Oil central heating & night time saver electricity question

sara025

Hi,

I am moving into a new house...
I am renting...its a small house...the build looks a few years old not too old so I'm assuming its well insulated
Dormer roof, 3 bedrooms upstairs with velux windows, electric shower room/toilet upstairs
All downstairs is open plan kitchen living area

It uses oil central heating, which I am totally unfamiliar with. (The boiler/burner (?) is in the kitchen apparantly).
I have never lived somewhere that uses oil before...I am used to wood stoves.

Just wondering how long one usually would get out of a tank of oil (I'm assuming its a 500 ltr tank...??)
I am moving in 2 weeks so I am concerned about how much I need to try save to fill a tank as its Winter and I have a child & am pregnant, so I need the house to be warm enough
(we are used to jumpers in the day until the stove gets going & 2 duvets in the night during Winter as the house we have been in for 3 years is old and not insulated well, so it'd be nice to get what I pay for with heating in the new place!)

Also I was told about night time saver electricity recently...never knew it existed...but I run my washing machine late at night anyway and would consider using night time saver on my bill if it would be more efficient?
I am not keen on using the oil to heat water when I dont need the heating on....if I had night time saver electricity would it work to turn emertion on during night to have hot water the next day...or would a hot press tank even keep water hot for that long?

How do I go about getting the night time saver electricity?
Do I pay extra using day time electricity then?
Is it a pain in the arse to be asking the landlord if its something extra that needs to be installed?

Alot of questions I know & apologies, but I am trying to be mindful of my pennies as am out of work for the 1st time and its Winter!

Many thanks!

heinbloed

The electricity tariff "night time saver" is available to everyone who signs a contract of purchase with his electricity provider.
This company will tell you how much it costs and what is involved.

About the central heating system:
Ask the landlord when the heating system had been checked the last time.
Get in a heating engineer - if necessary - to balance the heating system and to maintain the boiler. Ask for a an optimisation of the central heating system.
Get the protocol of his/her job in writing,signed.

coylemj

I looked into Night Saver electricity a long time ago, like you I figured that if I used the wasing machine and immersion outside of peak hours I might save money but the problem was (is?) that you need a different meter, one which tracks two different numbers, peak and off-peak usage.

Ultimately I found that you needed to be using a lot of electricity in off-peak times (i.e. storage heaters) to justify the additional cost invoved in getting the regular meter replaced with a dual meter which tracked the two different usages.

Would like to hear if anyone else has investigated this recently.