Raeburn - oil tank as method for heating, eating......

[RacerMDR]

in follow up to my which house thread, has anyone got any experience of using Oil to heat the house. I'n in a position to rent a house - but it has a big oil tank that needs filling. I have no experience of that.

How much does it cost?

How long does it last?

How do you get it filled?

etc etc

thanks!!

[Flintstone]

No idea I'm afraid but make sure you have a bl00dy good padlock or whatever as heating oil theft is rife.

[ratbane]

Hi,

I converted to oil about 2yrs ago. Previously had used LPG (we have no gas local to us in the country).

The prices have shot up, and as with LPG there is no watchdog looking at prices. We were paying 27p per litre 2 years ago, and its now at approx double that.

We have a very efficient Worcester Heatslave Combi, a large 4 bed detached with 13 rads. Its costing around £1k a year.

I believe AGAs and Raeburns are pretty expensive to run, as they need to be on all the time.

[schmalex]

We have an oil fired Rayburn that we use to heat the house / water & to cook on as well. We have a monthly DD with the local oil company for approx £90 / month & they come and top the tank up whenever their calculations recommend it, so we don't really have to worry about running out.

The price of oil has shot up over the past few year (3 or 4 years ago, we were paying about 37ppl, now it is around 67ppl).

However, we reckon on the price of fuel alone it is ever so slightly cheaper than using electricity & gas, but there really isn't a lot in it. However, the village is now looking hedging the oil price by clubbing together & buying x'000 litres twice a year.

Rayburns need to be serviced every 6 months at a cost of around £130 per service. Also, if the baffles go, it is around £700 to repair (or so I was informed by our service man a few weeks ago ).

Having said that, we would never go back to a fan oven for cooking. Once you get used to the Rayburn, you can turn out much higher quality food, as the cooking heat is a lot more gentle. Also, it creates a lovely warm heart to the home when it is on (we have ours come on for a couple of hours in the morning & 3 hours or so in the evening - it has on / off timers & a thermostat just like a normal central heating system).

Are they as efficient as the latest gas boilers? - no. But they more than make up for that by adding a lot of character to the kitchen & enabling you to produce amazing food.

Edited by schmalex on Sunday 14th September 22:02

[RacerMDR]

so if you are on direct debt pcm, how do you know they are filling it etc?

also - how do you know when it gets low? Is there a gauge?

[schmalex]

There is a guage on the side of the tank that I keep an eye on every now & then just make sure. Fortunately, I work from home & it is pretty hard to miss the bloody great big oil lorry reversing down the lane taking most of the trees out!!

On the other hand, it is easy enough to call your local oil company up & arrange a fill - before we went DD< we never had to wait more than 2 days between arranging the fill & the lorry turning up. It can get a bit expensive though if you haven't planned the cost in - 1,500 or so litres at 60pish a litre ain't cheap, but depending on your house & how much you run the boiler & cooker in the Rayburn it will last you most of the year

[londonbabe]

I grew up in a house powered by one. Cooking on a Raeburn is impossible. They have two temperatures: off and blast furnace. (We had a bottled-gas cooker for cooking most food)
But they do look nice and make the house toasty. I just never ever want to live with one ever again.

[schmalex]

londonbabe said:

I grew up in a house powered by one. Cooking on a Raeburn is impossible. They have two temperatures: off and blast furnace. (We had a bottled-gas cooker for cooking most food)
But they do look nice and make the house toasty. I just never ever want to live with one ever again.

No they don't!

ours has a temperature gauge just like a normal oven!

[Busamav]

it was low 30's a litre a year back and now its in the 50's.

We used 3000 litres last year

[Silent1]

londonbabe said:

I grew up in a house powered by one. Cooking on a Raeburn is impossible. They have two temperatures: off and blast furnace. (We had a bottled-gas cooker for cooking most food)
But they do look nice and make the house toasty. I just never ever want to live with one ever again.

Rubbish, we have an AGA and don't use anything else for cooking (except another hob when doing roasts) if you can't cook in one it's through lack of trying.

