which would see us through the winter.

Lucky you getting 76 pence

Word of warning on the code. – check your local suppliers first.

For me today locally it’s 83p a litre with connons and Johnston oils.

With boiler juice it’s 94p for the longest delivery time – rising rapidly the quicker you need it

At a 1000l fill that’s 100quid difference – no wonder they can knock a 10er off….

Just seen Carnegie’s in brechin will delivery in 7days for 82p .

Or next day for 86…..

Cheapest I’ve seen for a while but makes boilerjuice prices a piss take.

Rung local suppliers and they couldn’t beat 76ppl with cheapest being getting them down to 80ppl. The tenner knocks off the excessive service charge but can’t grumble with delivery expected on Monday.

Still no update on how we get the alternative fuel payment, just confirmation that it will now be £200 if we ever do get it. Don’t suppose anyone else has heard more?

https://watsonfuels.co.uk/news-archive/rise-in-alternative-fuel-payment/

We’re struggling to get our £67 electric payments from EON, so god knows how they cope with this 🙄

I’m probably being incredibly thick here, but how can I calculate an approximate hourly consumption of oil by a Worcester Heatslave 15/19 running at full chat on heat only? Not that it ever does, but I could do with at least a bench mark for heating/hot water.

but how can I calculate an approximate hourly consumption of oil by a Worcester Heatslave 15/19 running at full chat on heat only?

You could calculate it if you want to, but it’s easier to look it up in the manual

2.01 litres / hour at the defalt mid-range output.

Down to 77p/l at the moment here in the Cotswolds.

tilly dog…cheers👍. Somebody had a tidy up a while ago. I couldn’t find the figures on line. Just unearthed the manual now. Thanks again.

Support for people who use heating oil or alternative fuels will double to £200.

Since our oil in 2022 will have cost us £3000 (need to fill up this week) and was £1500 in 2021 that £200 barely touches the sides.

I’ll call our two suppliers today and see what prices are on offer.

83ppl in the Borders today for 1000l, after a bit of haggling.

84p per litre – 500l – Carnegie Fuels
95p per litre – 500l – Oil Fast
97p per litre – 500l – Boilerjuice

South Fife area. Needless to say Carnegie got the order…..

Markets down so will start to see that washing through hopefully

Down to 3 bars….. I’m going to have to fill before Xmas aren’t I…..

Sods law I’ll run out between Xmas and new year if I don’t…..

Nah, you’ll be fine. Early Feb at the worst. Just knock the boiler temp down a notch and the stat down to 17°.
Go on…play that game 😂😂😂

Since our oil in 2022 will have cost us £3000 (need to fill up this week) and was £1500 in 2021 that £200 barely touches the sides.

Don’t you have to include 2020 in that calc to work out how out of pocket you are? Prices were below the norm then, so didn’t you make a bit of money back in that year? Won’t make up £1,500 I guess though

Just ordered an additional 500l at 67ppl here in the Cotswolds. That’s the cheapest I’ve seen it since February and for that amount and that price, any cheaper and it won’t make much difference.

We only use around 1000-1250l a year and will be moving to solar thermal in the new year, so should drop again.

Just ordered an additional 500l at 67ppl here in the Cotswolds.

Including the VAT?

Just ordered an additional 500l at 67ppl here in the Cotswolds.

Who’s that.. and do they deliver south of the M4!?

97p per litre – 500l – Boilerjuice

Boilerjuice quoting is the equivalent of 81.9 ppl for 500L inc VAT & service charge here (N Wales) today. (75.6ppl ex vat, ex service charge)

I think we’ll make it past Christmas, but will need to fill up again Jan / Feb

On a related point, we had our (oil) boiler replaced almost exactly a year ago, we got rid of the Rayburn and had an external Worcester Greenstar fitted outside.

How often should we be getting it serviced? The people who fitted it said annually, but, well, they would, wouldn’t they… It runs for about four hours a day, October-April. It’s off through the summer as we have solar thermal

We had it done once a year when we were on oil. There’s plenty to clean out, soot etc, replacement bits like nozzles. I can’t see why you would leave it beyond a year.

Apparently a big thing in boiler servicing is the jet.
Our boiler is a huge ancient thing that’s basically a big box full of baffles and the pump/fan/burner in a box on the front.
I once had it serviced and all the guy did was hoover out the box as best he could and replace the jet. I’ve bought a couple of jets and do it myslef now – it’s really not difficult*
If you’ve got a condensing boiler it might be a different matter though!

* if it’s way ou tof whack then it probably needs the gasses analyzing properly though.

Just ordered an additional 500l at 67ppl here in the Cotswolds.

WHAT?!!

I’ve just been quoted 79.95p + VAT in N Wales!!
(Sure you didn’t get the 6 and the 7 mixed up?!)

Edit: Actually I’ve just had a price of 75.70p ex VAT from boilerjuice so my other suppliers should be lower.

We were down to 3 bars so I placed an order of 700l. It’s taken it to fairly full, I was concerned that the bottom 2-3″ of the tank was not high enough to make it out of the outlet.

Can’t remember what I was quoted now. Bill will land soon enough though.

If you’ve got a condensing boiler it might be a different matter though!!

Its not- Only issue i have is the turbulators can be quite fragile and the soot is the messiest soot you ever saw.

Grant Vortex Eco.

on the subject of the grant vortex combi actually – It lives outside and is fairly poorly insulated.

Annoyingly it heats up a small tank of water inside it for on demand water. – this it fires up every 90 minutes for 3 minutes to maintain that tank temp – and the maths works out that it accounts for why my oil usage for hot water over the summer is so much when the heatings been off.(always has consumed this much over summer its not a new thing)

till now I’ve had a controller with no timer on the hot water- I’m toying with wiring up the second channel on the thermostat to switch of the hot water side during the night and assuming the smart thermostat can do it – when we are away and letting the frost stat control the firing.

Next year once the solar thermals in the combi water heating will likely get wired off permanently when i move the heating controls onto the tank valves.

This £200, we’ve had 3 tanks worth delivered this year, from 2 separate suppliers – what’s the chance of us getting 2 lots of £200? 😉

I think the £200 might come to us via the electric suppliers. Only read that in one place so might not be correct.

till now I’ve had a controller with no timer on the hot water- I’m toying with wiring up the second channel on the thermostat to switch of the hot water side during the night and assuming the smart thermostat can do it – when we are away and letting the frost stat control the firing.

I can’t believe you haven’t done this already. I added a Hive thermostat to my mum’s Vortex combi and the utility room is no longer like a sauna most of the day now the water channel is off from 10am – 4pm, and 11pm through the night. There’s a big boost button on the thermostat if you want a bath or shower outside these times and the mini-tank stays hot enough for hand washing etc anyway.

its worth calculating how much heat your tank actually loses. A modern tank does let out some heat, but its so marginal I changed ours away from timed heating just to being heated all the time, the maximum it costs (even if you assume “lost” heat isn’t going into the building) is about 10p/day