Advice on fuel costs please

[Aly]

We have a propane tank buried in our garden supplied by Antargaz. We recently had the tank filled at a cost of 1600 euros. Despite not heating most of the house, we heat around 5 radiators, our fuel consumption at its present rate means the tank will need refilling within 2 months.We had a plummer look at the tank and system as we thougth their may be a leak; but he says it seems to be working fine.

With these costs has anyone any recommendations ie would it make more sense to change to oil based system or other suggestions?

[derf]

€200 a week to heat your house is horrendous, I would either get the system changed, or more likely go and live in a nice hotel for the cold period.

I have an oil fired system with 11 radiators it also does all my hot water and I use around 1500 litres of oil a year, (with current oil cost about €950 per year).

 

[derf]

Just another thought, you may be able to convert your existing boiler to an oil burner with out too much hassle, depends on the make and model if you post the details I am sure that you can get a recommendation from Opel Fruit.

[Aly]

Thanks for the info. Our boiler is a Hydromodrix.

[derf]

According to the blurb http://www.frisquet.fr/eng/products/bicerame.php 

your boiler should be very efficient, you will have to investigate why it it's not, also it looks like it can't be changed to oil,

[Babnik]

how well insulated is your house? Maybe you're contributing to global warmimg, rather than heat your house!

[Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>]

Not sure which size (power) your boiler is within the range, but you should have the smallest (23kW) unless high hot water flow is a particular issue for you. The boiler is quite efficient, but heating only 5 rads is a bit hammer/walnut. It is not convertible, and even if it was, the boiler probably isn't the problem. One assumes that the boiler has been correctly set up for GPL??? And adjusted? It is important to set the gas pressure with a manometer.

I would look at your usage patterns carefully, but in particular the rad sizing and house insulation. If you are having to run the boiler 24/7, or have difficulty getting the rooms warm, or having to run the boiler above 60C flow, you need to increase the size of the rads considerably or add more.

You are looking to dissipate the heat in the rads and not the lossy pipes. 

[Patf]

Are you sure about the amount and price of the gas? In May this year we

had 413 kg delivered and the cost was 480 euros inc. tax.  This

was about 40% of the tank's volume. So the price then was just over 1

euro a kg. Pat.

[Deimos]

It might be worth looking at things from a more basic

level.  When you buy gas you pay so much

per kW.  Similarly, other fuels have a

price per kW.  On the assumption that

you have no leaks and boiler is setup and working correctly I think that for

you the question might be why are you using so many kWs.  Changing fuel will not reduce your energy

requirements.  True that some fuels are

cheaper than others.

http://www.prochauffage.com/index.php has some comparisons

but I think you might want to look at why you are using so much energy as a

more effective way to reduce your bills (and avoid the capital costs of

modifications to your system to switch fuels).

First winter in my house here I used a vast amount of gas,

but then I learnt how to use the heating/water effectively and reduced my bills

massively.

Ian

 

[Aly]

Thanks for all the advice.

We are moving to a part of the house whch has been isolated so hopefully we may see if their is improvement. Our builders are eventually going to isolate the whole house. Our plummer  however seems pretty ignorant when it comes to energy savings.

I wondered if anyone has info on a National agency that apparently undertakes house  assessments  of fuel use and makes reccomendations specific to savings.

However do people generally  feel that oil is more efficient than gas.

To the earlier response the price for our gas is correct perhaps our tank is larger.

[Pangur]

http://www.ademe.fr/  is a national enviroment agency.  They've lots of useful little booklets you can download or write off for under their guide practique section - everything from insulating your house to noise reduction and recycling, and some do have rough price guides for different measures.  The guides are very user friendly, with lots of helpful pictures and diagrams for the novices among us!  I'm not sure if they do diagnostics, but I'm sure they will be able to put you in touch with someone who does.

Given the fact that they claim there's only about 50 years worth of oil left, it seems a bit mad to be moving towards installing oil rather than another form of heating.  We have oil at the moment, but are planning on switching to another form in the next few years. 

[Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>]

The calorific value of oil is higher than that of GPL, but I doubt you will save any money switching. Your problem is not the fuel - it is the way you are using it, I suspect. You only need to add heat if you are losing it!!!!!!! Some of the new homes here are so well insulated and draughtproofed that no additional heat is required in the living room if there are 6 adults in it!

In terms of "renewable" oil, the French gov have begun to look into the utilisation of Rapeseed oil and the like to supplement mineral oil in heating and vehicular diesel. Given that the current land utilisation (and there is a lot of arable land in France!!) is given over to other forms of alimentation, there is a serious opportunity here.

I am not sure what kind of fuel Pangur is thinking of switching to.... Gas? Not much of that left... Electricity? Unaffordable and chronically inefficient... Wood? Hmmm.. really convenient and dirty... Geothermal? - You will be dead by the time it pays back. Solar? Great for Hot Water south of the Loire, bad for anything else. I will be intrigued to know! 

I doubt my grandchildren will be burning the same kind of fuel in anything as we do today... 

[Pangur]

With a bit of luck we'll still be needing heating in our home in 40 years time and with current oil prices and availability we reckon we might not have much of a choice in the coming years!  No magic ideas of yet, but its definitely something that we feel is worth investigating further....

[MargaretD]

I'm really pleased that we live in a wooded area and wood is easy and cheap to come by.  I'd just been cleaning the fireplace and setting the fire, feeling a little low, and thinking how nice it would be to have central heating.  Well, you've cheered me up.  We have 10 steres of wood outside, which will keep our house nice and warm all winter, wih the odd cleaing out of the cheminee!  I'm also not worried about wood running out!

Margaret

[Teamedup]

I live in a wooded area too but wood has always been very expensive and still is. The new planting seem to be soft woods and I don't like burning wood with lots of resine it, which looks like may be the only choice on offer in the future.

[Deimos]

[quote user="Teamedup"]I live in a wooded area too but wood has always been very expensive and still is. The new planting seem to be soft woods and I don't like burning wood with lots of resine it, which looks like may be the only choice on offer in the future.[/quote]

I cannot remember if I’ve seen such a thing recently (here)

or not but I guess there must be a list of energy per Kg for different types of

wood (and thus energy per € for different types of wood).  A bit like the cost per kW for gas, oil,

etc.

I appreciate such a list would ignore things like resin

coating the chimney lining, etc.

Ian