5lab - my tank sits in the back garden in a very minimally insulated box being battered by the north wind.
n’t believe you haven’t done this already. I added a Hive thermostat to my mum’s Vortex combi and the utility room is no longer like a sauna most of the day now the water channel is off from 10am – 4pm, and 11pm through the night. There’s a big boost button on the thermostat if you want a bath or shower outside these times and the mini-tank stays hot enough for hand washing etc anyway.
cost vs benifits - i only had a 1 channel thermostat and changing it historically cost more than the oil required - a blackfriday deal and the requirement for a 2 chanel meant i bought one , actually wanted an evohome but its being discontinued so i didnt want to end up unsupported.
Likewise with my insulation - i insulated as best i could and left the mega expensive hard to access pain in the arse stuff out .... how ever with the cost of oil now - its in progress.
^^ I was talking about hot water tank, I'm assuming the one at the bottom of your garden has oil in it 😀
No . There’s a bit further down the garden.
My oil boiler sits on the outside of the back wall of the utility room.
Due to at the time of install we didn’t have a utility room or a dining room or indeed a garage with a suitable location for a 250l tank.
Inside the boiler there’s a 2ft x1 ft insulated box of water kept warm for instant use.
My experience of it when the boilers off is it’s usually cold water it spits out. By the time the fresh incoming cold water has displaced the hot into the pipe work - the heats been sucked out the hot water. But during the day and night it sure as **** doesn’t need to keep it warm for use if no one’s there.
Need to play about when the thermostat kit arrives
In all honesty the grants a clunky agricultural thing a bit like my self and it keeps on going on - and the electronics are incredibly easy to bypass when your pcb dies in peak covid….compared to my previous Worcester’s - id buy a grant again but I’m
Not sure I’d buy a combi - but I guess my hands were tied at the time
Gray box round the corner from the doors and windows...that's the boiler
Just paid 82.95 p/l (+VAT) for 1100 litres in South Shropshire. Neary a grand to fill the tank, ouch!! 😢
WHAT?!!
I’ve just been quoted 79.95p + VAT in N Wales!!
@sharkbait - yup, it was £351 inc VAT and 5 days delivery.
Brilliant... well done on that, wish I could get close!
500L by 20th Dec @ 81p/L in Fife. That pretty much should fill the tank. Talk of another spike in prices with this oil cap on Russian oil made me think now might be a good time to top up.
I bottled it. 3 bars inclusive of the bit below the outlet ..... i was looking at january or possibly february.
I too think prices will spike (oil generally always does in Jan.... Coupled with the russian oil cap.)
Maybe they wont - but after seeing february prices of 1.60 locally last year - I filled week 1 january last year at 72p ..... im not getting caught with my pants down for 5-10 pence/l
0.80/l
roughly 1100l used for the year. Hopefully this will be the last year of that - Heavily insulated the house over summer/autumn and we have a 250l tank and solar thermal on order for the ho****er. With the bairns bath every night it seems we have used about 6 bars of oil over summer purely heating hot water ! thats about 700 quid at todays prices so the solar thermal will have a payback of about 6 years
I thought that this was an interesting comparison - Oil was actually the cheapest form of heating last month!
(From here)
I think that oil will drop the short* term compared to gas/electricity
* 6-12 months
Just had a price from BJ for 78.55 for delivery before xmas (which is fine as I've still got about 500L).
I'll phone around to see if I can do a bit better but that's not too bad TBH.
Just filled @0.74 p/l + VAT in Cambs. They dropped 0.5 p/l after a gentle nudge.
That's us sorted until summer next year assuming no disasters.
Watchman dropped from 3 to 2 on Sunday, bit the bullet yesterday as the range anxiety kicked in and ordered 500L via boilerjuice for just over £404 bucks.
House is a tiny 3 bed mid terrace so hopefully that'll be us done until April time.
Still waiting to see how the £200 rebate will be paid, I'd imagine it'll be swallowed up by the increase in electricity come the spring, but at least we're not looking at the £1000 per 500L that was being sold last March.
So much for my cheap 500l. The chap delivering found a small scratch (crack?) at the top right corner of the tank and refused to deliver.
