Heating Oil Suppliers

Once warm....

An awful lot depends on house layout and insulation.

A long thin house has a lot of external wall per unit floor area whereas roof is the same as floor area.

Indeed. Although put another way you can significantly reduce your heating bills with just an inch of Celotex on the walls. The core of my house has one wall nearly 3' thick - does wonders for the Wifi signal.

That's right although I found a YouTube video about how to dismantle it and replace the Duracell batteries inside - in the spirit of DIY. The batteries seem to last a decade or so in a fairly hostile outdoor environment which is impressive almost the same as their shelf life.

In message , DJC writes

Aberdeenshire. As I said to Dave, this is a big, old granite house, and heating it is not easy. Having said that, my wife feels the cold big time, and I reckon without her, I could easily reduce consumption by 1/4 or even 1/3, but getting rid of her does seem a little excessive :-)

We normally have a delivery 9 or 10 months out of 12, and can easily use a tankful in January. Being old farts now, we're at home all day, so heating is on all day but again, as Dave said, letting a house like this get cold is never a good idea. To be fair, it is not just the house - we have our ex shop attached, and that is heated too (my hobby rooms).

In message , The Natural Philosopher writes

Agree absolutely, although our Watchman shows F, 9, 8 etc., rather than bars.

Sorry, I phrased that badly. I was meaning more the severity and, particularly, the length of Winter. We have had two 'bad' winters since we have been here (16 years) and oil usage shoots up, but I suppose that is blindingly obvious. It is wind rather than temperature that makes this house cold.

I'm sad, and read the Watchman daily, noting every change.

I have found that joss sticks are a great way to find even the smallest draft. For example, we have bay windows, with a curved wall and curved skirting. There was a small crack or split in the skirting, out of eyesight, but the joss stick found it. Everywhere wall meets wood is a potential draft!

Typo paradise. B-)

Agree that in general are really only two or three companies behind the larger "brands" but I'm pretty sure our local company has not been bought out and is still independant and family run. It's simply not big enough, they only have one small, maybe 8,000 l, tanker and really only cover a 20 mile radius.

Up here most suppliers come under Certas Energy, WCF or Carrs Billington, these companies are regional in coverage.

And wrong, to boot. Pretty standard Turnip spew. I could introduce him to a friend who runs an independent oil supplier. Not that I would.

If you are burning that much fuel it might be worth investigating internal wall insulation by dry lining since a couple of inches of Celotex on the external walls would make a big difference to losses.

Likewise for full depth loft insulation if you don't already have it.

Anecdotally, I've found 50mm to be far more effective, at least in terms of keeping a room comfortable.

And these homes that cost £1000s to keep warm - I think I'd be heavily insulating and draught proofing a couple of the living rooms and the bathroom and keeping to those during winter.

Although I do see that partial insulation defeats the whole point of having a large home - having to scuttle between rooms.

In message , Martin Brown writes

Whilst what you say is true, the walls are all the original intricate lath and plaster, including all the original coving [1] etc., and I would be loath to risk destroying it.

My Watchman has been flashing red and showing 1 bar for a couple of weeks now. But dipstick today says 22.6cm and I was down to 15cm before I reordered in August last year.

If you want to monitor it from afar try one of these

In summer you barely use any oil at all for just hot water.

The tricky time is in mid winter when a week can be a very long time - especially if it is freezing cold and the lanes are full of snowdrifts.

I log the date when the reading changes to keep track of rate of use.

It will run for a remarkably long time on "0" although you risk pulling sediment into the line and clogging up the burner spray nozzle.

Tell that to my gas bill :)

It's currently 30% of my peak winter bill - but we are 4 to a house and we only have a bath (shower room is ready, just need to fit it out) and we are fastidious for daily bathing :-|

Same here, even though I rarely use the information.

Thats another reason why I have a glass bowl filter at the output of the tank. Acts as a sediment trap, the primary reason is a water trap. The oil line has at least one low point and that is outside. I don't want a repeat of the water that had collected in a low point freezing and cutting the oil supply to the boiler...

Ah, yes. Standing in the snow pouring kettles-full of boiling water onto the ground, I remember it well. I hope it never happens here; I don't even know where the oil pipe runs. :o(