New To Home Heating Oil
Having just moved to Norfolk, for the first time in my life I do not have gas and have become a heating oil virgin! The shock of having to pay for my oil before I use it; the distinctive smell of oil, the plume of steam coming out the side of my house; all of these things are new to me. And all of this during the coldest winter for years.
Having moved in and nearly used up all the oil the previous occupants had kindly left behind, my first job was to find a supplier. Once my broadband connection had been sorted out (don’t get me started on that, it makes ordering oil sound easy) I decided to go online and do a bit of searching.
For a short few weeks I was the proud owner of a tank of oil! But before I knew where I was it was running out again and this time the price had gone up. Why? Well, that’s a story to get oil users really hot under the collar – ‘volatile’ was a word I came across a lot, as if just saying the word explained the situation. ‘Profiteering’ was another. Who is making money when the price goes down but we pay the same price?
Back to the question of how to be more efficient about knowing when I am running our of oil my other half, who loves gadgets but isn’t very good at installing them, purchased a Heating Oil Monitor. Well, that’s my first ever blog entry, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask the BoilerJuice community below or to visit our new to oil central heating page.
Although not exactly responding to any of the feeds above I thought for any other newbies to Oil boilers etc. like me may find the below useful, as I made a school boy error and let the oil tank run out (on Xmas Eve!)…..I now know what the watchman plug thingy is for…d’oh!
Anyway finally had a delivery of oil and then I learnt my third little tit bit… you have to bleed the boiler before it re-ignites…
Now if like me you’ve spent hours searching blogs for how to do this on a Heatslave 20/25 model see below…I think my wife now wants to kiss the person who posted it as she can now get warm and have a shower!
“… you have to bleed the air out of the oil line. There will be a metal block to the left of the reset button and above the electric motor. It will have a very thin metal pipe going into it (the oil feed). On top of the block there is a nut. Release that nut a bit (half a turn) and press the reset button (have some kitchen towel ready underneath it). you may see bubbles coming through, the motor will spin but the boiler will probably lock out again. Retighten the nut and wait for the reset button to be active again (about 2 mins) then repeat the process. Keep repeating until the oil comes from the nut housing freely without bubbles, lock it off and the boiler should now be fired.”
Happy New Year & Keep Warm!!
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Mark December 28th, 2011 5:14 pmThanks for the help guys, I forgot to mention the large woodburner in the downstairs which easily heats the kitchen, lounge and stairs so I imagine this will cut costs considerably. The other thing that I have no knowledge of is emmersion heaters. I have no idea how long you should leave them on for or how quickly they take to heat the cylinder (it’s quite shameful I know so little as I work for a Ground Source Heating company, I should know about the competition!).
Also I would imagine that the boiler is brand new as the landlord has recently renovated the entire propertyto an extremely high standard as it was initially for himself to live in .
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Rhian December 20th, 2011 1:10 pmHi, I am about to move into a new house which runs on Oil Central Heating. It has recently been renovated to a very high standard including very good insulation and triple glazing. It is a small two up/two down with only me and my boyfriend living there, now what I would like to know is how long the 1000l tank is going to last me (using it for DHW and heating the house) and should I only half fill it as I am moving in in February and have heard that Oil prices drop in the summer months (meaning I would have more space in the tank to top up with cheaper Oil)?
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Adam Reply:
December 20th, 2011 at 9:49 am
Hi Rhian,
There are a number of factors that can affect the amount of heating oil your system will use, such as:
Oil Boiler Efficiency (is it a modern condensing boiler that can be up to 94% efficient)
Oil Boiler Condition (Has it been serviced recently?) – Oil Boilers should be serviced annually by OFTEC registered engineers and will usually require a nozzle change and a good clean to maintain maximum efficiency)
The length of time that your heating is on. (I time my heating to come on at 4pm and off at 6:30pm, which keeps the house nice and warm throughout the evening at around 23c and keeps my bills low)
To filling or to half fill. That is entirely down to personal preference. Generally you will find that if you order 500 litres the price per litre will be more than the price per litre if you ordered 1000 litres. There is an exception to this rule if you order on BoilerJuice and go for our standard delivery method and select a standard tanker, it is possible that you could order 500 litres and achieve the 2000 litre price if enough people order in your area that day / buying weekend. Prices do often drop in the summer months but this isn’t always guaranteed. The best thing to do is to keep a close eye on our home heating oil price chart and the crude oil price and subscribe to our email alerts – we try to help inform people when its a good time to buy.
I will start a new blog in the hope our members contribute thier usage figures to give new oil users an idea of their potential usage.
I hope that helps, if you have any other questions please let me know.
