We are moving house into one with oil fired heating. Heating system will be changed next year, but over this winter we will have to use it. The boiler also heats domestic hot water.
We will need to get oil to tide us over - don’t want to get too much, so can anyone give a ballpark figure for the litres we might need?
Six roomed bungalow, reasonable insulation, just two people.
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Is there no way you can get a message to previous owners to ask them?
And can you measure what is in the tank at present? i think 500l is generally the minimum delivery so if you can measure then you can get that and assess your usage and get another 500 if need be.
Sadly, can only message through the paranormal …
But thanks for mentioning minimum order …
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process as during buying process you could perhaps have asked for old bills from whoever was managing their affairs.
Try to find out who was supplying the oil to them and ask what their consumption was.
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Having only ever, until recently, owned houses in France with oil-fired central heating and water production (ECS), I have a pretty good idea of how much you might use over the winter period, but see questions below:
- where do you live, (altitude, plain, etc) as that has a massive influence on how much you might have to heat over the winter?
- how big is your oil tank?
- are you thermophiles, or can you put up with a living temperature of less than 20°C ?
- how much surface area is there to heat (this is more important than the number of rooms)?
Minimum deliveries from oil delivery companies are 500L.
For the Auvergne, for example, I could give you an oil consumption estimate anywhere between 500L/month for a high ceiling, poorly insulated stone house, or more if an especially hard winter, to 800-1000L/3 months, for a 150m2 house with moderate insulation.
Thanks, RicePudding. I’ll just get 700 litres, there are remaining 150 litres in tank. We’ll see how that goes. There are 120m², we can take the cold and 2 of the rooms could be trickle-warmed with electric oilfilled rads.
It’s all going a bit backwards for someone who was responsible for energy management for a £1Bn turnover company (in 1990). But heh, next year out with the oil, in with reversible aircon + thermodynamique …
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and… what a coincidence… just taken a call from our Mairie… seems there’s to be a bulk delivery next week… which gets a good price per litre…
and we’re on the list of those they contact.
We have no need on this occasion, can’t even squeeze 100 litres in… we’ve been really frugal with our hot water supplies from that source and are full and ready to meet the winter when it comes.
Bulk buying means that those who can’t afford to buy 500litres can buy much smaller amounts but at the bulk-price… hurrah.