Oil heating….

…is it as expensive as I dread? Trying to compare mains gas and oil – anyone able to help?

Moving house choices:
£250 per month more rent, but mains gas and a 6 mile cycle or drive to work, lots of stuff that kids and us will walk and cycle to as well as car…(my preference)
or £250 less per month rent, but have oil heating, with wood burner and open fire, plus drive 19 miles to work each day, and need to drive 3 miles regularly for shopping and school stuff…(mrs_oab preference)

It depends on location

My house is very much house 2 ( except i cancycle to a shop within 3 miles) and i wouldnt swap it for the world. Because its out in country!

But if house 2 was on the edge of a housing estate or building site or even within a farm i wouldnt be so sure.

Equally if house 1 was in an urban enviroment that would rule it out

On what you have said everything else being equal the sums say house 1 is better. Getting rid of dependancy on cars is a good thing.

Oh and dont be scared of oil.

Be scared of poorly insulated houses and crap boilers !

Yes.

Obviously the usual caveats regarding how big and well insulated your house is, how long you put the heating on for and how high still apply – plus it depends when you buy your oil!
(in a way the seasonal fluctuations almost make it interesting).

Based on our usage this winter we went through about £240 of oil/month at the peak. House is 4/5 bedroom detached which is reasonably well insulated but the boiler is OLD and prob not efficient at all. Our thermostat is nailed on 18 degs and we have a stove at each end of the house.

HTH

Be scared of poorly insulated houses and crap boilers !

Does that not sum up 99% of UK housing? But yes, house 2 is 1900, part single glazed etc etc
House 1 – Dunblane, housing estate, soulless.

House 2 – Muthill, bags of character.

(not the houses BTW, just for ideas…)

If it was between those id have the souless estate. Terrace = my idea of hell

Muthill, bags of character.

That’s where I’d pick. Love terraced houses.

It is a semi in Muthill, not terrace. And a single old dear next door… 🙂

Heard something on the radio a few weeks back about oil being around 25-30% more per year for the same type of property.

I’d go for the out of town one with the wood burner and then face the music because Mrs Matt would kill me. Bloody townie.

fyi – 3 bed semi here my house ive spent a fair bit of time insulating the roof and floor spaces and making sure my heatings working correctly and efficiently.

my heating bill for the year with oil was 660 pound + 150 quid(3 cube) of wood

my next door neighbour who has the insulation the house was built with and never closes her curtains and whos boiler seems to fire for minutes at a time before cutting out uses 2 x 1200 fills a year and no fire wood……

you do adapt and the fire heats the house much quicker and to a much higher temp than the rads ever will !

£690 in December for about 1100 litres of the black stuff, but a tank had lasted 14 months in a 3 bed semi with poor insulation, some badly fitted windows and the landlord got shot of the real fire and replaced it with an electric one (which we don’t use!). That was heating and hot water. The boiler however is supposedly very efficient (and is outside!). Hoping the landlord will pull finger out and sort the windows at the very least this year.

I’d rather be here though as it’s middle of nowhere, 16 miles to work (so do a fair weather commute), village shop for essential, farm shop either 5mins in the car or 30min nice walk, plus deliveries for main food shop/veg box. Wouldn’t change it for the world….unless it was to a better biking area.

£690 in December for about 1100 litres of the black stuff, but a tank had lasted 14 months in a 3 bed

Do you live on the South Coast? 😯

We’ve an oil-fired AGA which as well as cooks warms at least half the house, 10-12 lpd, so about £8 per day…

Live where the wife wants to, end of.

Matt – oil roughly 7-8p per kW, natural gas 4-5p per kW.

So roughly 30% cheaper than oil, however the 2 houses you’ve shown are vastly different with the older probably poorly insulated one on oil the difference could well go to 50% or maybe more. But if you used the log burner a lot (logs should be a bit cheaper than gas if you can source a good supply) so the comparison may tip back to closer to the 30% or maybe below.

