Heating oil – how much!

Nov / Dec about 5-6 litres a day, peak 8 lpd in that cold snap. Plus wood stove.
I WFH so keep downstairs large open plan area at 18C all day. Boiler fires for 10 mins every 1 to 2 hours.

Last 6 weeks averaged 7 litres a day. Heating is off overnight and set to 21 deg during the day, with log stove in the evening.

I think you guys are getting better efficiency than me. Our heating is usually set to 17deg in the morning/evening and 15 through the day, 12 at night and there’s no way we’d be able to get 500 litres to last 3+ months in the winter.

This is for a 4 bed house in an exposed location. During the cold spell we were at minus 14-15 for a few days. The oil pipes froze/turned gelatinous at one point.

Further to above, like everyone I made the effort to cut back, 97ppl this fill up in June vs ~40ppl previously focused the mind somewhat. Last year I struggled to be comfy WFH at 19C, this year 18C is fine, extra tee-shirt, wife knitted thick merino jumpers and fleece lined trousers. 4 bed detached, 1989 build, well insulated, flat lands of North Yorkshire.

Figures (litres) for last 3 years:
Year 2020, 2021, 2022
Oct 113, 101, 32
Nov 190, 138, 130
Dec 278, 267, 198

(Oct/Nov 4 week periods, Dec 5 weeks)

What are you burning that it’s gelling that warm.

UK spec heating kero should be good to -40c gel- or is it regional ?

Ours has been grand at -20…..when the main water pipe under the ground froze.

The modern diesel cars of me and neighbours did not start. only the land rover and my neighbours ford 6610.

Come April my oil use should be very little indeed as the heating will hopefully be off and the PV should be doing pretty much all the hot water.
Time will tell though.

(Largish 1940/50s 4 bed detached with mostly poor DG but reasonable insulation. Boiler is at least 30 years old)

As we’re doing usage – two bed cottage in exposed location, double glazed, stone walled, essentially zero other insulation. Heating’s on for an hour in the morning, four hours in the evening (and that includes an hour doing the hot water as well), stat set at 18/19deg generally. Boiler is brand new. We’re using about 4l a day, which is a lot less than last year, but that’s a combination of both using it less because of ££s and the new boiler. At this stage last year we were own to 3 bars on the tank, we’re currently at 7, and I think there’s a chance we’ll make it through the winter without topping up.

Update on the £200 payment from Martin Lewis:

Information on this particular payment, which is for those in England, Scotland or Wales that use heating oil, have an LPG boiler, biomass boiler or use a similar alternative fuel to heat their home, hasn’t been forthcoming.

This payment was initially planned as £100, but it was announced in the Autumn Statement that it would be doubled to £200 and paid in winter. In December 2022, the Government then told us these payments would be made “as soon as possible in the New Year” – though it has now confirmed these will instead come in February 2023.

The one-off £200 grant, which is on top of the £400 support payment, will be paid automatically through your electricity supplier if you have a direct relationship with one. If you’re fully off grid, you’ll need apply though a Gov.uk portal that’s due to launch for applications next month.

However, how the Government and suppliers will know who uses alternative fuel, and how exactly payments will be made, have yet to be confirmed. There is no central register of people who do not use mains gas for their heating. We’re pushing for answers and we will update this story when we get clarification.

Not an update then!

Need to see what I’m using but I’m around the 13ltr a day mark.

Aga and heating set to 16/17 deg…

It’s an old style twisty stat in the hall. Need to work out what’s better to replace it with

We don’t have a thermostat in the house (rented), just valves on the radiators. Have the boiler temp set at 70c with heating currently on 7am-9am, 12pm-1pm, 4pm-6pm. Get a bit cold towards bed time, so the odd very cold days we’ve had to wack it in for another hour on the evening. Just dropped to about 6 bars of oil at the moment in a 1300l tank.

@trail_rat – just standard 28s heating oil with an additive for cleaner burn. The issue seemed to be with the 3m section of pipe that is buried about 30cm below the ground. My suspicion was that the due to the snow which stayed for almost two weeks and the constantly low air temperatures, that this section (which never gets any sun) stayed substantially below zero for a number of days.

@steveb how are you getting your oil usage?
I’m finding my system/app to very informative.

I just have a Watchman monitor with the 10 bars from full to empty. 1300l tank so an average of 130l per bar, but not as it’s a cylinder on its side. A very blunt tool, but I really don’t feel the need to be monitoring in detail as we can’t really use a lot less than we do at the moment. Always have an hour for hot water on a morning and tea time, and as the weather improves what heating we have will be reduced.

