Oil fired domestic boiler?
Discussion
Morning all,
Does anyone have any experience of oil fired boilers?
We are moving house and the two houses we are choosing between have oil fired boilers. Both houses are 4 bed detached, were built in the mid 90's and are near Ely.
It's been difficult getting info from the estate agents. So could provide some info regarding the cost of oil, servicing of boilers and tanks or anything else that would be usefull.
Thanks
Does anyone have any experience of oil fired boilers?
We are moving house and the two houses we are choosing between have oil fired boilers. Both houses are 4 bed detached, were built in the mid 90's and are near Ely.
It's been difficult getting info from the estate agents. So could provide some info regarding the cost of oil, servicing of boilers and tanks or anything else that would be usefull.
Thanks
Oil is about 55p a litre at the moment for a minimum 500 litre delivery. Drops a penny or so per litre if you go for 900litres or more. Check the size of the tank you have at the property, the bigger the better as you can stock up more during the summer months. Seasonal prices a bit haywire this year due to the whole libya excuse.
Remember that there's a 5% fuel tax on that, and payment by credit card adds another 2%.
A standard service has just cost me £85inc VAT, not including parts. Common parts to replace are the nozzle (about 15 quid) and the photocell (between 20-30 quid). Expensive parts are the controller (several hundred quid) and the oil pump (100-150 quid).
How much you'll burn through will very much depend on how well insulated the home is.
For a 4 bed detached with no insulation, we were going through £50 worth of fuel a week last december.
When we insulated the loft and the cavity walls, that figure dropped to £20 a week.
During the summer months, we've been getting through about £5-£7 a week in fuel as we don't have the central heating on.
Hope that helps
Remember that there's a 5% fuel tax on that, and payment by credit card adds another 2%.
A standard service has just cost me £85inc VAT, not including parts. Common parts to replace are the nozzle (about 15 quid) and the photocell (between 20-30 quid). Expensive parts are the controller (several hundred quid) and the oil pump (100-150 quid).
How much you'll burn through will very much depend on how well insulated the home is.
For a 4 bed detached with no insulation, we were going through £50 worth of fuel a week last december.
When we insulated the loft and the cavity walls, that figure dropped to £20 a week.
During the summer months, we've been getting through about £5-£7 a week in fuel as we don't have the central heating on.
Hope that helps
eltawater said:
Oil is about 55p a litre at the moment for a minimum 500 litre delivery. Drops a penny or so per litre if you go for 900litres or more. Check the size of the tank you have at the property, the bigger the better as you can stock up more during the summer months. Seasonal prices a bit haywire this year due to the whole libya excuse.
Remember that there's a 5% fuel tax on that, and payment by credit card adds another 2%.
A standard service has just cost me £85inc VAT, not including parts. Common parts to replace are the nozzle (about 15 quid) and the photocell (between 20-30 quid). Expensive parts are the controller (several hundred quid) and the oil pump (100-150 quid).
How much you'll burn through will very much depend on how well insulated the home is.
For a 4 bed detached with no insulation, we were going through £50 worth of fuel a week last december.
When we insulated the loft and the cavity walls, that figure dropped to £20 a week.
During the summer months, we've been getting through about £5-£7 a week in fuel as we don't have the central heating on.
Hope that helps
^^That about says it all. Although you shouldn't be faced with replacing parts very often. I'd imagine that a mid-90's house would already have a plastic oil tank which is basically maintenance free. It'd be worth checking though as a steel tank probably has about a 20-25 year life at best.Remember that there's a 5% fuel tax on that, and payment by credit card adds another 2%.
A standard service has just cost me £85inc VAT, not including parts. Common parts to replace are the nozzle (about 15 quid) and the photocell (between 20-30 quid). Expensive parts are the controller (several hundred quid) and the oil pump (100-150 quid).
How much you'll burn through will very much depend on how well insulated the home is.
For a 4 bed detached with no insulation, we were going through £50 worth of fuel a week last december.
When we insulated the loft and the cavity walls, that figure dropped to £20 a week.
During the summer months, we've been getting through about £5-£7 a week in fuel as we don't have the central heating on.
Hope that helps
The other thing is to make sure the water traps/filters from the tank/oil feed are serviced as a build up of water when frozen in the cold weather will starve the boiler.
Annual consumtion for a 4 bed house will probably be around 2,000 litres unless you're a hothouse flower! As stated above good insulation will bring that down by 20-30%.
Additional to the above, it does seem that oil boilers are more robust than their gas counterparts - an older oil boiler is likely to be almost as efficient as the day it was born, whereas older gas ones deteriorate quicker. Also they seem to be simply made of sterner stuff, so parts just last longer.
I had always had gas untill 4 years ago when we moved and I must admit I saw it as a problem at first.
First thing I did was swap out the old metal tank for a 2500 litre plastic unit.
Nowadays I see oil as just another fuel scource and is as reliable as any .
Just this morning 2400 litres were dropped in the tank at 54p + 5% vat / litre , close on £1350 !
First thing I did was swap out the old metal tank for a 2500 litre plastic unit.
Nowadays I see oil as just another fuel scource and is as reliable as any .
Just this morning 2400 litres were dropped in the tank at 54p + 5% vat / litre , close on £1350 !
I'd recommend getting the boiler serviced & cleaned out annually.
I felt really sorry for the engineer last year for the amount of cleaning he had to do to our system some 6 years after it was installed.
(bin bags full of oily soot - tonnes of the stuff!)
Engineer reckoned that for every cm of soot in the boiler, the boiler used ~10% more fuel to create the same output, so it's cheaper to keep them clean.
I felt really sorry for the engineer last year for the amount of cleaning he had to do to our system some 6 years after it was installed.
(bin bags full of oily soot - tonnes of the stuff!)
Engineer reckoned that for every cm of soot in the boiler, the boiler used ~10% more fuel to create the same output, so it's cheaper to keep them clean.
We've dropped our consumption from 2500 to 1000 a year for a 4 bed detached. Double glazing and loft insulation mainly. But the panic buying of oil last winter left us short for a couple of weeks, so we lowered the stat and relied on the woodburner more. Turned our we quite liked it, but we were getting through £120 of logs every 5-6 weeks.
I have a 30 year old free standing oil boiler, looked to possibly either change to a condensing type oil boiler, or installing lpg boiler, pipework and tank etc.
The feed back appeared to say that both oil and lpg comes out of the same hole, so price wise they will correct themselves, and the costs of changing from the free standing oil boiler, to either condensing oil or lpg boilers were not financially worth the exercise.
So sticking with the old oil boiler, and possibly supplementing the heating with a multifuel stove in the lounge.
The feed back appeared to say that both oil and lpg comes out of the same hole, so price wise they will correct themselves, and the costs of changing from the free standing oil boiler, to either condensing oil or lpg boilers were not financially worth the exercise.
So sticking with the old oil boiler, and possibly supplementing the heating with a multifuel stove in the lounge.
A nozzle a year is a must, really. They do wear. Condensing oil boilers are brilliantly efficient, BUT older oil boilers are too, so it's a difficult decision unless the old boiler is knackered. The important factor is getting the thing set-up regularly. You can drop off the efficiency very easily as well as either soot it up, OR melt baffles!!
Grayham said:
Thanks for the all of the info. One of the houses has new tank but it turns out the house was built in 1985 so I Imagin the boiler will be due a replacement. It also doesnt seem to have much insulation and no double glazing. Good bargaining chips I think.
Not necessarily. So long as the servicable parts are replaced and general maintenance kept up, oil boilers can just keep on going.
Well, it's not really oily though, it's pretty thin.Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff