Treading Softly - Environmentally considerate living in a rural english home and garden

Heating Oil

We live in a village with no mains gas supply so we have used heating oil to heat the building since our arrival in 1995. Oil has been delivered by tanker and stored in a 1,400 litre tank. It has been burned by a Grant Vortex 16/21 condensing oil boiler.

Update 2021:
We are very happy to have now replaced the oil-based heating system with a state-of-the-art Hitachi Air Source Heat pump. The oil tank has been removed as has the oil burning boiler in the kitchen to be replaced by the quiet, environmentally friendly electricity-based heat pump.Click here for more about the ASHP and its environmentally friendly credentials.

Heating Oil - Average Litres consumed per week

The chart shows the average weekly consumption of heating oil for the years since 2008. Consumption has steadily reduced with 2011/12 some 15% less than during 2010/11. This is attributed to the installation of the Condenser boiler in January 2010 and the completion of the building insulation in February 2011.

Heating Oil consumption reduced sufficiently to allow a single delivery of approximately 1,600 litres of oil annually in May. This provides visibility and predictability of the total annual heating oil cost and means we can now get a realistic year-on-year comparison of our consumption, albeit still by averaging our weekly consumption. Replenishing in May or June seems to be the best time to get the lowest Heating Oil Prices in the year.

In 2016 the oil tank was changed to a smaller and more secure one. As it is only a 1400 lite tank we need to have it topped up twice a year. This makes it now almost impossible to measure our usage of oil for a calendar year so the monitoring and graph are no longer updated. We have no reason to think our average usage has changed as a result of a different si xed tank.

Meanwhile, in early 2020 we are assessing the option of switching to a mix of solar panels and an Air Source heat pump to replace the oil heating system. We hope we will be able to identify the correct replacement system and that we can afford it. It would be lovely to eliminate oil from or carbon foot print.

Heating Oil saving technologies

• All the building walls, loft, roofs, windows and doors have been insulated and/or draught-proofed. All radiators have individual thermostats. More...
  
  
• The 25-year old oil Central Heating boiler was replaced in 2010 with a Condenser Boiler
  

Our Heating Oil saving habits

• The house thermostat is set at between 14° and 19°C depending on the time of day. A slightly cooler house has the added benefit of keeping us healthier and slimmer.
  
  
• Hot water is scheduled for 40 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the late afternoon which covers personal and dish washing. The washing machine heats its own water using off peak electricity in the night.
  
  
• We make use of the wood-burning stove for "local" heat in the one most-used room.
  
  
• Oil is ordered through the village heating oil cooperative or syndicate which means the delivery truck makes several deliveries on the same day, saving its own fuel. The cooperative also secures better prices.