Replacment of Old Oil heating.

[markkp]

At the moment we have a very old oil boiler for our cental heating, which we are considering replacing as it has used almost 500 Ltrs of oil in the last few weeks alone. We are in the process of insulating our property, and would like to find a cost efficient method for central heating. is it worth while staying on oil and having a new boiler with thermostat fitted or as we have a large gas storage tank in our graden (which is only used for the cooker) would it be better to switch to gas.

[Shane]

In exactly how many weeks have you used 500 litres? We have a oil central heating  system which also heats the water and it does eat it depending on how you use it. We have fitted a timer to ours so that it comes on for 2 hours in the morning and then from 4 in the afternoon until we switch it off, we over ride it in the evening. We have a thermostat in the hall which is the coldest place and depending on how we feel usually have it at 18 degress or 20, its a big house 3 bedrooms, large lounge, kitchen, dining room to heat but ofcourse its doing the water too. We are finding it is expensive to run, we had 1000 litres delivered last March, again in August and again just before xmas, but it has been better since the timer went on I have to say. If we had a wood burner we would not need to run it as much as we do but we don't and when it is really cold we have it on all day but turn the stat down abit. I also have a petrol heater in the kitchen/diner where we spend most of our time and use that from time to time.

We have had it serviced too which helped.

You might just benefit from a thermostate as opposed to the expense of a new boiler.

Is the casing of the boiler hot when you touch it? That could mean it is not efficient or has a problem as a friends of ours had and they then had to replace.

Don't know the price of gas so can't help there. We have paid 60 cents a litre for our oil which is not bad and some companies wanted 70 cents!

Is all our pipe work to and from the boiler in steel because if so we have found the plumbers who will work with that are few and far between, especially the english. Fortunately we found a french plumber who is great and will work on the steel and is cheap, it took him 6 months to come for his money when he removed some old radiators for us and deplumbed the old kitchen which was all in steel.

Don't know whether this has helped but...

 

[Rob G]

Though I can't tell you what you should do, I just wanted to add that

we are asking ourselves the same question. We moved to France at the

end of November, and for the first month or so used our heating pretty

much as we had used it in the UK - i.e. it was on most of the time.

When we checked the fuel level, we found that in one month we had used

in excess of 400 litres - equating to about 235 euros. Needless to say,

we were staggered.

As the boiler looked pretty old, we decided to get it serviced. The

heating engineer confirmed that the boiler was probably as old as the

house - around 35 years - gave it a good clean out, and made a few

changes to the settings. He also advised us that the central heating

pump (which pumps the hot water round the radiators) was barely working

- I took his advice and got it replaced. The service and the fitting of

the new pump cost us about 400 euros all told.

Since having this work done, we have managed to get our fuel usage down

to about 60 litres a week on average. I put this partly down to

increased efficiency - the radiators get hot a lot quicker now - and

partly down to the fact that we try to limit the time the heating is on.

I contacted GDF to ask about the cost etc. of converting to gas. They

confirmed that it would cost about 3-400 euros for the to bring the gas

supply to the limit of our property; we would then have to

independently pay for a new boiler and for a heating engineer to fit it

and bring the gas in from the edge of our property. I reckon 2-3000

euros minimum all told. GDF hqve subsequently sent a very comprehensive

dossier which I hqven't yet had chance to look through.

Despite searching, I have been unable to get a definitive answer to the

question of whether it is cheaper to use gas than fuel, all other

things being equal. For some reason, people who have oil heating seem

to think it is wonderful and that gas is a lot more expensive; while

those who have gas have the opposite view. I will be very interested to

see whether anyone can give an objective response to this question.

Rob

[powerdesal]

This is my personal view,

Gaz de ville ( ordinary mains gas ) is the cheapest fuel supply for CH,

LPG ( GPL in France) is the most expensive. Oil is next to Gaz to

ville, electricity is next.

The biggest source of heat loss is lack of insulation. There is

absolutely no point in pumping heat into a building if that heat is

escaping to the atmosphere. As an example - my master bedroom in

Normandy needs 190 w/m sqr if uninsulated to maintain a 21 deg C delta

T ( -1 to +20) If insulated with 200mm of fibre glass loft insulation

that heat loss reduces to 3.5 W/m sqr. No contest! insulation rules OK.

The average (uninsulated) house will lose 30% of all heat input through

the roof. This is heat (energy) you are paying for and not getting any

benefit from.

I could get quite carried away with a discourse on heat etc but,

suffice to say, if you can get gaz de ville it may well be worth it, if

you already have oil its down to cost effectiveness calculations and

amortisation.

I still think the bottom line is insulation ( and control) to maximise

what you have before you make any changes. After all, the maths are not

difficult, - its not rocket science.

Regards

[Shane]

Yep just spoke to hubby and he says we are using about 60 litres a week at the moment. Have to say since service and new burner, timer etc it is more efficient, yes radiators get hot quicker and hold the heat longer after the heating goes off.

I agree with other comments its swings and roundabouts and how you use it at the end of the day.

The cost may appear excessive but I suppose in other ways we are saving by cheaper tax d'habitation and fonciere etc.

Would still rather be here than the UK that's for sure.

Keep Warm

[Owens88]

We bought a place that had central heating radiators etc. but a dead boiler. The quotes to put in a new oil fired CH boiler were 'awful' (sevreral thousand euros) to the extent that we were about to take out the rads and put in free standing leccy things.

Instead we have put in an electric boiler. So far so good.

 

Economical ? I don't know - but I am a few thousand euros better off than putting in the new Oil boiler ! Long term I suspect that oil won't have great advantages over Elec anyway.

 

FWIW I estimate that January (a very, very, cold January) has cost about  450 euros for a 90sq metre apartment occupied by a family of 4 people. Lots of windows, half of the space with roof directly over (i.e. little insulation). That sum includes all water heating, oven cooking, TV, lighting and kitchen goods, washing machine and tumble dryer etc as well as the CH.

Can anybody comment as to whether that seems reasonable ?