He says we need a new bunded tank @£2000 which will also mean changing the base it’s sat on - sigh.
I've had that - did he suggest that they supplied and fitted the new tank also?
So what you 'could' do is buy a standard tank, run your oil down, unscrew the outlet from the tank, swap tanks and reconnect.
They won't refuse to deliver to an unbunded tank.
(I was told that by the oil tanker delivery guy)
They won’t refuse to deliver to an unbunded tank.
that seems a bit wild - would think it would be the opposite way around.
last time i checked my tank was delivered by a truck driver with dangerous goods paperwork. not an Oftec qualified installer.
Worth getting a second opinion from a qualified person ?
that seems a bit wild – would think it would be the opposite way around.
There's a lot of unbunded tanks out there and it's not illegal to own/use/sell them.
This driver also said that as long as I didn't fill above the level of the 'crack'* then it should be OK and he was happy to do that.
* I'm still not convinced that it is.
There’s a lot of unbunded tanks out there and it’s not illegal to own/use/sell them
im not disputing that part . i had an unbunded up till 2 years ago.
But im disputing that they wont refuse to fill a cracked unbunded tank - thats insanity if they wont fill a bundeded one
Mate at work had a leak in his tank, was about a year before he could move back into his house. Luckily his insurance covered the cost of digging out the ground floor to remove all the contaminated soil.
My rank isn't bunded, so am planning to replace it next summer.
Agree that there's a lot of misinformation about tanks, me included!
<h2 id="catching-oil-leaks-and-spills">Catching oil leaks and spills</h2>
The person installing your tank will do a risk assessment, and they’ll let you know if your tank has to have secondary containment (a ‘bund’). The bund must:
- hold 110% of the tank’s capacity
- be impermeable to oil and water
You’ll need a bund if your tank’s in any of the following places:
- where oil spills could run into an open drain or a loose manhole cover
- where the tank vent pipes cannot be seen when the tank’s being filled, for example because the delivery tanker is parked too far away
- within 10 metres of coastal waters or inland fresh waters like lakes or streams
- within 50 metres of a drinking water source, for example wells, boreholes or springs
- where oil spills could run over hard ground and reach coastal waters, inland fresh waters or a drinking water source
- in the inner zone of groundwater source protection zone 1
- You’ll also need a bund if your tank can hold more than 2,500 litres of oil.
Not sue I would want to be using an oil tank with a whole in it. The environmental impact + the massive hefty fine you get, i am sure its about £150k + clean up costs + you might not actually be properly insured.
We had to get it noted on our house insurance policy + provide evidence it met building regs
More recent building regs on where you can locate a tank are pretty difficult to adhere to unless you have a lot of land
while thems the rules - why you wouldnt want a bunded tank is beyond me.
But im disputing that they wont refuse to fill a cracked unbunded tank
I never said that..... I said that they wouldn't refuse to deliver to a tank that wasn't bunded - cracked tanks are a different matter.
Mate at work had a leak in his tank, was about a year before he could move back into his house. Luckily his insurance covered the cost of digging out the ground floor to remove all the contaminated soil.
A neighbour had a leak in the oil feed pipe as it came through the wall into the house, stone not brick. Huge reconstruction job.
Looks like I need to get my Watchman calibrated somehow.
Was down to 3 bars of a 1400l tank.
Only got 884l in to brim.
Perhaps my watch man isn't taking into account the dead space below the outlet.....
I think they only measure the linear distance to the surface of the oil, so not great in plastic tanks that have odd shapes which give different surface areas (hence volume) at different heights. If you have a sight glass measure the oil level before and after a delivery, this will give you a rough idea of the lites/mm over that range, and you can calibrate the Watchman as well.
yep 100% that is what they do . my tanks a tall rectangle harelequin one rather than the half a barrel shaped one so expected it to be fairly linear correlation. Seems i was wrong.
Always had a sight glass with the old half barrel one.
my tanks a tall rectangle harelequin one rather than the half a barrel shaped one so expected it to be fairly linear correlation.
The inner tank probably has 'windows' (i.e. holes that join both sides) moulded into it for strength like this:
Means that the level drops quite quickly once it reaches the middle part of the tank, but more slowly above or below.
