Share your energy saving ideas with other heating oil users.
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It's getting cold so maybe this blog will get busy again ;o)
We just moved in a rented small house with 2 bedrooms and it seems we will spend a crazy fortune on oil this winter.
I have 2 questions:
1. In case we do not need to heat one of the rooms and extra bathroom - doest it make sense to turn off the 2 radiators? - will it save some oil by heating less water or not? (the boiler is outside)
2. We do not have a thermostat, we only can time the boiler - is it better to set it up that it heats for 20 minutes every 2 hours or so OR should we rather set it up to be heating 1 hour but only 3-4 times a day??? What is better for the oil consumption?
I am afraid the house was only built as a summer house and has no insulation at all, not even under the roof...
Thanks for your tips
hi all i have just got my radiator valves changed to thermostatic rad valves , so i can cut down on the cost of the heating bills this year each valve cost 39e including fitting and my plumbers details if anyone wants them is www.plumberdublintoday.ie
We have just done two things that worked in our old cottage to save oil:
1 - Fitted a Small Stanley solid-fuel fire in the living room. Now we run the oil-fired central heating much lower than before but are still very warm in the sitting room. The cost of the coal is much less than the oil we would have used to heat the whole house. The bedroom above the sitting room also benefits from the heat.
2 - Fitted internal insulation to all the upstairs external walls in our old solid-wall cottage. We used 50mm Xtratherm brand on 12mm plasterboard.and did it DIY. It is so effective that we have turned off all the upstairs radiators and now just have to heat the downstairs. The bedrooms are nice and cosey, you would not know if it was frosty till you look out the window.. We had loft insulation and double glazing already.
Other things that I have heard recomended:
3 - Fit room thermostats to each radiator. This shuts off each radiator when the room is warm enough, giving the boiler less to do.
4- If you have not already done it, put six inches or more of fiberglass insulation in the loft. It is an easy and cheap DIY job. I did this for my father-in-law this winter and he could not believe the difference it made. It is not nearly so bracing for him getting up on a cold morning now.
5- Double glazing made a difference for us. If you are lucky, you do not need to replace the window frame, you can just replace the glass with double sealed glazing units which are not that expensive. You can use "Hocky Stick" beading to allow a thicker double glazing unit than you might think. If you live near a road, you will also benefit from a quieter house.
6- When I moved in, I had a "crack attack" and sealed all the drafty bits round the outside doors and windows, loft-hatch, letterbox etc. It was an easy and cheap DIY job that made a noticicable difference. It also cut down the road noise.
Ra Solar evolution
With regards to saving oil and reducing your heating bills. There are a few things that one can do Apart from the obvious. Such as turning your thermostat down a few degrees,
Consider the location of the thermostat within your home. Most are located in the hallway the job of the thermostat is to shut power off to your boiler when the location aria of the thermostat reaches a desired temperature. There in is the problem regarding the room thermostat.
The hall or sitting room may be at the desired temperature but the rest of the rooms in your home may be over heated or under heated depending on the location of the thermostat.
It is far better and more efficient to have a thermostat in each room. No you do not require a wall thermostat in each room but you can have thermostatic radiator valves on every room radiator. Thus controlling each room temperature when the room ambient air reaches the desired temperature the radiator valve shuts off. Thus allowing the heat to be delivered to another room more efficiently and saving you oil and will cut your fuel bills from the moment they are installed.
There are numerous covers now on the market that some people use to hide their radiators. These covers may hide the radiator but they also interfere with the proper design and function of the radiator. Radiators work on the principle of drawing cold air from the bottom and heating that air as it passes from the bottom to the top of the radiator, and as all heat rises this in turn if one could see it with the naked eye a constant flow of cold air been drawn from the bottom to the top of the radiator. So anything that blocks or covers a radiator stops that flow and should not be used unless you have money to burn.
Consider your boiler oil boilers are now as efficient as gas boilers and condensing oil boilers are now readily available. So if your boiler is over ten years old and your radiators may be less efficient and as pleasant on the eye as some of the modern slim lined and very efficient radiators available today.
Having serviced and installed both oil and gas boilers for over twenty years, I am never surprised at some of the boilers people still run the boiler I replaced to day was an oil boiler and it was twenty five years old. As are the radiators But in the proper measurements of the house and the proper size boiler and radiators been installed with a modern boiler the money been spent on oil will be far less than it has been in twenty years.