[GnuBee]

We've been living in a rented house which uses an Aga/Rayburn to provide heating, hot water and central heating. From our recent experience; If it's a new one then you should be ok but the older ones do have some of the problems alluded to earlier i.e. poor temperature control, enormous thermal inertia i.e. wait for 1 hour for the cooker to reach a temperature at which will actually cook something. If it's the type with a single hot plate across the top then the theory is that it offers a range of temperatures from very hot on the RHS to simmer on the LHS - on the older ones you'll find it ranges from "takes 1 hour to boil water for pasta" to "will never boil water but may keep the cat warm".

Now in terms of running costs; in the last 12 months I've put 3k worth of oil though the thing. This was based on an average usage of a total of 4 hours per day and included only 1 cooked meal per day.

Personally, if the one in your intended house is not a recent one I'd advise great caution. Before anyone suggests that ours may be atypical; it's serviced as per the schedule by a qualified Aga/Rayburn installer/service engineer.

Good points; food tastes better - I couldn't tell you why but if you're prepared to wait then there's no doubt that certain things simply taste better than gas or electricity cooked food.

[Busamav]

jag guru said:

Busamav said:

it was low 30's a litre a year back and now its in the 50's.

We used 3000 litres last year

Wow ! I've never got through that much ! yet ...........
Yeah, just dug out my last statement 58p/ltr now.

just checked as 300 litres seemed low ,

we actually had 3 deliveries of 2000+ litres, as i remember it being about a grand a delivery , there was also a 500 litre splash when we nearly ran out

[Davi]

jag guru said:

Busamav said:

jag guru said:

Busamav said:

it was low 30's a litre a year back and now its in the 50's.

We used 3000 litres last year

Wow ! I've never got through that much ! yet ...........
Yeah, just dug out my last statement 58p/ltr now.

just checked as 300 litres seemed low ,

we actually had 3 deliveries of 2000+ litres, as i remember it being about a grand a delivery , there was also a 500 litre splash when we nearly ran out

From the volumes some of the people seem to be using
I can only assume you're running much larger properties than me. I don't
seem to use anything like that amount.
500 ltrs is the minimum delivery from my dist, and that's what I generally buy. I only have a 1200ltr tank and I normally order at 1/3 to
a 1/4 left. Should have got a bigger one in hindsight but I worry
a 1000 ltr del will overflow, so I'm stuck with it,now.

My parents place is really quite large and one of the least heat efficient properties you could imagine, and they didn't use anywhere near that amount - so unless Busamav lives on a polar icecap and prefers rooms to be a steady 35 deg C I'm amazed he can get through that amount.

Parents found that by ringing around and complaining at a price they could get the book figure substantially reduced, so don't accept the first quote you are given. (though obviously you can't just set up a DD type account if you are going to do this)

Edited by Davi on Monday 15th September 12:05

[Hyperion]

To be honest...pretty much all fuels are expensive now.
If you're looking to save money - the only way is an open fire, or preferably, a wood burning stove.
We installed a stove a couple of years ago, and wouldn't be without it now. They produce a lovely heat and you can cook on them if you get really desparate!

I keep a chainsaw in the boot, and pull over and chop up any fallen branches I see on my travels. Other than petrol and oil for the saw (plus the occasional new blade), it's 100% free heating.

[RacerMDR]

thanks everyone

the house does also have a wood burning stove.......

Its tricky to know what to do!

I don't really want to use 3000 litres a year at 60p a litre!

Its a little house though - so hopfully will be half that max

[Busamav]

Davi said:

so unless Busamav lives on a polar icecap and prefers rooms to be a steady 35 deg C I'm amazed he can get through that amount.

Its not difficult to use that much , I know a couple of guys who go through similar amounts , we dont have the house hot and we live in West Berks.

The external tank is 2500 litres

It is quite a large property, 4000 ft net , an old vicarage that when we moved in a year ago had no insulation anywhere.

We have had the walls insulated now , i have a heap of quilt to lay at 300mm deep and all the draughts have been taken care of so I am hoping for a cheaper winter this year , but i dont see it being a significant reduction .

Edited by Busamav on Monday 15th September 13:42