Was down to 3 bars of a 1400l tank.
Only got 884l in to brim.
It's still not miles off though to be fair:
1400l tank ~= 140l per bar on the Watchman
3bars ~= 420l
1440 - 420 = 980l, so 100l out, which is within 1 bar of the Watchman.
Looks like I need to get my Watchman calibrated somehow.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I've spent the last few years recording the sight glass levels before and after a delivery, over as large a range as possible. It comes out at an average of about 1mm per litre. I don't know if it was designed like this or just lucky. It's a plastic 1000l tank
Oh Boblo. Sublime.
Yes, very good. (But being uneducated I needed Google translate)
Having been caught out with the watchman once and running out whilst it said there was still 2 bars I now tend to dip my tank and measure it that way. Barrel shaped tank but can get a chart online for litres left at different depths.
Just had a 1000l at 78.2 in Cheshire. Delivery within 2 weeks but done in 3 days. With the thermostats turned down use has been lower so hopefully see us through winter now.
Can't believe it but I've just placed an order with boiler juice for 500L at 82p for delivery by jan 3rd as one local company is quoting 99p and the other are now saying call back after new year!
I got quoted 72p the day after I got delivered.
How ever....... 6 inch deep snow and the oil truck being stuck on the road in yesterday so I'm ok with the 80 quid premium.
Yeah, not ideal but anything could happen in the next month or so - so I'm reasonably OK with it.
Boilerjuice though - jesus, never thought they'd be the best option!!!!!
Boilerjuice are often cheapest for me
@Sharkbait, My single-skinned tank cracked in multiple places in the mega-hot spell in the summer.....tank was almost full at the time. Thankfully lost very little.
A bar of Soap squashed into the cracks held fast for a week or two and stopped the leak until I got a new tank....@ £2.5k 😩
Maybe the soap trick will help for now, but if it's cracked in one place, it's about to crack elsewhere....😒
Maybe the soap trick will help for now, but if it’s cracked in one place, it’s about to crack elsewhere….
The thing is I don't believe it's actually split at all* and this is just one oil co. trying to sell me a tank installation.
* I've looked and can't find anything, nor is there any smell or sign of oil.
The oil co siad they had pictures but when I asked for them the other day they said they'd lost them.
Yeah right.
I will replace it as its getting on, but I'll do it myself as it's a simple job.
Oh, well, it sounds like they're trying it on. There was a v strong smell when mine split.
Hope it's got more life yet 🤞🏻
Not sure how many have seen this, but I had an email from Boiler Juice saying the £200 payment would be made in February, from your electricity supplier.
Yeh,I saw that, but the article I saw said you'll automatically get it in one paragraph, and you'll need to apply in the next 😂 I guess we'll see come February, hopefully they meant February 2023 😂
After last weeks cold spell with have shed loads (tank loads) of oil. Went to look at the prices and they have shot back up again 🙁
How can an electricity company give us the £200. How do they know I am on oil and that I dont have my mains gas or LPG with another company?
I think it isn't an oil payment, it's because you only have a single source of mains energy, eg electricity. I'm not sure how they know this.
Oh I hope so!
Yeh it's actually an alternative fuel payment, so they assume everyone is on gas and electric, if you're only getting electric via the grid you must have some alternative fuel for heating. Oil, bottled gas, wood, coal etc?
Having said that in our old place we were 100% electric (storage heaters), so maybe the electric heating is also classed as 'alternative' to gas??
I'll just be glad when we get it as we too are hammering our oil tank just now.
They presumably know which addresses are not on mains gas, and as I'd assume 99% are connected to the electric grid they can just match them up? It is a government scheme after all so they'll know where most people are via HMRC, benefits, electoral role. And if you're homeless or houseless you'd not get it anyway?
Anyway it's unclear from the press whether it is automatically sent in which case see above, or whether you have to apply in which case I assume they check the above?
They seem to be finding doing it very difficult anyway given the time since we were first promised it and the fact we'll be getting the payment kind of after the house is frozen 🙄
So I’ve knocked up a bit of an app that hopefully gives me an idea of how much oil I’m burning.
