Anyone here use oil fired boile for heating and hot water

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These's some good real world information coming in here. Many thanks Gents.

We are looking at a ducted wood burner to connect to exitsing ducting, or a waste oil burner, burns motor oil which I can get for free. The wood for the wood burner would be free too. I feel these options with free fuel is the way to go for us, but try finding a decent wood burner with a duct outlet in NZL. I can't, and I am getting to the point where I will bring one in. The Italians do a cracker but it is pellets.

Does anybody have experience with a good log burner that has a duct connection and a fan, although I can install a fan and thermo seperately of course. Burner will be in the basement I can suck the basment air directly into the ducting if I can't find a ducted burner but this will tend to be less efficient. What are the options for ducted waste oil or log burners in the UK, how to pick one is the question for me now. I've got a few months I am just starting down the path now any help is appreciated.

Same goes for anybody Stateside so long as the electrics are 230 V or can be converted.

I guess it needs to be reasonably good looking as the basement will see use as a lounge or man cave at some point in time...


W.
 
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Yep , we can go through a tank ( 1200L ) inside a month this time of year when the heating is on all weekend and all evening through the week ; when it gets to summer and the weather picks up , the heating is hardly on at all and a tank of oil can last us from around May till around November when it starts to get cold again ,
1200 litres a MONTH !! is that a typo ? at 50ppl that's £600/month :eek: Or do you live in Downton abbey ? :p
 
This type of thing but with one outlet pipe with reduced plenum size and split the ducting away from sight, do you use them in the UK...?

Combine that with a wet back and a coal burning capability and we are almost there.

Wood Furnaces
 
This type of thing but with one outlet pipe with reduced plenum size and split the ducting away from sight, do you use them in the UK...?

Combine that with a wet back and a coal burning capability and we are almost there.

Wood Furnaces

We have a similar thing over here called an "insert". It's a firebox with chambers above built into the surround and vents permitting the heat to circulate from the top, thus avoiding the "bottom up" problem with heating a room. I have one which also has a pump and tubing connected, distributing the warm air to 3 other rooms. It's a very efficient system. It's an 8kw iirc, and warms up to 85m2, approx. 255m3.

I also have a standard 17kw wood burning stove in the barn, warming 420m3 (a double height room). If replacing it, I would be tempted to look at a pellet stove, as they seem to be popular around here. The woodburner has the flue exposed up to roof height and there is quite a lot of heat given out from that, rather than lost to the outside. I use around 10m3 of oak each year, almost all on the woodburner, as we don't use the insert much. Seasoned oak, cut, split and delivered (I have to split some further) is €60/m3 ... about £52. Wood is regarded as a sustainable fuel here and there is no threat to using woodburners, as in the UK!

Hope that helps.
 
What does the temp regularly drop to at say mid evening outside Swotty, we are seeing 5 Deg C here reasonably regularly - about 7 Deg C normally and sometimes down to 3 Deg C if it is really really cold - for us. With this we can get a lot of wind which is a challenge sometimes.

Do you have a photo of the insert and is this a fitting that inserts into an existing fireplace of an older open style...?

I am after a free standing unit I think, as the fire place upstairs is really attractive as it is [but very inefficient] be a pity to change that.
 
Well, we get 46C in summer (daytime, though!) and up to -20C at night in a really bad winter!

Worst we've had this year is -6C and the average is above freezing ... around 4/5C.

I'll look for an example of an insert .... and will have to try and find how to post it!
 
Any plants growing outside, how the heck do you cope with that!!

Just cut and paste a link, that will be fine.
 
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We have an air source heat pump.
4 bedroom house, fairly well insulated & leak sealed.
Underfloor heating throughout.
Heating & hot water is on 24/7, 365 days a year, just relying on thermostats to switch it on & off.
Some (a little) of the electric to run it comes from solar pv panels
Whole cost of electric we buy is around £1150 to £1200 per year
 
Thanks all for your comments

I think we will get the boiler checked over and serviced as there is no record of any parts being replaced - only an inspection service.

We will struggle to afford the current usage if we get a prolonged cold spell.
 
We have an air source heat pump.
4 bedroom house, fairly well insulated & leak sealed.
Underfloor heating throughout.
Heating & hot water is on 24/7, 365 days a year, just relying on thermostats to switch it on & off.
Some (a little) of the electric to run it comes from solar pv panels
Whole cost of electric we buy is around £1150 to £1200 per year
That’s very good but how much was the air source heat pump to supply and fit?
 