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mozza Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
if the standaard of insulation is as good as it sounds you will probably use approx.25 litres per week,running your boiler 6 hours per day.cheap compared to most!!
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Flame burning yellow and too high out of top of shell/heat baffle in vapourising OF22 Rayburn. Also burner troughs and wicks get solid with coke. Surely this should not happen..the oil should vapourise and burn cleanly and leave no deposits in burner troughs/wicks. I am retired electronics engineer and very mechanically minded so have set up levels and flow rates (timing how long a certain amount of oil collected in a jar on both high and low rates). Have had so called “qualified service engineer” from a firm but I knew more than him and he did not have flow rate equipment…..useless individual. HELP please from someone who knows exactly what is going wrong.
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Dennis Nicholas October 5th, 2010 12:02 pmWe moved into a property with an oil-fired boiler 9 months ago. I was shocked this weekend when I realised that the tank, which was filled with 1000 litres only 4 weeks ago was empty! I am new to oil-fired boilers, but 1000 litres (£499) in under a month just seems excessive. We keep the thermostat at about 18, and the boiler is only on for about 12 hours per day. Any ideas of possible causes would be much appreciated!
Fred.
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Doug Reply:
December 28th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
When I moved in my boiler was empty so I purchased 500 liters. After just over 2 weeks of running it for 12 hours or less a day it stopped working. I couldn’t figure out how to see how much was left. I purchased another 1000 liters and then a tech had to come out to get it working again. Just like you a month later it’s near empty. In Germany I would only use that much oil in almost a year. I think that either someone is syphoning off my oil when I’m away, or the boiler is extremely inefficient. If the land lord doesn’t fix the problem I’ll move out. I can’t see paying roughly 600 pounds a month for heating; especially when most the rooms have the radiators off. For now we will survive on a 2K Watt electric oil heater. At least the electric cost for 24 hrs would only be less than 5 pounds a day. We’re bundled up and burning a fire for now. Luckily this winter hasn’t been as cold, or I wouldn’t know what to do.
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Fred Reply:
January 10th, 2012 at 10:47 am
Since we’ve had the problems with the high oil usage we’ve had a few technicians out to find the cause. First the pipe leading from the tank to the boiler was replaced as they thought that there was a leak. That did not work so another cold winter went by. Last year we insisted on a complete check of the entire system, and it was found that the boiler, although in perfect working order, was totally too ‘big’ for the property requirements. In the tech’s words ‘a boiler like this would normally be used for small hotels’; we live in a 3-bed house. Also because the boiler was 17 years old it was not as efficient as the modern day boilers. The boiler was replaced with one the correct specification for the property, and all the radiators serviced and individual thermostats fitted. The oil usage has improved drastically. We’re still on the first 500L of the season. It might be worth checking the spec of your boiler and the feeder pipe between tank & boiler. It might be cheaper to replace the boiler than to keep topping up with oil for an inefficient system.
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Hi All, anyone thinking about changing their old boiler to a new high efficiency one would be making a very sound investment. I just replaced my 25 year old one for a new external one, the old one used to cost a staggering £6.50 per day!! and the new one now runs at about £3.25 per day. I’m slowly improving the insulation around the home which is a definate must and this will improve the running costs even more. A secondry form of heating is a good idea i.e.wood burner, allowing you to buy your fuel when the costs are lower. My fuel ran out 5 days ago and the company told me I have to wait another 5 days for a delivery, I’ll never let that happen again.
I’m also looking into solar and air source heating as an alternative form of heating to run alongside my boiler.
Keep warm and lets hope this winter ends soon.
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Shaun Reply:
April 29th, 2010 at 12:13 am
Hi Bob….have a look at air to water heat pump.This runs on electricity and will run along with your oil and solar.It looks like the unit will run your wet system but becomes less efficient an the temp goes sub zero so maybe needs a help from the oil during the coldest spells.Solar is a good investment giving “free” hot water for half the year at least.
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Keith B Reply:
December 13th, 2010 at 9:22 am
Hi Shaun …. I have also looked into air to water heat pump (air source heat pumps) they are only efficient if you have, or intend changing, your heating to underfloor heating. They are not efficient enough to run radiators without constantly topping up the temperature with a conventional boiler running alongside. So until they are more efficient, spend your money on an alternative. I installed PV solar panels to generate electricity instead. Fantastic.
Keith
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I sympathise with all oil-fired boiler users, regarding the price of oil.
We live in a very rural area, no road, just a 3/4 mile mud track, with an incline of around 1 in 3. Only route up is by 4WD.
So, buying and taking delivery of oil becomes difficult! Our current supplier for the last 8 years uses a Land-rover pickup, with a 1000 Ltr plastic tank on the back, Thus it’s a 1-to-1 ‘Transfusion’
For the priviledge of having a delivery, we currently get charged another £40 on top of the oil price, which as everyone agrees, just keeps rising.
