Oil fired domestic boilers

Dull question sorry!

Hi just looking at a house which has oil an fired boiler due to being in middle of nowhere, can anyone give me an idea of the lifespan on oil boilers as this one is a bit old ~20 years( but regulary serviced) as factoring this into overall cost of house and renovation. (I realise a modern one will be more efficient)
Cheers.

Dont be haste to change the boiler.

Late 80searly 90s boilers are king when it comes to gas , what you lose on efficiency you make back on life span and cheap parts. assuming heat only the damn things so simple you could self service it , its easier than a set of forks for the most part.(but legally the oil heating man has to )

Modern condensing boilers are a bit of a white elephant i reckon ill be lucky to get 10years out of my grant vortex pro but due to space constraints and my old boiler being shite and condemned ( by my uncle no less so no incentive to condemn it unless he really thought so) i thought it worth it.

Just check what brand and make sure spares are availible , get the number of the man whos been servicing it regularlyq and dont be tempted to get shittish gas insurance on it as they will have you changing it out quick smart.

Ok ta, a gas boiler is not an option anyway it’d be replacement of the oil fired one in conjunction with solar panels

No idea on lifespan, but the bloke who services ours said they are far simpler and more reliable than gas boilers. Only thing that we’ve replaced on it is a pump, but that could have failed on any boiler.

Cant answer on all oil boilers but we had ours replaced last year as it was 20 years old and was giving issues. The engineer said it was getting harder and harder to get parts or patch it together, new one is more effecient too.

Dont underestimate the cost of oil boilers, they are more expensive than gas. We paid nearly 4 grand for ours 😯

LoCo,

I think that gas bit will be a typo by trail_rat, he is pretty knowledgeable about the oil boilers.

As above, should last forever if serviced. Mine is, but it’s like your favorite broom, 3 new heads and 2 new handles.
Ours must be 20-25 years old, the mechanical timer failed years ago but we use a thermostat timer thing, and every few years have a new nozzle (which injects the oil). It looks a bit worn out but works fine.

Our new house has an old oil fired boiler in it. We had it serviced straight away as we needed the pipes from the oil tank replacing anyway. I asked the engineer who serviced it if it’s about due for replacement and his words were (bearing in mind he was lined up to supply and fit the replacement) “it will outlast you, the old ones just keep on going”.

You’ve got to assume it’s due replacement at that age. Budgeting any other way is folly.
You may get 10+ years out of it as they were nice and simple back then.
Mind you if it’s burning twice as much oil as a modern boiler then a false economy.
A decent brand (Worcester) will set you back around £2k for the boiler inc VAT. Next problem will be the oil tank. If it’s not plastic assume it needs replacing too. No brainer is to install twin wall bunded plastic and I think you can install single wall in certain situation but I wouldn’t. Position of oil tanks also tricky now due to regs. Up against a building is normally a no unless fire protected.

Now my question is 2011 Fox 36 rebound damper. If it doesn’t work is it dead and needing a new one? Regularly changed oil and clean inside.

Also another thought is the location of the boiler and flue condition. Old conventional flue in a living space I’d look to get rid of.

Ours is 27 years old and in the 12 years we’ve been here all it’s required has been a new burner fan.
I opened it up for the first time last year to see about cleaning it out. I was amazed to find just a big box with just 3 or 4 baffles in it – nothing to them!
It may not be wildly efficient but £4k buys a awful lot of oil and I’ve been told by a CH guy, that I’ve known for >20 years, that I should hang on to it for as long as possible as modern boilers are no where near as cheap to run in terms of servicing/breakdowns.

Mind you if it’s burning twice as much oil as a modern boiler then a false economy.

Very doubtful.

Yep factored into offer 😉 over estimated too.
Boiler is 15 years old so maybe ok for a year or two before replacement, however will probably get everything done (inc. boiler if necessary) done when we move in.

Cheers all 😀

Ours is 24 years old, costs us about £40 to get it serviced each year, Ive no idea how long the thing will last but so far the replacement parts have been cheaper than my last house with a gas boiler.

Probably not the most efficient thing in the world but like sharkbait says £4K buys alot of oil.

I’m holding out for a solid fuel boiler next if I can afford it as Ive got the space to grow my own fuel, might have to get planting now!!

Pumps fail more often now as modern oil has a lower sulphur content, but sulphur is a good lubricant and kept the pumps working freely.

Yes a hopper fed solid fuel boiler would be ace, however wouldn’t work on this property.

There’s a really interesting on at Coed hills (commune type place) Near Cowbridge which has the boiler in a shed near main centre and pipes hot water/heat out through pipe to the various benders/huts in an around the woodland. Lovely place. 🙂

What rusty said , i meant oil 🙂

Worth investing in some aftermarket oil additives. Same as automotive world, use decent fuel and lubes and your running costs decrease as well as your servicing. C1/C2′ kero’s will be supplied “dry”, i.e. no adds, and as has been said old boilers will have been used to a decent lubricity target, some are artificially increased using an LI, but many wont. There is a company that produces these specifically for oil burners, Aga’s etc . http://www.fastexocet.co.uk/

Great thanks everyone loads of usful info to be going on with.
Will service it and check out all relvant details and see what it’s like. 😀

and TOM, regarding the damper it depends on which one it is, the Open bath R carts can be a pain but can strip inspect and adjust as necessary to see if we can fix it.
If it’s a FIT unit it will be the seals or bladder and a service should sort it, drop us a mail if you have any queries.