That’s very good but how much was the air source heat pump to supply and fit?
It was part of a complete refit.
Including VAT @ 20% (I only had to pay 5% VAT so saved £1,456 ) it was £11,655. I then got a grant of £850 and now get RHI quarterly payments of £172.
The £11,655 was for supply of ASHP, cylinder, buffer tank, pumps, controls, underfloor heating components and heating engineers labour to fit the ASHP & 2nd fix the airing cupboard & commissioning.
I did all first fix, installed underfloor heating pipework. I also paid an electrician for half a day to 2nd fix the controls package.
 
Here in Ireland heating oil is €0.67 Pl.

In a five bedroom detached house we use less than 400 litres a year.

We also have an 80,000 btu stove and eleven radiators.

The stove is not used between mid April to Mid or late October, depending on the weather.

We use coal and timber in the stove, approx €300 for the six months that it is used.
The stove heats all the rads and supplies hot water, as does the oil.

We have Solo radiators. These produce heat within eight minutes of the boiler starting up and when heated by the stove they will keep producing heat down to 23c.; so as the stove burns down it keeps heating the house until well after midnight.

The rads are internally thermostaically controlled, so they switch of and on individually, depending on the temperature set for each room.

SOLO RADIATOR HYDRONIC RANGE - Solo Radiators

In the summer rather than switching on the oil we use a Willis Economiser water heater for near instant hot water and for when there is more than one shower being used in the house at the same time.

water heating economiser - Google Search:
 
Thanks all for your comments

I think we will get the boiler checked over and serviced as there is no record of any parts being replaced - only an inspection service.

We will struggle to afford the current usage if we get a prolonged cold spell.

I noticed a big improvement once the boiler had a good service. I can't believe the usage of oil that some people have said, I would definitely be looking at extra insulation or some alternative!
 
We have typical jerry built mid 60's 3 bed detached - decent size, some were built with 4 beds.

When we moved in it had a Myson oil boiler the sze of a washing machine. With two little kids the heating was on all day when needed, but it only used 10 litres per day. In summer it used that much per week for hot water only. At the time, oil was 10p/litre!
 
We're on oil. 2500 sq ft ish and its very old (c1650 ish, hedge for a roof etc) so not that leak free. We use about 2-3000l a year. We run a Marshall stove which includes the CH boiler, basically 2 separate burners in the same unit. Oil varies hugely in price but more reasonable recently. It all works well enough.
 
Our boiler, only 2 years old was recently serviced , new nozzle fitted and efficiency jumped from 93.5 % to 98.5 % according to the meter being used by the technician. Have seen oil consumption drop so well worth the cost of servicing every year, as well as checking for safety issues as well
 
At my sisters new place - 100 m² bungalow with garage/basement - she has oil fired CH to cast iron rads and it works very well, but you do get through a fair bit of oil. She bought 1000 ltrs just after she moved in last sept. Not all gone yet but the coldest is yet to come so another delivery is on the cards.

Just had all new windows and doors fitted, house feels really cosy now.
 
You have had an excellent response but I’ll add my two pence worth.

1950 built 3 bed detached home using a Wallstar boiler system we have a 2500 litre bund oil tank which heats the home and the water.

The heating is left switched on at the timer/controller and we just turn on and off by the wall thermostat.

The water is on a timer to come on 3 times a day once it reaches preset temperature it turns off.

This time of year we use around 250 litres per month.

During summer when just used for water and the occasional heat on cool evenings 250 litres will last around 4 months or more with variations depending on weather.

System is regularly serviced each year

Robin
 
Some good replies here...

Here's my tuppenceworth:

We've a 1000 litre tank which gets filled up 3 times a year. It was filled up a couple of weeks ago and the cost was 52 p/litre.

We've not signed up to a syndicate or with one supplier. When it needs filling up I ring around about 4 different suppliers to see who's got the best deal going.

Regularly servicing your boiler (ours is a Grant boiler) is well worth doing and we've seen our consumption drop due to the regular servicing. (When we moved in the boiler was pretty run down and was condemned due to the way the previous house owner had run it, but an annual service and jet change will more than pay for itself in the long run).

In the autumn when we turn the heating back on, I go around and bleed all of the radiators to ensure that they are working and there is no heat disparity between them.

Dave
 

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