A real tricky choice if you are basing it on heating costs…..

We have an older 3 bed terrace,circa 1880, with oil heating and hot water.Pretty well insulated , efficient boiler, and oil for last year was about £600,but this year likely to be around 25% more due to long cold winter.Insulation,stopping draughts is the key as even just drawing the curtains at night is a big difference.
Couldn’t live on a toy town estate.

Our place built 1847, listed so not that well insulated, partial double glazing, 82% boiler but with good DHW cylinder & running a wood burner. We get through approx 1500 litres a year if that helps.

BR, no not on the South Coast and from the looks of joeeggs’s bill (and the house vintage is about the same as where I am) it’s not hugely off (also in a co-op where the village does bulk buys to get the lowest price possible). In fact, I work it out that you’re paying well over the odds; based on a 28 day month for the sums, £690 over 14 months is £1.76 a day….not sure how much the leccy is per day for cooking but I reckon I’m quids in compared to the aga as I have your £8 per day habit costing £3136 over the same period.

Oil boiler outside is the best place for it.

Im in the north east of scotland and have similar bills

Agas are just expensive bleeding things . Always fancied one but less so when my gran was having her range removed due to the costs of running it ( she had her house built round it you cant imagine how hard it was to remove !!!)

Why is best for an oil boiler to be outside?

Because they smell?

Globalti has it !

Mines was in the garage. Garage stank. Refit it went outside.

My previous rental it was round by the shed out side – that area stank so much so i was sure we had a leak and got a plumber to have a look

Are you thinking its less efficient as its out side ?

Agas are just expensive bleeding things . Always fancied one but less so when my gran was having her range removed due to the costs of running it ( she had her house built round it you cant imagine how hard it was to remove !!!)

Yep, inherited ours with the house.

But, they are a wonderful thing to have in the house (we’ve a large pretty much open-plan mill, so the heat is good) and I love cooking on (or more correctly ‘in’) it. And don’t forget the 6-monthly service (at another £100 a pop).

We fitted a Rayburn range/boiler into our place in Teesdale in a fit of town moving to country tw*ttery a few years back. An expensive mistake for us. You could actually see the oil tank level ticking down when it was running in ‘warm glow about the place’ mode.

If you are wealthy and afford to run the thing all the time, fantastic, but if you have a budget, you’ll need to have the thing switched off pretty much all the time, and then wait 40 minutes to do any cooking while it heats up.

Globalti has it !

Mines was in the garage. Garage stank. Refit it went outside.

My previous rental it was round by the shed out side – that area stank so much so i was sure we had a leak and got a plumber to have a look

Are you thinking its less efficient as its out side ?

Absolutely no reason at all for them to smell. We have had oil fired boilers in 5 houses over the last 20 years and never had any smell unless there was an oil leak. Inside is better because the heat generated by the boiler while its working goes into the house, not heating up a shed. Also your pipe runs are shorter.

The trick with oil is to have a large tank, well insulated house and an efficient boiler. You can then buy the majority of the oil in the summer months when it is cheaper, and probably not that different to gas. Don’t know the actual numbers but I would guess that oil might be 20% more expensive than gas, so an extra £200 per year?

One comment about Muthill though is that you will struggle to get to Killin sometimes during the winter months if you have to use the Glen Quaich road

got a large 4 bed granite house, loft insulation but thats it. listed, not alowed to do doubleglazing. boiler is a 5 year old worcester bosch, heats hot water as well, shower is electric. we run the boiler for about an hour in the morning at 18deg and from about 5pm – 10pm at 18-20. the house is freeezing. 100quid/month easy!

Absolutely no reason at all for them to smell. [blah blah blah] never had any smell unless there was an oil leak.

This is my experience in the 10 years we’ve had one.

reading this thread im buying a lot more oil than some of you, probably the piss poor insulation that needs sorting and the missus always having the heating on!
our boiler is outside but cant smell it

100 a month does not put me off – £220 a month on leccy currently 🙁