€2,331 Kerosene yearly - is there a problem?

narmst

Hi - so I've just worked out my last 5 Kerosene fills. I always shop around and I always go with the cheapest supplier in the area (Kildare).
I've worked out the days I get from fill to fill and averaged out the usage per month etc.

2017 I averaged €2,331 for the year.
2018 I averaged €1,994 for the year.

My last fill lasted me 122 days from top of tank (about 650l) to empty.

I'm just wondering how 'normal' this is .. I know it depends on the size of the house, how many hours of heating per day, number of rads, how hot I'm putting it etc etc.

It's a 4 bedroom house. No zoning (all house 1 zone). No thermostatic valves. I don't think we're being mad with the heating. Usually on timer a few hours a day. I'd def not say that the house was excessively hot (I'm a 'put on a jumper' kind of Dad). Boiler regularly serviced (about a month ago .. it's a Firebird condenser)

The question is - does anyone else think something's not right here?
Leak, someone taking from the tank, boiler bad, sludge in rads etc.

The other question is - what are my smartest first steps to have it looked at?
I'm getting a plumber in but I don't want to fund an expensive wild goose chase - basically where best to start?

Thanks for looking and having a think - look forward to hearing what anyone else has learned ..

Wearb

5.3 litres per day on 4 bedroom house is fine. Btw how much per litre are you being charged for sub 1000L delivery?

Edit: your 122 days usage doesn’t tally Witt your annual usage, in that you would seem to be using more in the summer than the winter.

clintondaly

If you don't have a level monitor for the tank maybe get one and see how fast the level drops on days you do and don't use the heating and take it from there maybe

https://www.tanks.ie/oil-tanks/oil-tank-accessories/tank-gauges.html

jimf

not wanting to sound like a smart arse but how many hours exactly per day is a few

does your timer ever get a boost between clock set times

KildareP

Most standard residential kerosene boilers will use 2-3 litres of oil per hour while the burner is firing - granted the burner is not going to run continuously for the entire time the heat is switched on as it will reach operating temperature and then cycle on and off to maintain temperature.

You can expect the burner to run constantly from cold for 30-60 minutes - so say 2 litres consumed.
Run from cold once in the morning, once in the evening - 4 litres per day.

If the burner is firing for 25% of the remaining time the heat is "on" and has gotten up to temperature, then 0.5 litre per additional continuous hour per day.

So if you take:
- 1 hour in the morning (2L)
- 3 hours in the evening (2L + 0.5L + 0.5L)
you could easily see 5 litres used per day.

Which means a 650L fill would get you about 120 days of use.

gctest50

narmst wrote: »

...............

Boiler regularly serviced (about a month ago .. it's a Firebird condenser)
.........

Is it actually condensing ?
It won't the water coming back to it is too warm

Grumpypants

I had a similar 2K+ spend last year, tracked the issue back to the wife turning on the heating all day! :pac: In fairness, she was at home with a small baby in a particularly cold year. But we went through €500 in a month!

Two big factors. Dodgy Thermostats and not enough Insulation.

The thermostats just didn't work. The heating was either on constantly or off by the switch. We would overheat the house and in turn then lose our heat very fast.

Insulation! We only had 150mm in the attic. The walls up to the roof skylights had none at all, So there was essentially a good 10m sq of plaster-board uninsulated into the cold attic in two of the main rooms that the heat would fly out of.

This summer I upgraded the insulation to 300-350. I put in the insulation myself. About 110m sq of it cost about €330. This had the biggest impact as the house now rarely drops below 16 degrees. Very comfortable for day/night time use.

We put in the smartzone heating system with digital thermostats, it was part of a monitored burglar alarm bundle with Avivia for €250. The heating only comes on when we are at home so there is never any wasted due to timers. It also cuts off once it hits 17degrees. It gets there with about 30 mins of heating and holds for hours.

On track to use €7-800 in oil for the year.