The good news is that you can obtain a grant for replacing your oil boiler and your radiators with more efficient ones if your boiler is over ten years old.
So what heating should you use and the average on fuel price.
Gas
Its always on tap.
Only one supplier in Ireland sells natural gas at the moment.
Price increases are at present slow to come down as with oil.
Oil
You need a space for a tank.
You have numerous suppliers all offering different prices.
The price as we know can go up or down from week to week.
But in general comes down quicker than the price of gas.
You know what you are buying be it 1000 litres or 500 litres. So no surprising bills at the end of a month.
You can shop around for the best price.
You can stock up when the price is low
If you have the space for a larger tank then that is the best way to buy your oil.
Servicing your boiler
Its important to have your boiler serviced each year.
So what should you expect from a service.
When your boiler is stripped down for a service you should be shown the inners of the boiler before and after service.
So you can see for yourself that it has been cleaned.
Oil nozzle should be replaced at each service.
The oil filter should be replaced if necessary or every two years.
The fire valve on the oil line should be tested.
The oil pressure at the burner should be tested and set to the correct pressure for the fuel you are using.
All parts of the burner should be inspected for damage.
The flexible oil lines should be replaced every two years.
A flu gas analysis should always be carried out and a printout of the results left with you.
Any and all parts replaced during a service should also be left with you.
If you have any questions regarding running your heating for less you may contact me at
ra.solar.evolution@hotmail.com
I've just moved to a house that has heating oil, the first time I have had it. I found the boiler juice site and this blog which seems to be very out of date as far as people posting things. I would love to get some tips on how to save money on heating oil. I know the obvious one - buy when it is cheap, buy in the summer. I've also just had the roof insulated and that has made the house feel much warmer. Does anyone have any other ideas for me.
Boiler on 24/7 certainly does make sense to me where water underfloor heating is installed. the principle here being to heat the concrete slab through having pipes heated. to reach desired temp. Here can take up to 3 hrs,but the other side of the equation means it holds the temp longer than rads.objective here is dont let slab cool down.Agood comparison here could fuel used to lift aeroplane from ground is costly by comparison to maintaining speed when airbourne Just a thought! interested in other comments!!!! OBVIOSELY INSULATION IS CRITICAL
Just browsing the net when I came across this Blog. All you people need to look at controls ie The Radmaster control system is designed and built here in clonmel. When tested by TEA (Tipperary energy agency) it was found to produce a 47% saving over conventional Thermostats it can provide up to 32 seperate zones on your heating and can schedule different temps for different rooms at different times. This system is typically insalled in one day and is for me the ultimate retro fit solution. Bernard is spot on in reference to boiler cycling and this system also provides boiler lockout to disable boiler cycling hence saving you a fortune. You may not have heard of this system yet but you will.Its cheap when you consider this system will apy itself back in two - three years compared to solar panels which typically take 8 years to payback!
Check it out! www.comeraghcontrols.com
PS! I do work for this company but i can put you in contact with customers you have the system fitted and you'll see for yourself.
In relation to Sarah I fear you have been badly advised re running your boiler for 24 hours. The amount of fuel you use is directly proportional to the average inside temperature of your house. You rarely need heating at all in our climate when in bed at night so you will save if you allow the temperature to fall by a few degrees at night. Boiler heat losses (when the boiler is cycling on and off at part load) can use 10% to 15 % of your fuel and this can be cut by 50% or more if the boiler runs for 50% of the time or less.
The engineer who services my boiler, said that the CH system runs more efficiently when the boiler is set at the highest temperature. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? I have a thermostat in the house set to 18 degrees and valves on each radiator set to whatever that room requires (ie living rooms warm and bedrooms cool).
We have a 4 bed house and no double glazing. Our boiler is on 24/7 and we have an electronic thermostat in the hall which enables us to set the temperature at different levels depending on if it is a weekend or weekday and you can have 6 different temperature settings throughout the day. By running the boiler full time (the lowest setting we use is15) the house never cools down completely and therefore the boiler never has to run for hours to warm the house up again in the evenings. This has drastically reduced our fuel consumption and the boiler engineer said it is much better for the boiler to run like this than stop/start all the time.