A Raspberry Pi stuck inside the cover of my massive (old) boiler listens once a minute for it running via a £4 USB mini microphone.
When the sound level is above a certain level (i.e. the boiler is running) if fires off a webhook message to IFTTT which adds a row to a google spreadsheet – it fires another message when the sound drops below a certain level (i.e. the boiler has shut down).
This gives me the burn duration from which I get the oil used (a 1.35kg nozzle uses 5.11L of kero per hour).
On my phone I have an app that gets data from the spreadsheet, filters it and makes it look better – it also gives me a total volume used and the associated cost.
There will be some error as the pi might have run the script just before the boiler fires up, but it l could also miss the boiler shutting off by 1 minute also so it kinda evens out a bit!
After 10 days it's working well.
It's giving me a daily usage that is subtracted from a rough-ish starting volume and will email/bug me daily once the oil level falls below a certain level.
Looking at buying at house that currently has an oil boiler. What’s everyone’s plan regarding the ban coming up?
Any future huge expenditure in this is a big no no
What’s everyone’s plan regarding the ban coming up?
What ban? Anyway, there's literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of properties with oil boilers, so it's not like their use and the infrastructure/parts/oil to support them is just going to stop if and when new ones can't be fitted.
Are they not completely banned after 2035?
Are they not completely banned after 2035?
Sounds like plans (no legislation as yet) for no gas / oil boilers in new builds from 2025 and no replacing existing broken ones from 'mid-2030s' (source).
New ones are (probably, it's still not been decided exactly), but you can keep using the one you already have.
And I bet there'll be a fudge/extension nearer the time, as the alternatives are not suitable for much of the housing stock in question
Thanks guys
We are a way off even buying but we like this house
Oil doesn’t concern me
Being forced to replace down the line does
Is it not new installs?
Is it not new installs?
Whats a new install though? In the last year we had to replace our oil tank and oil boiler.
I have no idea what other heat source we could use. Air source heat pump looks like the only solution, and that appears like it would be rubbish anyhow.
Is it not new installs?
Whats a new install though?
Ahem...
plans (no legislation as yet) for no gas / oil boilers in new builds from 2025 and no replacing existing broken ones from ‘mid-2030s’ (source)
Being forced to replace down the line does
In 10 years you'll likely be looking to replace what every there unless it was fitted in the last couple of years.....
Especially if it's Worcester Bosch.
Less so if it's a grant or a Firebird (shit but cockroach like qualities .....)
The oilies tend to last a bit longer don't they?
Our HRM is ~20 years old and the one before lasted ~25 years and would still be going strong but for spare parts availability.
Thought the legend was appropriate!
[img] 
[/img]
The oilies tend to last a bit longer don’t they?
Old ones yes.
Modern heat exchangers and the amount of electronics in certain boilers will see them killed off long before older oil boilers which had nothing in......
If it wasn't for the fact they will phase oil boilers out by pricing/taxing us out of kerosene I'd buy a system boiler today -for the replacement that will be required in the future. My vortex is approaching 12 years old. Probably another 10 years of expected life span in it.
Air source heat pump technology had better catch up with the government's plans quickly.....
Can someone explain what a system boiler is.... I'm confused [again] 😬
System boiler includes the pump and expansion vessel in the boiler casing.
The idea being to simplfiy on site plumbing and wiring.
More commonly used to describe....not a combi......
Fitting a tank and solar thermal in spring...... Could ditch the 26kw combi (sized to hot water requirement at the time) ....and go to a 15kw......but .....the current one keeps on trucking.
Sharkbait - if you've burning 5.11 litres an hour, thats a big boiler! 55KW ish?
My 23kW Grant burns smidge over 2 litre/hour. I've thought about various methods to record burner run time, such as a very small mains > 12V DC power supply, then 12V hour counters are readily available (ebay). Not got round to it yet, as I measure off my tank sight tube with tape measure, and have a spreadsheet formula to reasonably account for the tank shape (horizonatal mix of cylindrical and rectangular sections).
Oil flow meters are avaiable, but very expensive.