Wearb

narmst wrote: »

Hi - so I've just worked out my last 5 Kerosene fills. I always shop around and I always go with the cheapest supplier in the area (Kildare).
I've worked out the days I get from fill to fill and averaged out the usage per month etc.

2017 I averaged €2,331 for the year.
2018 I averaged €1,994 for the year.

My last fill lasted me 122 days from top of tank (about 650l) to empty.

I'm just wondering how 'normal' this is .. I know it depends on the size of the house, how many hours of heating per day, number of rads, how hot I'm putting it etc etc.

It's a 4 bedroom house. No zoning (all house 1 zone). No thermostatic valves. I don't think we're being mad with the heating. Usually on timer a few hours a day. I'd def not say that the house was excessively hot (I'm a 'put on a jumper' kind of Dad). Boiler regularly serviced (about a month ago .. it's a Firebird condenser)

The question is - does anyone else think something's not right here?
Leak, someone taking from the tank, boiler bad, sludge in rads etc.

The other question is - what are my smartest first steps to have it looked at?
I'm getting a plumber in but I don't want to fund an expensive wild goose chase - basically where best to start?

Thanks for looking and having a think - look forward to hearing what anyone else has learned ..

Assuming it has been serviced properly (post printout here if you want it checked out), then zone controls and good insulation is the way to go.

John.G

narmst wrote: »

Hi - so I've just worked out my last 5 Kerosene fills. I always shop around and I always go with the cheapest supplier in the area (Kildare).
I've worked out the days I get from fill to fill and averaged out the usage per month etc.

2017 I averaged €2,331 for the year.
2018 I averaged €1,994 for the year.

My last fill lasted me 122 days from top of tank (about 650l) to empty.

I'm just wondering how 'normal' this is .. I know it depends on the size of the house, how many hours of heating per day, number of rads, how hot I'm putting it etc etc.

It's a 4 bedroom house. No zoning (all house 1 zone). No thermostatic valves. I don't think we're being mad with the heating. Usually on timer a few hours a day. I'd def not say that the house was excessively hot (I'm a 'put on a jumper' kind of Dad). Boiler regularly serviced (about a month ago .. it's a Firebird condenser)

The question is - does anyone else think something's not right here?
Leak, someone taking from the tank, boiler bad, sludge in rads etc.

The other question is - what are my smartest first steps to have it looked at?
I'm getting a plumber in but I don't want to fund an expensive wild goose chase - basically where best to start?

Thanks for looking and having a think - look forward to hearing what anyone else has learned ..

£2000 doesn't seem consistent with your 5.3 LPD unless you have a very long heating/hot water season, just assuming Kero at ~ 0.8/litre then you consume ~ 2500 Litres/year, allowing a 220 day heating season then your consumption would be ~ 11.4 LPD which is hefty enough.
I average ~ 1500/1600 litres/year.
I have a 4 bed as well and over the past two months (mild weather) I have consistently burned 7.2/7.4 LPD for a "programmed on" total time of 15 hours. My burner flow rate is 2.5 LPH, so the average firing % based on this is ~ 7.5/(15*2.5)*100, 20%. I have 10 rads, 8 on TRV's with bedrooms set pretty low at 17/18C (we like it that way), with a combined dining/lounge with 2 double (2x2kw=4kw) rads with a room thermostat set to give 21/22C. When the boiler fires up in the morning (after being off from midnight to 0900) it fires continuously for 25/30 minutes and then cuts out on the boiler stat, this firing time then progressively falls until the room stat intervenes and after that the boiler might only fire for 10 minutes or so every hour (room stat in control)

I would certainly strongly advise you to fit a room thermostat positioned in one of the most used rooms (NOT in the hall way which is daft IMO, others will disagree) and let the boiler enabled for long periods like I do and I would be very surprised if your consumption does't drop considerably because once the rooms/house are up to temperature then it doesn't take much to maintain it, in my case above ~ 4 kwh/hour.
Incidentally, I have a SE (non condensing) Firebird 20/21KW Heatpac S 90 boiler.