@sharkbait simple old tape measure on the tank sight tube, then excel formula to account for tank shape, being a horizontal tank with segments of rectangular and cylindrical section. I do geek energy measurements every Friday morning. Something automated would be nice, but then I’d want flow/return temperature log and which of the 4 zones were active. The old to do job list is plenty long enough thank you.

Actually 10.5 ltrs per day. Better than I thought.

Bloody aga must be using over half of that

my drayton wiser system i installed before xmas tells me hours active daily on the heating – and as its oil and not modulated so its just nozzle dependant.

and it also gives me a pretty graph that lets me know which zones / TRVs were recieving heat against time of day against external temperature.

a Zigbee interrogation with HA might be able to plot it more usefully.

Why, when oil prices are 5-8% lower than their lowest point in November/December are heating oil prices almost 10-15% higher? 73ppl vs 88ppl.

We’ve just got our latest oil cooperative price agreed at 73ppl earlier this week.
We get through about 3,100 litres a year overall, which includes old Aga, good sized 4 bed detached house on the edge of NY Moors. That works out at about 8.5 litres per day overall.

my drayton wiser system i installed before xmas tells me hours active daily on the heating – and as its oil and not modulated so its just nozzle dependant.

How does it do that? It obviously tells the boiler when the CH is on, but how does it know when the boiler is actually firing?

my house never reaches set point in its entirety due to the way its designed.

IF your house reaches set point your milage may vary.

Anyone know what info can be extracted from a hive setup? I never bothered so far installing the internet hub gateway box.

Seems by the latest update on ScotGov website they still don’t know when we’ll get the £200 alternative fuel payment. No mention of February now….

Last updated 20 Jan 2023
Money to help pay energy bills
Alternative Fuel Payment – if you do not use mains gas
This is a £200 payment to UK households who use alternative fuels for heating instead of mains gas.

This includes if you use:

heating oil
LPG
coal
biomass
We cannot confirm when this payment will be made right now. But we’ll update this information when we have it.

Got this today from CPS.

We now understand that these payments will start to be processed from February 6th. Customers have been identified using an off the gas grid database and recent census information.

.

Why, when oil prices are 5-8% lower than their lowest point in November/December are heating oil prices almost 10-15% higher? 73ppl vs 88ppl.

Pound vs Dollar?

Why, when oil prices are 5-8% lower than their lowest point in November/December are heating oil prices almost 10-15% higher? 73ppl vs 88ppl.

Pound vs Dollar?

The £ is at it’s strongest since around June last year.
It’s the winter….. plenty of demand for oil and still not a lot of supply.

88p is not a good price though – you should get lower than that although regional variations can be quite big.

88p is not a good price though – you should get lower than that although regional variations can be quite big.

Regional variations – we paid 83p at the end of November, vs 73p of the OP

Friends Mam (Scotland) has just had her £200 alternative fuel payment as a rebate to her bank account as she pays by DD.

Ordered 1000lts today at 75ppl. North Cumbria. Last 1000l worked our at approx 9ltrs per day over a pretty cold winter; heat and hot water for a big gaff and cold-hearted wife. 2 showers and 1 bath per day, heating on at 17° for avge 6hrs per day. I can live with that.

Friends Mam (Scotland) has just had her £200 alternative fuel payment as a rebate to her bank account as she pays by DD.

Paid by who, her electricity supplier?

It can take time for stock to wash through but as above shop around

Ovo notified me on Wednesday we would be getting our alternative fuel support payment this month.

We’re with shell for leccy but not heard anything yet on the rebate.

Just ordered 800L at 76p/L. That should see us through to next winter now as barely use anything over summer

We’re with shell for leccy but not heard anything yet on the rebate.

At least there is official confirmation (here) so we may see something this month.

So you get £200 if you don’t heat your house with gas…… What if you heat with electric?

It’s if you don’t have gas, not if you choose not to use it. I think you’d also get it if you have mains gas but no electric, or neither.

We’re with Shell . Not received the payment yet but found this info on the Shell web site about it:  https://help.shellenergy.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/12890155002897-Alternative-Fuel-Payment-FAQs

I read somewhere that they decide your eligibility from whether or not your postcode has access to mains gas or not

It’s if you don’t have gas, not if you choose not to use it.

I should have worded that better….. We have a place with no gas, just electricity.

Wonder how they’re doing the admin, is it the last place we ordered from or ‘whoever’ we ordered from last year?