Cost of central heating oil?

[EN]

I need to buy some more oil but am scared by what it might cost. I'll do some ringing round in a moment but just wondered if anyone else has bought any recently and what you paid per litre as a bit of a benchmark. Normally prices drop a bit in the summer but as it's so freezing today I cant see summer ever arriving! What are your predictions for heating costs in the year or so ahead?

Has anyone done any comparisons for example would it be cheaper now to buy more electric heaters and use those instead? I can't get gas here but am very cosy in front of blazing log fire!

Thanks

Liz

[Grunff]

24.5p a few weeks ago.

Oil is much, much cheaper than electricity. Don't even consider electric heating if you have oil.

[Blair]

[Howard Neil]

Since the price of our oil is based on Brent Crude Oil, you may find the following BBC page of interest.

you select the twelve months graph, you will see that the price of oil is close to its highest level during that time.

[John]

Boilerjuice is good for price comparisons.

you can wait a few weeks summer prices should kick in - usually a few p per litre cheaper.

John

[John Rumm]

About the only way to get a sensible price using leccky is with a heat pump aircon unit. That way you can dump 4kW of heat into the room for

1kW worth of electricity.

[Alan]

Why is this? I had assumed they'd be less efficent at heating than a traditional heating element.

Alan.

[Tony Bryer]

No, because you're using the electricity to drive the heat pump not to provide the heat: the heat itself is being extracted from the outside air (the reverse to running it in a/c mode during the summer).

[Mike]

Forget electricity - unless you have your own windmill/hydro plant.

Oil is still second only to mains gas in energy/£ so try haggling. Some suppliers have rather a lot of stock at the moment and I've had two 10% off vouchers through the door recently.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I cjecked today and in my area it was 28.5p a liter.

Try

for a quick quote in yours.

Oil dipped below $50 a barrel briefly last week - its back over $55 for Brent Crude, and I've now made enough for 3 tankfuls on buying futures in it ;)

[markzoom]

Because the 1KW is used to pump 3kw of heat from elsewhere that's already there(like outside air). The 1 kw heat from the compressor is added to this so you get 4kw. It's a refrigerator back to front, with a fan. You could say it's cooling the outside air and transferring the heat to inside. I gather some heat pumps are even more efficient than just 300%. In some places they have pipes under their garden which collect heat from the ground instead of the air, but britain is a bit ecologically backward, so most people haven't even heard of "ground source heating" and the efficiency of heat pumps(1,800,000 gooogle hits) :

M.K.

[Rick]

Work out how many tress you burn a year, and plant that many, then every time you chop one down, plant 2, you have an endless supply of virtually free wood.

I have a friend with 40 tress, he burns 1 a year.

Rick

[Alan]

> M.K.

Thanks, I often wondered about the efficiency of running A/C heat pump systems all year to heat and cool a building as required. I guess by the same token, the cooling process is reasonably energy efficient also.

Alan.

[bigcat]

It works well in places with mild climates. The greater the temp diff between outdoor and in, the less effieicnt it gets. So its inefficienct in the coldest weather, not ideal. Still better than plug in leccy heaters tho.

The other issue is the upfront cost. I gather this has fallen a lot now tho.

not compared to the other options, no.

NT

[markzoom]

Ground source heating is used in places like Canada, where the underground temp is way above ambient.

Underground pipes make sure that differential isn't as high.

It's not bad if you use below ground as your heat source.

It should keep falling in relation to energy costs.

[Doctor Evil]

Heat pumps are very expensive to install. Running cost is the same as natural gas. No need to cool domestic houses in the UK, if proper insulation, shading, ventilation is done.

[Doctor Evil]

Heat pumps move heat. They are less efficient in winter, when you want them, as there is less heat to move. They require careful thought, understanding and a lot of figures worked out before buying one.