Which type of oil is use if a property has oil and electric CH. I’m trying to find current oil prices in France to compare with uk. I have aga rayburn which burns kerosene but I gather these systems are very few in France?
Do most rely on electric heating for hot water and rads? I have logburners for evening heat and atmosphere but not reliable for all night, and will come home to a cold house if used for central heating. Any help grateful
You need to be looking up the prices for “fioul”. Not really sure what you would call it in English, but that’s what heating oil is called in French.
Central heating is far less common in most parts of France than it is in the UK.
Some wood burners can stay alight for 12 hours plus if you adjust the settings and let them burn very slowly. I sometimes aim to keep mine buring overnight in very cold weather, my burner is quite small so there’s not much more than glowing embers by morning but it keeps the room a bit warm and it’s quick to get going again. Tends to soot the glass up though.
On electric rads I guess you could use timer switches so they come on half an hour before you get home and warm the house up for you.
Hope this helps
Gas Oil (very close to the French), red diesel or just central heating oil.
Talking about Fioul Domestique, there are 2 sorts:
Quelles sont les différences entre fioul ordinaire et fioul supérieur ?
| Fioul ordinaire | Fioul supérieur | |
|---|---|---|
| Résistance au froid | Jusqu’à 0°C | Jusqu’à -25°C grâce à un agent anti-froid |
| Odeur du fioul | Forte | Diminuée grâce à un agent anti-odeur |
| Rendement | Performances standard | Supérieur |
| Prix | Habituel | Prix majoré |
The link goes to a site that gives more explanation, even if you don’t want to order Domestic Heating Oil…
https://www.fioulreduc.com/acheter-fioul/quel-fioul-acheter/ordinaire-ou-superieur
Is it basically the same gazole ie diesel that you put in your car, then? I always imagined it was a totally (no pun intended) different oil.
Slightly different stuff, as explained below
https://www.fioulmoinscher.fr/La-difference-entre-le-fioul-et-le-gazole
Remember: It is illegal to use Fioul Domestique in your vehicle. 
The government announced (last year) that new oil-fired central heating boilers would be outlawed in France in ten years so maybe you need to explore a different form of heating ? As I said in a previous post Heat Pumps or Pompe à Chaleur is an eco way of heating which is currently being encouraged by the government with some good deals/grants available.
The link Stella provided suggests that there are differences, might be a “modern” thing - when we had an oil fired boiler (1970’s) I’m 99% sure dad just bought red diesel to fill up with.
Yup, we got a rebate of 1600€ after installing hot/cold aircon.
In UK, way back when, farmers used red diesel in their tractors, at a reduced price. If they were caught with red diesel in the cars, that was a problem.
same also in France stella. Our local garage insists on delivering a receipt with your name and address on it (which I guess can be examined by the Gendarmes at any point).
If you are buying a house here ask to see the bills for utilities so you know roughly what it is likely to cost you for heat, light, water and so on. Fioul ranges between 0.50 and 0.90€ a litre - apart from a dreadful moment in 2013 when it went up to 1.57€/litre.
That’s what the red dye is for - it takes very little to colour the diesel so even if you top up with duty paid fuel you can still be collared after a sample is taken. Apparently there are other markers used in the UK (and, presumably, France) which are not visible and can be detected quite a long way down the line (one forum poster claimed 5 years but that seems a little extreme).
A very good point to look at the current owners utility bills, if allowed!!
Thank you.
They should offer them, and if they don’t then this raises a question as to why not.
I seem to remember that my diagnostics report gave projections of energy costs, and also suggested various ways to improve energy consumption along with estimated costs for having the work done / saving that would be made.
Trouble with looking at previous bills is that one person’s consumption could be very different from another - how many people live there and how much hot water do they use for showers etc, are they in a lot or do they go out to work, do they like the place like a hot house or do they put on extra jumpers… (dot dot dot)
Yes, it could give misleading info and I do not know of anyone who has seen another’s bills. When we sold, we were not asked such questions. The information needed for the purchaser to assess the situation, was contained in the Report.
In all our house purchases we have always asked for, and got, the previous owners bills. Obviously you have to take into account household composition and lifestyle, but that’s not rocket science. I know many other people who have as well.
They are a very useful adjunct to the energy reports which are often written on toilet paper (to be polite). The assessor can use a simple automatic programme to generate them which is based on assumptions she/he makes which can be wildly out. For my mother’s house we recently had one that incorrectly claimed no cavity wall insulation, no loft insulation and gas heating - the assessor hadn’t checked so made assumptions. He had not even noticed that there was no gas supply to the house and a huge oil tank instead!
For which I suppose you had to pay.
My very first house in the UK was mid-terrace and when I sold it, the survey described it as a semi detached property. How can you not notice that there’s a house joined on both sides.
From that point on I’ve regarded surveys as worth no more than the paper they’re printed on and the box they tick, and at that point I was in my mid 20s so I’ve been sceptical of surveys most of my life, I think common sense and experience is far more useful than bits of paper. If you have high ceilings and poor insulation it’s going to be heavy on the heating bills.
The diagnostic report on my current house was surprisingly accurate so I did wonder whether maybe the French are better at them, but maybe not.