Can someone explain what a system boiler is…. I’m confused [again] 😬
A system boiler versus a combi boiler.
A system boiler has two pipes - hot water flow and return. It makes the water hot. That’s about it. It is plumbed and wired as part of a system with some simple valves, usually with a domestic hot water storage tank that can also be electrically heated (“the immersion”) and some radiators to provide central heating (CH). It may or may not include a pump and expansion vessel. More likely not for older boilers. Older systems usually have a vented indirectly heated DHW cylinder. Newer installs may have an unvented, mains pressure DHW storage cylinder.
A combi boiler provides domestic hot water (DHW) on demand, rather than by a heated tank. It therefore has additional connection for cold water in (usually mains pressure) and DHW out, in addition to the CH water loop. It usually includes the CH pump and often an expansion vessel in the boiler casing. They are more complicated units. They are often much higher power output than system boilers (30 vs 10kw as an example) in order to provide DHW on demand versus slowly heating a tank full.
Aaah, ours is a system boiler then. It fits in a hole in the wall. The man comes and opens a door outside and fiddles with it on the patio... All the grubby bits (including the man) stay outside - we don't even need to be in other than to pay him...
if you’ve burning 5.11 litres an hour, thats a big boiler! 55KW ish?
It's a massive old 35Kw thing - just keeps on going!
The 5.11L/hour comes from the 1.35 (US gallon/hour) nozzle that's fitted.
Re system boilers, thanks, get that now 👍
That's an inefficient old lump you have. A 36kW oil condensing boiler would be 3.01 litres/hour.
(From Grant vortex pro manual).
Im hoping our boiler lasts long enough for us to make an informed decision on HVO when we replace, it looks interesting.
I keep an eye on my oil level by poking a broomhandle down the hole
I have fantasies about building converting a old boiler to a babington burner so it can run off anything from WVO though to whatever crap I can find come the appocolypc.
Might be a good project one day when I have some time...
I have fantasies about building converting a old boiler to a babington burner so it can run off anything from WVO though to whatever crap I can find come the appocolypc.
Might be a good project one day when I have some time…
I have one of these cheap chinese diesel parking heaters warming my office, some people heat their homes with them and burn all sorts.
Mine runs on 50:50 kerosene heating oil from the house tank at 80p/l and half used engine oil (I do my own oil changes and am lazy at going to the tip so have loads).
Its lazy at starting on this stuff as its a bit thick so best to start (and stop) on pure kero and then swap once running.
'Anson
Some people route the exhaust through a radiator to recover all the heat from there too...
Mine runs on 50:50 kerosene heating oil from the house tank at 80p/l and half used engine oil (I do my own oil changes and am lazy at going to the tip so have loads).
Burning used engine oil strikes me as a bit antisocial.
Burning used engine oil strikes me as a bit antisocial.
Well burning waste oil is allowed but only if you pay a massive license fee, which is basically the government not liking missed revenue as lots of workshops (that obviously would have used lots of heating oil gas whatever) were getting heat for free / cheap, which of course can not be allowed..
Well burning waste oil is allowed but only if you pay a massive license fee, which is basically the government not liking missed revenue as lots of workshops (that obviously would have used lots of heating oil gas whatever) were getting heat for free / cheap, which of course can not be allowed..
It's also full of allsorts of metal based additives like zinc and lithium, as well as high levels of Sulphur.
The reason it's licensed is so they can have a degree of control over who's burning it and what emissions controls they have in place.
I know about the heavy metals, but I think there would still be a license added even if there were non.
That’s an inefficient old lump you have. A 36kW oil condensing boiler would be 3.01 litres/hour.
Our 1974 AGA averages 8 litres/day, with little variation for season - it's on 24/7 and supplies half the heating, all the hot water & cooking.
How much oil a day are you folk burning 3-5 litres/hour actually using?
If my data is right I've been using about 9.5L/day over the last 2 weeks.
That's with my 3 daughters home so pretty much max usage.
As they go back to Uni then I'll shut down a few if the rooms.
It will be interesting to o see if there's much change.
I used 740l in just over 300 days.
Or around 2.5l average per day.
Heating and hot water.