Anone out there have any ideas for a cheaper deal? And no, pumping the oil up the 800 feet ASL won’t work!
Dave.
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Dave February 8th, 2010 5:19 pmHi There
Welcome to “Rural Norfolk beyond the Gas Mains!”.
Best advice I recieved from a neighbour was to instal a woodburner for emergency heat when electricity supply fails , and topup for extreme weather conditions like we have just experinced.
I lit my trusty , simple woodburner on Christmas eve, and it has just gone out.
Much cheaper than oil, even buying the wood, and insurance against the weather power / oil delivery failures !!
Get one installed NOW!! – avoid rip off oil prices when winter arrives – prices today are 47p a litree- in May 31p ( plus 50%) – always the same racket !! Two fuels gives you the chance to choose!!
John
John , an
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John January 18th, 2010 3:06 pmHI I am currently looking at moving house and only need to order 100 to 200 litres of oil to see us through.Does anyone know a supplier that will deliver less than the minimum 500. Thanks
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Mark January 6th, 2010 10:16 pmHi All
I have recently moved into a 2 bedroom (recently convered barn house 4 years ago). The heating / water if fired by oil. I had the oil topped upto full on the 14th dec and now only 3 weeks into the new oil it has already used 360 liters! I have a wood burner and use the most days, only having the heating on when it gets chilly. Im new to oil but this seems excesive, could there be a oil leak or is this the right amount? thanks all
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dan Reply:
February 8th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
len, you seem to be using a huge amount of oil very quickly, possible explanations are in no particular order:
1. Some of it has been stolen
2. You have a malfunctioning inefficient boiler
3. Your home leaks out too much heat
4. your oil tank has a leak
I have a 4 bedroom detached house with D/glazing + cavity wall and roof insulation
I use 500 litres per year on HW and CH and dont have a wood burner or other form of heating .My boiler is very old (17yrs adn only 80 odd% efficient) I think its been very cold but 360 litres? Call an engineer to be on the safe side
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Boiler Juice is a great idea BUT if you live in a rural area it appears that the supplier will choose if it wants your order.
I ordered 1000litres & had an e mail confirming a standard 4 wheeler would deliver, as prevoiusly. Heltor, Newton Abbot, Devon informed Boiler Juice that they were not prepared to supply Boiler Juice costomers at the quoted discount price using their standard 4 wheeler, so cancelled the order – I am affraid they can pick & choose whether they want a discounted order at busy times – so beware.
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Chris Stacey October 12th, 2009 3:19 pmWhat I cannot get my head around is that there are the latest NEWS on the home page
“19 Mar Oil prices retreat as inventories swell” and
“20 Mar Morgan Stanley: Oil prices to average $35 this year”
I keep checking, but over the last 2 weeks the heating oil price has been steadily increasing buy over 4p/litre. It is not a case of huge demand, as over the same period the weather is also getting warmer. It is obviously a case of the oil companies profiteering.
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David Wilson March 20th, 2009 1:09 pmA few months ago I moved into a house with a small oil tank but I don’t know how much oil it holds. I’ve noticed on the BoilerJuice website that prices of heating oil go down once you order over 900 litres but if my tank only holds 1,000 litres then I risk running out before the order arrives. I’ve looked all over the tank but can’t find a size indicator. Does anyone know how I might find out?
The people who owned the house before us hadn’t done anything to it for ages and we’ve put insulation in the roof. I’m not sure how much that has cut down the amount of oil we use but it sure has made the bedrooms warmer. I was putting a jumper and track suit bottoms on to keep warm – very sexy, I can tell you!
My other question is, the existing boiler is ten years old. It still works, but is a bit noisy. Are boilers produced now a lot more energy efficient as it’s not a cheap thing to replace.
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Steve Reply:
April 9th, 2009 at 1:10 am
Hi Katie,
You should be able to calculate the size of the tank if it is a steel tank, simply by multiplying the width by the length by the height in centimetres and then dividing by one thousand. From what I have seen steel tanks tend to be single skinned so this might work for you. If it’s a plastic tank then I doubt whether the above will work. Many plastic tanks I have seen are bunded which means they have a double skin.
Alternatively if there is a sight gauge on the outside you could always measure the level before the oil delivery. Get your supplier to top you up and then measure the level at the end of the delivery.
Capacity of tank = max level within the sight gauge * amount of oil put in / (level after delivery – level before delivery). Sorry it’s all maths.
As for the age of the boiler, I’m not sure if the newer boilers are that much more efficient – I would recommend getting it serviced though to make sure the jets are all clear – I have found servicing is usually about £60 to £100.
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