Got home last night to find a handout from Calor Gas. They’ll fit a tank for free (or bury one for £1000). Boilers, they claim, are cheaper and more efficient then oil.
Any one know if this is true?

I looked into this when we moved into our current house which is on oil.

The conclusion I came to is that as long as you’re organised enough to buy oil before you run out and buy it when prices are a bit cheaper then switching to Calor Gas didn’t seem worth it. As I understand it you rent the Calor Gas tank and you’re then tied into one supplier who will fill your tank up when ever they please (different options may be available) and YMMV etc.

That’s what the hand out said about ‘renting’ the tank. But the option of burying it does appeal as we have a small garden, plus all the new regs on tank location mean we couldn’t even fit an oil tank in our garden (I think).

As Tom said, you need to check the tank. We don’t have oil at home, but as the in-laws are farmers, know a few people that do. Anecdotally, the problems that most people seem to have are with the tank – splits or leaks, and then needs replacing, with any regs that come along with it.

Was also chatting to someone a couple of weeks ago who came home to find that the boilder wasn’t firing, which was because someone had turned up in the middle of the day, and helped themselves to the contents of their oil tank.

would be better burning 5 pound notes than using calor – had that in a newely renovated highly insulated stone cottage – to date the most expensive way of heating i have come across – was a large factor in why we moved out of that place. had three oil burners since – 2 WB and now a Grant. all much of a muchness – what i will say is if you fit an external boiler and have a power cut – know how to switch off the cold feed and drain the internal watertank – had a large oops after a 3 day power cut in the middle of winter last year.

No one i know in our small community – maybe 25 folk all on oil except the one guy on calor who coincidently wishes he didnt have calor) have had an issue with the tank -however my grandparents managed to get water in their tank – but this was traced to the guy filling the tank some how filling up using the breather vent hole and putting it back together wrong as he couldnt get the filler cap off for some reason.

you can change supplier with LPG though , the tied in thing is a myth – they have to sell the tank at FMV to the new supplier – unless the new supplier doesnt want to take liability for the old tank – if its a bad location or its about to run out of test.

“and then needs replacing, with any regs that come along with it.” ive heard of that with the LPG systems but its not difficult to find a plumber who will replace like for like with the oil.

Ive heard of that too torsionlake – but never actually heard of anyone who its happened too – i suspect it would be more of an issue if you lived in isolation from other houses. I would hope my few neighbours would notice some pikeys decanting my oil into IBCS 😀

Got home last night to find a handout from Calor Gas. They’ll fit a tank for free (or bury one for £1000). Boilers, they claim, are cheaper and more efficient then oil.
Any one know if this is true?

That is probably all true as the gas boilers have had more investment in them generally.
What they don’t tell you is the fuel is a lot more expensive per kW. I’ve not checked this recently but that’s the traditional view.
Gas and Oil were about the same and LPG a LOT more. Oil I think is now more than Gas but it’s generally a moot point as you don’t put oil in if you have gas.
Also not all engineers who are gas registered are LPG registered as it’s another course.

You’ve got to assume it’s due replacement at that age. Budgeting any other way is folly.

No you haven’t. Ours is twenty plus years old and costs me £60 a year for a service usually including a new injector. My service guy also said not to change it unless it actually blew up.

Only time I’d consider a change in a new house would be if it were indoors, partially CO worries but mainly to get the space back.

From a budgeting perspective you should.

I didn’t say you should replace it once moved in but if you were stretching yourself to buy not budgeting £5k to replace an oil boiler and oil tank of that age would be folly if you don’t really know what your looking at.

Once in get a reputable oil man to service it and give you his opinion.

Yes a hopper fed solid fuel boiler would be ace, however wouldn’t work on this property.

You looked at the TRG coal units? Massive lifespan, comparable fuel cost to oil, almost zero servicing cost, almost never go wrong. No problems with a tank or its location, plus, light fingered folk tend not to rock up and syphon off bags of coal.

“I didn’t say you should replace it once moved in but if you were stretching yourself to buy not budgeting £5k to replace an oil boiler and oil tank of that age would be folly if you don’t really know what your looking at.”

agree’d

Offer accepted and covers 5k replacement cost too if necessary 8)

Light figured bods shouldn’t be an issue, the dogs will have them first 😉

From a budgeting perspective you should.

I didn’t say you should replace it once moved in but if you were stretching yourself to buy not budgeting £5k to replace an oil boiler and oil tank of that age would be folly if you don’t really know what your looking at.

Once in get a reputable oil man to service it and give you his opinion.

Fair point. But I’d get more than one opinion (unless you already know and trust whoever you get to check) before replacing, I’ve not known anyone to replace through necessity, only due to re jigging the house and having little option.

Tanks, yeah everyone has had to change them. Some multiple times due to clumsy thieves.

Tank is plastic, will need to be moved as want to put an extension on fairly soon, any ideas on cost of tanks as guessing it may crack when moved 😉

Roughly £1k for a bunded tank. Obviously depends on what size you go for.